2.9.E.ii
The Standard
distinguishing facts from opinion
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading · The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students decide whether a statement can be checked with evidence or shows someone’s belief, feeling, or preference. They use word clues and details from the text to explain their choice.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly label factual claims and personal judgments in a short persuasive passage. They explain that facts can be checked, while opinions express beliefs or preferences.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think a statement is a fact because they agree with it. They may also treat words such as best, fun, or boring as provable details.
How to Assess It
- Give students four statements about school lunch. Ask them to label each fact or opinion and explain how they could check one fact.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs fact and opinion cards to sort, then have them underline clues that helped them decide.
Read two claims about recess and ask, “Which can be proven, and which shows what someone believes?”
Play Fact or Opinion Corners by reading statements aloud and having students move to the matching labeled corner.
Examine a cereal advertisement and list two checkable claims and two opinions used to persuade buyers.
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