Virginia SOL 9.RI.3.B
The Standard
Evaluate the clarity and accuracy of information found in informational texts, corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English · Integration of Concepts
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students judge whether a text explains its ideas clearly and supports its claims with accurate evidence. They compare its conclusions with reliable sources, then explain where the sources agree or conflict.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can flag vague wording, unsupported claims, and factual errors in a passage. The student can use independent sources to confirm or dispute the author’s conclusion and cite exact evidence from each.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may assume polished wording, charts, or precise numbers make a source accurate. They may call two sources corroborating when one merely repeats the other. They may reject an entire text because one detail is unclear or wrong.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short article about later school start times and a district attendance table. Ask whether the table confirms or challenges the article’s conclusion, then have students identify one unclear or inaccurate sentence and cite both sources.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs claim cards and three printed sources, then have them sort each claim into confirmed, challenged, or unresolved piles.
Ask students to write: Which conclusion is best supported, and what wording or evidence makes another conclusion less trustworthy?
Run a corroboration relay where teams race to match claims with supporting or conflicting evidence, then justify one match aloud.
Compare a viral health post with a public health fact sheet, then identify which claims a reader should accept, question, or reject.
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Printable 9.RI.3.B Worksheet
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