Virginia SOL 3.RL.2

3.RL.2 is a Standards of Learning standard. These are the knowledge and skills expectations under it.

• 3.RL.2.A

  Discuss how an author uses characters and settings to advance the plot.

• 3.RL.2.B

  Identify and explain how an author uses sensory language (e.g., sights, sounds, smells, and tastes) to impact a reader’s understanding of characters, settings, ...

• 3.RL.2.C

  Identify the narrator of a story and the speaker of a poem.

• 3.RL.2.D

  Identify the characteristics of different genres.

01

What Students Need to Do

Students explain how a character’s actions and the story’s place or time lead to later events. They identify sensory words and tell how those details shape their picture of characters, setting, and action. They also name who is telling or speaking and use text features to identify the genre.

02

What Mastery Looks Like

Given a story, a student can trace a clear cause from a character or setting to a plot event and support it with a detail. The student explains the effect of one sensory phrase, correctly identifies the narrator or poetic speaker, and names the genre using two traits.

03

Common Misconceptions

Students may describe a character or setting without explaining how either changes what happens. They may label any vivid adjective as sensory language or assume the author is always the narrator or poem’s speaker. They may choose a genre from the topic instead of evidence such as structure, characters, or use of facts.

04

How to Assess It

Give students a short story excerpt and a four-line poem. Ask them to identify the story’s genre and narrator, name the poem’s speaker, underline one sensory phrase, and explain how one character or setting detail affects the plot.

1. 01

   Give groups character, setting, and event cards; students arrange a cause-and-effect plot chain and defend each link with a text detail.

2. 02

   Read a vivid paragraph, then ask: Which sensory detail most changes how you picture the scene, and why?

3. 03

   Play Genre Evidence Sort: teams match short passages to genre labels and earn points only when they cite two defining traits.

4. 04

   Compare a restaurant review and a fictional restaurant scene, noting how sensory words shape expectations in each.

• 4.RI.2

  The 4th Grade version of this standard.

• 9.RI.2

  The 9th Grade version of this standard.

• 1.RI.2

  The 1st Grade version of this standard.

• 5.RL.2

  The 5th Grade version of this standard.