Virginia SOL 7.RI.2.C
The Standard
Analyze how an author’s purpose(s) reflects the author’s perspective (e.g., beliefs, assumptions, biases) and influences the meaning of an informational text.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Craft and Style
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students determine what an author wants readers to think, feel, know, or do. They use language and content choices to infer perspective and explain how it shapes meaning.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students identify one or more purposes and support their thinking with specific details. They explain how word choice, selected facts, and framing reveal perspective and shape the reader’s understanding.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may confuse the topic with the author’s purpose. They may treat any opinion as unfair bias or name a perspective without citing evidence. They may identify purpose but not explain how it shapes meaning.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short editorial and ask them to identify the author’s purpose and perspective, then explain the effect on meaning. Require two quoted details.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed article and sticky notes to mark evidence of purpose, perspective, and effects on meaning.
Ask students to write: Which belief or assumption guides this author, and how does it shape the message?
Play an evidence match game where teams connect quotation cards to purpose, perspective, and effect cards.
Compare a company’s product page with an independent review, then identify how each source’s purpose shapes its description.
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Related Standards
- 5.RI.2.C
Determine the author’s purpose(s) and describe how the author’s perspective (e.g., beliefs, assumptions, biases) influences the meaning of the text.
- 8.RI.2.C
Analyze how an author establishes and conveys a perspective or purpose in a text and acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.
- 8.RI.2.B
Analyze how an author’s word choice, organizational pattern, language structure, viewpoints, and qualifications impact meaning and credibility of a text.
- 6.RI.2.C
Explain how an author establishes and conveys a perspective or purpose in an informational text.
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