Grade 8

Students know and use text/visual features.

1. a.Use text/visual features to identify sections of a longer text that are likely to contain needed information.
2. b.Describe how text/visual features represent, organize, and/or add meaning to the written text.
3. c.Describe the text/visual features of a given text in a range of genres.

Students comprehend and interpret texts using a variety of strategies.

1. a.Preview the text while reflecting on their purposes for reading.
2. b.Visualize, imagine, and/or otherwise engage the senses to make meaning of the text.
3. c.Make inferences and predictions, checking them against textual evidence.
4. d.Maintain motivation and reconnect to the flow of reading using a variety of strategies.
5. e.Explain how choices about text/visual features advance the author's purpose and fit within the genre, medium, or platform.
6. f.Explain literary techniques and their effects.
7. g.Describe what they understand from the topic or story, including how information, ideas, or elements of a story interact and/or change.
8. h.Explain how the author's use of language, including analogies, allusions, and repetition of words or sounds, shapes meaning and affects reader understanding.
9. i.Analyze how authors use text structure to guide readers' understanding and shape meaning.

Students analyze texts, introducing and attributing textual evidence when relevant.

1. a.Explain how authors' choices influence readers' choices, beliefs, and/or actions.
2. b.Analyze the communicative situation in which an author writes a text, including their purposes, their perspectives, the genre and platform they choose, and their intended audience.
3. c.Explain the main idea, theme, or key information in a text, how it deepens, expands, or changes their previous understanding, and how it connects to their own experiences.
4. d.Compare and contrast similar content presented in different genres, mediums, and platforms.

Students evaluate texts.

1. a.Explain how effectively an element of a text invites the reader to visualize and/or empathize, using relevant criteria.
2. b.Explain how effectively an element of a text engages the reader or inspires ideas or action, using relevant criteria.

Students compose multimodal texts in a variety of genres across content areas for a variety of purposes.

1. a.Compose in order to describe situations, experience, ideas, and imaginings.
2. b.Compose in order to record observations and/or explain their observations and analysis of texts, ideas, and the world.
3. c.Compose in order to make a claim about an issue.
4. d.Compose in order to persuade others.
5. e.Compose in order to tell narratives of stories and events.

Students manage and complete writing projects, connecting to interests, experiences, needs, or perspectives.

1. a.Analyze the prompt and communicative situation to determine the purpose of the project and how to meet it.
2. b.Analyze the intended audience’s background knowledge, expectations, perspectives, beliefs, and/or values as they relate to the topic.
3. c.Create a plan and manage a timeline for sustained writing projects, prioritizing tasks and adjusting strategies to meet goals.
4. d.Use feedback to make purposeful shifts in focus and timeline when needed.

Students draft content within the genre and purpose, using technology appropriately.

1. a.Generate ideas for topics, genres, and material.
2. b.Select and organize ideas and material, including findings from research and/or multimedia artifacts, identifying when and how it's fair to use the creative work of others.
3. c.Follow, adapt, or combine genre-specific text elements to achieve specific purposes and effects.
4. d.Develop descriptions with concrete and/or abstract details to help the audience imagine and empathize with the content and to activate the senses.
5. e.Develop analysis of experience, events, information, ideas, and/or texts.
6. f.Strengthen analysis by selecting relevant evidence from texts and explaining how specific details, examples, and quotations support analysis.
7. g.Support claims with relevant and credible evidence connected by sound and valid reasoning and challenge counterclaims.
8. h.Use persuasive techniques, including arguments, evaluations, and appeals to emotion, reason and authority.
9. i.Use a variety of narrative techniques and devices consistent with the genre to develop characters, advance plot, establish mood, and engage the reader.
10. j.Attribute sources in ways consistent with the genre, using technology appropriately.

Students organize content by using and/or adapting the genre's structure based on purpose.

1. a.Craft engaging introductions by using strategies that orient the reader to the topic, purpose, situation or context.
2. b.Organize content using genre-specific strategies.
3. c.Compose conclusions that provide meaningful closure by reinforcing the purpose and creating lasting impact.

Students evaluate, revise, and edit their compositions using a variety of strategies, including appropriate use of technology.

1. a.Re-read to determine whether the draft is ready for next steps, including by identifying potential differences between intended meaning and audience interpretation.
2. b.Gather, evaluate and consider using feedback about their compositions.
3. c.Use what they learned from re-reading and feedback to strengthen their compositions.
4. d.Edit for conventions and consistency of text/visual features, including attributions. [Demonstrate command of Language standards in grades 1–8.]

Students share and publish compositions in person and/or on digital or non-digital platforms.

1. a.Determine where to publish after considering potential impacts on intended and unintended audiences and the permanence of digital platforms.

Students listen thoughtfully, respond respectfully, and contribute meaningfully to well-reasoned exchanges during face-to-face discussions and/or in digital forums.

