Virginia SOL 10.RI.2.A
The Standard
Analyze how authors use structure to explain relationships among concepts in a text, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and sections of texts contribute to the whole.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Craft and Style
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace how an author organizes ideas through patterns such as cause and effect, comparison, or problem and solution. They explain how smaller parts build the larger explanation.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly label the organizational pattern and cite specific transitions, sentences, or paragraph placements as evidence. They explain what each part adds and how moving or removing it would affect meaning.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name a structure without explaining how it connects ideas. They may summarize each paragraph separately or assume every paragraph serves the same purpose.
How to Assess It
- Give students a one-page article and ask: “What job does paragraph 3 do, and how does it help develop the article’s main explanation?”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a cut-up article to sequence, then have them label how each paragraph connects to the one before it.
Ask students to write: Why does the author place paragraph 4 here, and what would change if it came first?
Play Structure Sort with paragraph cards labeled cause, effect, comparison, example, and solution, requiring students to defend each match.
Compare a news article and a product review, then explain how each structure helps readers connect ideas.
Free download
Printable 10.RI.2.A Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 10.RI.2.A, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
Download the worksheetKeep exploring
Related Standards
- 8.RI.3.A
Analyze ideas within and between selections including how specific sentences, paragraphs, sections, and text features contribute to the development and refineme...
- 7.RI.2.B
Analyze how an author’s word choice, organizational pattern, and language structure impact the author’s purpose and support the reader’s comprehension.
- 7.RI.3.A
Analyze ideas within and between selections including how specific sentences, paragraphs, or sections contribute to the development and meaning of ideas.
- 12.RI.3.B
Analyze how the author organizes an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and develop...
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.