K.9
Knowledge and Skills Statement (Standard Cluster)
The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances.
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading
Cluster contents
Student Expectations in This Statement
K.9 is a knowledge and skills statement. These are the student expectations under it.
- K.9.A
discuss with adult assistance the author's purpose for writing text
- K.9.B
discuss with adult assistance how the use of text structure contributes to the author's purpose
- K.9.C
discuss with adult assistance the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes
- K.9.D
discuss with adult assistance how the author uses words that help the reader visualize
- K.9.E
listen to and experience first- and third-person texts.
Teacher's field guide
What This Cluster Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain why an author created a text and notice choices that help communicate that reason. With adult support, they discuss text order, pictures, print features, vivid words, and who is telling the story.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can tell whether a text aims to inform, entertain, explain, or persuade, using details from the text. With prompting, they explain how order, pictures, print, and vivid words help that purpose. They notice whether the storyteller uses “I” or talks about named characters.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name the topic instead of explaining why the author wrote the text. They may treat pictures, labels, and bold print as decoration rather than meaning clues. They may also think every narrator is the author.
How to Assess It
- Read a short picture book page aloud and show the page. Ask, “Why did the author make this page, and what picture, print, or word choice helped?”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs page cards from a familiar book to sequence, then ask how the order helps the author tell or explain.
After a read-aloud, ask, “What did the author want us to think, feel, or learn, and which choice helped?”
Play Feature Hunt Bingo with picture books, using squares for labels, bold print, speech bubbles, sensory words, and headings.
Compare a cereal box, a safety sign, and a storybook, then name each author’s purpose and the features that support it.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
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