Virginia SOL 12.LU.2.A
The Standard
Apply a style manual, such as that of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA), to apply rules for punctuation and formatting of direct quotations in writing.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Mechanics
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students find and apply rules from MLA, APA, or another assigned style guide when using direct quotations. They format short quotations, block quotations, citations, and surrounding punctuation consistently.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly format short and block quotations using one named style manual. They place quotation marks, citations, commas, periods, brackets, and ellipses where that manual requires them.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often put the period before a parenthetical citation in a short quotation or add quotation marks around a block quotation. They may omit page or paragraph numbers, misuse ellipses and brackets, or mix MLA and APA rules.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short paragraph with one incorrectly formatted quotation and source details. Ask them to correct it in MLA style and name the manual rule they used.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs sentence strips for a signal phrase, quotation, citation, and punctuation, then have them assemble correct MLA and APA versions.
Project two differently formatted quotations and ask students to defend which version matches a named manual, citing the rule they found.
Run a quotation repair relay where teams correct punctuation and citation errors on four posted sentences using a style guide.
Have students format a quotation for a college essay, then revise it for a psychology paper using APA rules.
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Related Standards
- 12.R.1.F
Cite sources for quoted and paraphrased ideas using a standard method of documentation, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychologi...
- 10.LU.2.B
The 10th Grade version of this standard.
- 9.LU.2.B
Apply a style manual, such as that of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA) to apply rules for citing sources.
- 9.R.1.F
Cite sources for quoted and paraphrased ideas using a standard method of documentation, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychologi...
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