1. a.Maintain expectations for engaging in civil discourse, including other participants, and considering diverse perspectives, especially in digital forums.
2. b.Express ideas clearly by presenting and interpreting textual evidence, research, experience, and/or prior knowledge, attributing evidence and ideas.
3. c.Develop arguments and/or common understanding by connecting to others' contributions.
4. d.Ask questions that clarify or verify a speaker’s point or perspective and/or share their interpretation of others' contributions.
5. e.Clarify or expand on their points or perspectives and/or respond to feedback about how others are interpreting them, especially in digital forums.
6. f.Challenge ideas and conclusions based on contradictory evidence or experience.
7. g.Respond to questions that challenge their evidence and reasoning.
8. h.Analyze changes in their opinion and understanding.
9. i.Summarize conclusions, questions, and points of agreement or disagreement from the discussion.

Students collaborate effectively on projects and tasks.

1. a.Determine expectations, reviewing and adapting them when needed.
2. b.Contribute productively by building on strengths and taking on challenges.
3. c.Communicate to build community by addressing concerns, considering others' strengths and perspectives, navigating conflict, and/or negotiating compromise.

Students present reports, speeches, and creative work in a variety of genres such that listeners can empathize and/or follow the line of reasoning.

1. a.Identify focused topics from the situation, experience, imagination, reading, research, media, conversations, and/or products from ELA.8.W.1.
2. b.Develop content by considering their purpose, context, and the audience’s background knowledge and/or position.
3. c.Make strategic use of supporting images and/or multimedia artifacts in presentations to clarify content and support the audience’s engagement.
4. d.Attribute sources used.

Students determine how to present themselves and their ideas in different contexts.

1. a.Express a distinct voice through intentional word choice by drawing on their assets, experience, attitudes, and perspectives.
2. b.Determine how to present themselves and their ideas in digital forums given the potential impact on future goals and opportunities.
3. c.Explain the benefits, drawbacks, and effects of anonymity and of different degrees of authenticity in digital forums.

Students use voice, intonation, gestures, and pacing to illuminate the content and engage the audience and lead them through the speaker’s thinking.

Students identify and discuss when and why language is used differently according to the context.

1. a.Compare and contrast the uses of English across communities, cultures, and contexts.
2. b.Compare and contrast the uses of English in various genres.

Students vary sentence patterns for meaning, clarity, and style in conversations and writing about experiences, events, and ideas.

1. a.Develop well-formed sentences (syntax) to clarify relationships among ideas, including use of parallel structure.
2. b.Use phrases, clauses, and transitions with punctuation to add precision, variety, and complexity to sentence structures.
3. c.Form and use verb moods to communicate emphasis, certainty, conditions, or perspective.
4. d.Form and use active and passive voice to communicate emphasis and meaning.

Students determine the meaning of and use new and multiple-meaning words and phrases acquired through conversations, reading, viewing, and research.

1. a.Determine the meaning of words and phrases by using context, roots, affixes, and reference materials strategically.
2. b.Use discipline-specific and academic vocabulary to communicate precisely across contexts.
3. c.Distinguish among related words and phrases to communicate precise and nuanced meaning.

Students demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meaning in the context of conversations, reading, and writing about experiences, events, and ideas.

1. a.Recognize, interpret, and use figures of speech, including verbal irony and puns.
2. b.Use the relationships among words to understand and express nuances in meaning.
3. c.Distinguish among words with similar denotations but different connotations.

Students develop fluent and accurate writing skills.

1. a.Apply knowledge of sentence structures, conventions, and precise language to enhance clarity, coherence, and style in writing.

Students engage in research and inquiry by asking questions and seeking answers from information sources.

1. a.Ask different types of questions, refining and asking new questions as understanding of the topic evolves.
2. b.Generate ideas for how to initiate their search based on prior knowledge.
3. c.Select and access a variety of relevant information sources, considering the advantages and drawbacks of content generated by technology, among other options.
4. d.Select and use digital search tools effectively based on analysis of the technologies that deliver results.
5. e.Gather and organize relevant information using a variety of strategies.
6. f.Synthesize new learning to use and/or share.

Students explain how people’s reactions to media messages are affected.

1. a.Explain how perspectives affect reactions to media messages.
2. b.Explain how emotional responses to media messages affect reactions.
3. c.Identify how different criteria for determining what is true affect reactions to and interpretations of media messages.

Students explain the purposes of media messages and the techniques used to create them.

1. a.Determine whether the main purpose of a media message is to inform, persuade, provoke, sell, or entertain.
2. b.Describe the techniques, including appeals and integration of multimedia, used to achieve the media message’s purpose.

Students evaluate components of media messages, as well as content generated by technology, when looking for information that’s accurate, logical, and/or fair.

1. a.Determine whether statements can be verified as true or false or need to be evaluated another way.
2. b.Check the accuracy of information that is either true or false by comparing what multiple reliable sources say about it.
3. c.Determine whether the visual or audio components of a media message represent its subject accurately and/or fairly, considering how digital media can be manipulated.
4. d.Evaluate the logic of claims and the strength of evidence used to support them.

Students evaluate the credibility of those responsible for media messages, as well as content-generating technology.

1. a.Identify those responsible for the content of media messages.
2. b.Determine whether those responsible for media messages have expertise about the topic.
3. c.Evaluate the reputations for accuracy, logic, and fairness of those responsible for media messages.
4. d.Determine whether those responsible for media messages exhibit a perspective relevant to the topic and, if so, to what extent that perspective has been affected by bias.