8.9.C
The Standard
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students examine headings, fonts, captions, images, charts, and page layout. They explain why the author included each feature and how it affects meaning or guides the reader.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students identify a print or graphic feature and explain how it guides attention, clarifies information, or shapes meaning. They support the explanation with specific details from the text and feature.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may only name a feature without explaining its purpose. They may assume every image is decorative or confuse the topic of a graphic with its effect on readers.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short article with a heading, bold words, and a chart. Ask them to choose one feature and explain its purpose using evidence from the article.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed article to cut apart, rearrange, and label how each heading, caption, image, and chart supports the author's purpose.
Ask students to write: Which feature most affects how you understand this article, and what would change if the feature were removed?
Play Feature Detective by displaying short texts and awarding points for naming a feature, its purpose, and supporting evidence.
Compare a news website homepage with its print version, then have students explain how layout, images, and font guide each audience.
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