Virginia SOL 6.RI.3.A
The Standard
Describe ideas within and between selections including how specific sentences, paragraphs, or sections contribute to the development of ideas.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Integration of Concepts
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students track how ideas develop within one informational text and across two related texts. They explain what a specific sentence, paragraph, or section adds to an idea.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students identify key ideas and point to sentences, paragraphs, or sections that introduce, support, clarify, contrast, or conclude them. They explain how two texts develop a shared idea in similar or different ways.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often summarize a section without explaining what it adds to an idea. They may also compare topics while missing how each author develops the ideas differently.
How to Assess It
- Give students two short articles on the same topic. Ask them to identify one key idea and explain how one paragraph from each article develops it.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Cut an article into sections; pairs rebuild it and label how each section introduces, supports, shifts, or concludes an idea.
After reading two accounts of the same event, ask: Which paragraph most changes your understanding, and why?
Play Evidence Match: students pair sentence cards with idea cards, then justify each match using the sentence's specific contribution.
Compare a school announcement with a news report about the same event, noting how each develops shared and different ideas.
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Printable 6.RI.3.A Worksheet
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