Virginia SOL 7.RI.2.B
The Standard
Analyze how an author’s word choice, organizational pattern, and language structure impact the author’s purpose and support the reader’s comprehension.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Craft and Style
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students notice precise or loaded words, the order of ideas, and choices such as short sentences, repetition, or parallel phrasing. They explain how those choices reveal the writer’s goal and make information easier or harder to follow.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given an article, students can identify a specific word, sentence feature, or organizational choice and cite where it appears. They can explain how that choice shapes tone, emphasizes an idea, or guides the reader through the information.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name a pattern, such as cause and effect, without explaining its impact. They may confuse the topic with the author’s purpose or make vague claims that a word is "powerful" without citing evidence.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short news paragraph with a heading, repeated phrase, and cause-and-effect structure. Ask: "Choose one word choice and one structural choice. Quote each example and explain how it supports the writer’s goal or helps the reader."
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Cut a short article into sections, have pairs arrange the pieces, then compare their order with the author’s and explain the effect.
Ask students to defend which single word in a paragraph most strongly reveals the author’s attitude, using two details from the text.
Play Structure Sort with cards labeled cause and effect, comparison, problem and solution, and chronology, then require one evidence note.
Compare two headlines about the same school event and discuss how wording and sentence shape influence readers before they open the article.
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