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1 | Standard | Standard Description | Standard Interpretation | PA Standard Correlation | |
2 | Key Ideas and Details | RL.8.1 | Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Below Grade Level: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Above Grade Level: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. | Students must be able to cite evidence from the text that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text actually states. Students should be engaged in conversations around key individuals/characters, the setting(s), events, or ideas presented in stories (adventures, historical fiction, mysteries, myths, science fiction, realistic fiction, allegories, parodies, satire, and graphic novels); dramas (one act plays or multi-act plays in various media); and poetry (narrative, lyrical, free verse, sonnets, odes, ballads, and epics) using literary texts across authors, themes, genres and traditions (i.e. classical, traditional, and mythological). Students must be able to cite evidence from the text to explain what the text literally states (citations are more useful when they include the line number, page number, paragraph/act/scene/stanza, and/or author). Students must also be able to recognize and distinguish between weak and strong evidence. Strong evidence is characterized by being connected to the text/text dependent, logical and compelling. In order to master this skill, students must understand that drawing inferences follows a formula. Facts/information from the text + prior knowledge and/or experience = inference. Students must also be able to recognize and distinguish between weak and strong evidence. | CC.1.3.8.B Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences, conclusions, and/or generalizations drawn from the text. |
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4 | Key Ideas and Details | RL.8.2 | Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. Below Grade Level: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text. Above Grade Level: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. | This standard represents an opportunity for students to determine and analyze theme in a variety of fiction. Students should be able to identify the unifying or dominant idea(s) within a text. These central ideas or themes are usually represented as a common idea that appears throughout the text via key details and events, or as a message or lesson to be taken from the text. Students will have to make inferences as the themes or central ideas will not be explicitly stated in the text. Students should have the opportunity to explore the relationship between the theme and other components of text, such as characters, setting, and plot. For example, theme will directly affect the actions or feelings of the characters, and/or the plot is directly shaped by the theme. In order to support theme development, students should compare and contrast how major themes are developed across the text and across multiple genres. Students should analyze how the theme(s)/central idea(s) is refined throughout the text. Once the central idea has been determined, students will need to go back to the text to identify specific details that help the central idea to emerge (get introduced), shape (evolve), and get refined (become clearer/fully developed). In order to master this skill, students must understand that a summary is a brief statement that contains the essential ideas of a longer passage, not to be confused with a paraphrase, which is a restatement of the source text in about the same number of words. Students are required to compose an objective summary (without including their personal opinions and judgments on the topic); doing so may be difficult for students because, for years, they have been asked to make text-to-self connections. | CC.1.3.8.C Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. |
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6 | Key Ideas and Details | RL.8.3 | Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. Below Grade Level: Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot). Above Grade Level: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. | Students must also be able to discuss the following terms: analyze- to break into smaller components for the purpose of study or examination; aspect- a distinct feature; incident- an individual occurrence or event; propel- to drive, or cause to move forward or onward; provoke- to incite or stimulate to action; and reveal- to disclose, unveil or tell. Students must be able to define and discuss the following elements related to stories & dramas: Character - a personality in a literary work Setting - where the story takes place Plot - the pattern of events of a literary work, which includes: an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution Conflict - the struggle between opposing forces or ideas Theme - unifying or dominant idea Students must be able to define and discuss the following elements related to dramas only: Scene - a subdivision of an act of a play Act - the most major subdivision of a play; made up of scenes Dialogue - conversations between two or more persons/characters Stage Directions - instructions for actors on and off stage Soliloquy - a monologue in which the character is alone on stage, or believes they are alone, and reveals their innermost feelings or thoughts Aside - a part of an actor's lines supposedly not heard by others on the stage and intended only for the audience Dramatic irony - the audience has information that the characters on the stage do not possess; used to create suspense Monologue - a long speech delivered by one character on stage Students must be required to use their conceptual understanding of each of the terms above to connect dialogue (from stories or dramas) and/or incidents (from stories or dramas) to actions of the characters, revelations about their character traits, and decisions they made throughout the course of the story or drama | CC.1.3.8.C Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. |
