Virginia SOL 5.RL.2.B
The Standard
Analyze the author’s use of language (e.g., synonyms, figurative language, sensory words, dialogue, dialect) and their impact on understanding characters, setting, and plot events.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Craft and Style
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students examine an author’s word choices, comparisons, descriptions, and character speech. They explain how those choices help readers understand people, places, and events in a story.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students can locate specific words or lines and name the technique the author uses. They explain how that language shapes a reader’s view of a character, setting, or plot event, using text evidence.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may identify a simile, sensory detail, or dialect without explaining what it reveals. They may also confuse a character’s dialogue with the narrator’s words or treat synonyms as having identical effects.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short paragraph with dialogue and sensory details. Ask: “Choose one phrase and explain how it helps you understand the character, setting, or event.”
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a passage to color-code sensory words, figurative language, and dialogue, then label what each example reveals about the story.
Ask students to write: “Which phrase most changes how you picture the character or setting, and why?”
Play Language Detective with excerpt cards, awarding points for identifying a technique and clearly explaining its effect on the reader’s understanding.
Compare dialogue from a novel with a real interview transcript, then discuss how word choice and speech patterns reveal personality and background.
Free download
Printable 5.RL.2.B Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 5.RL.2.B, 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
- 10.RL.2.C
Analyze how authors use specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice to convey the author’s intent and viewpoint.
- 4.RL.2.A
Determine how an author uses language (dialogue, sensory language, and dialect), characters, and settings to advance the plot.
- 7.RL.2.B
Analyze how the elements of an author’s style (e.g., word choice, sentence structure, dialogue, figurative language, imagery) are used to influence and develop ...
- 11.RL.2.B
Evaluate how authors use specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice to convey the author’s intent and viewpoint.
Turn this exact standard into a lesson
Grade, subject, topic, and the complete standard are prefilled. Create one free, no account needed.