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8 | Craft and Structure | RL.8.4 | Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts. Below Grade Level: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama. Above Grade Level: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). | 97% percent of the words that students will encounter when they read are made up of 30 prefixes, 30 roots, and 30 suffixes (including figurative, connotative, and technical words). 70% of the words students will encounter can be defined using word parts and 30% can be defined using context clues. Determining the meaning of phrases is a critical skill with implications for all later grades and disciplines. Students must identify literal (exact or actual) meaning to understand denotation and nonliteral (figurative or symbolic) meaning to understand word connotation. Students should focus on figurative language (e.g., metaphors, similes, hyperboles, personification, onomatopoeia, etc.) in order to understand how such language provides depth (understanding that tone is directly related or tied to connotation) and meaning to texts. Students should be aware that the words an author uses to communicate/tell a story have a tone (attitude) and that an author intentionally chooses his/her words to fulfill his/her purpose for writing including his/her attitude toward the subject of the text. The collection of words that an author uses to communicate/tell a story have an impact on the reader’s beliefs and/or actions. Students should have an opportunity to assess how analogies (comparisons like metaphors and similes) and allusions (references) to other texts impact meaning and tone as well. | CC.1.3.8.F Analyze the influence of the words and phrases in a text including figurative and connotative meanings; and how they shape meaning and tone. |
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10 | Craft and Structure | RL.8.5 | Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style. Below Grade Level: Analyze how a drama's or poem's form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning Above Grade Level: Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. | Students will need to be able to identify specific structural elements of drama (e.g., monologues, soliloquies, dialogues, etc.), poetry (odes, sonnets, ballads, free verse, etc.), or narrative/prose (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) and connect them to the author’s intention. For example, students will note that a soliloquy is intentionally used by the author to relay inner thought to the audience to advance the plot or support a theme, and an ode will be used when an author’s purpose is to honor a person or a thing. To compare these two structures, a student may note that a soliloquy is similar in structure to poetry. Another example is that a student should notice that dramas and prose will follow a narrative structure. However, drama will utilize dialogue to tell the story while prose will use paragraphs to tell the story. Once students have identified the differences in the structures of texts, they will analyze how those structures contribute to the overall meaning and style of each text. Students must understand that an author’s choice of structure in literature aligns with their purpose for writing. That purpose could be to tell events, relay a theme, emotion, or description. This standard asks that students determine whether the use of these elements creates a style, such as a tone of mystery or elements of suspense and surprise, in order to analyze how structure enhances the plot or theme of the story, poem, or drama. | CC.1.3.8.E Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style. |
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12 | Craft and Structure | RL.8.6 | Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor. Below Grade Level: Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text. Above Grade Level: Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature. | The chosen point of view will develop the characters and events throughout a text by revealing individual perspectives. The students are responsible for identifying the specific point of view from which the story is told and be able to track how the perspectives are developed as the story unfolds. Students must compare and contrast the different points of view of different characters or narrators of a text to gain deeper meaning related to the plot or theme of the story. Depending on which point of view the author writes from (First Person, Third Person, or Third Person Omniscient), certain effects can be achieved that will affect the perspective of the reader. For example, an author can easily create dramatic irony through the use of a First or Third Person perspective, but can not do so if writing from a Third Person Omniscient point of view. | CC.1.3.8.D Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor. |
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14 | Integration of Knowledge and Ideas | RL.8.7 | Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors. Below Grade Level: Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each medium (e.g., lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film). Above Grade Level: Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). | This standard requires that students read a text and view or listen to another version of the same text in order to note similarities and differences between both medium’s presentation of information on the subject of the text. Students must also evaluate the effectiveness of the use of one medium over another to present information on the subject of the text, in the context of the fulfillment of the author’s purpose. | C.C.1.3.8.G Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by directors or actors. |
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16 | Integration of Knowledge and Ideas | RL.8.8 | (RL.8.8 not applicable to literature) | (RL.8.8 not applicable to literature) | (RL.8.8 not applicable to literature) |
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18 | Integration of Knowledge and Ideas | RL.8.9 | Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new. Below Grade Level: Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, place, or character and a historical account of the same period as a means of understanding how authors of fiction use or alter history. Above Grade Level: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare). | This standard requires that students read two pieces of text on the same topic written by different authors, noting differences in the information they present (where they disagree in matters of fact interpretation). The important lesson that students should learn from this standard is the notion that authors often include or omit evidence/interpretation of facts to support their own purpose for writing/individual bias. | CC.1.3.8.H Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from traditional works, including describing how the material is rendered new. |
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20 | Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity | RL.8.10 | By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently. Below Grade Level: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. Above Grade Level: By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. | CC.1.3.7.K Read and comprehend literary fiction on grade level, reading independently and proficiently |