Common Core Standards
Grade 8
Reading 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.
All this standard wants is for students to be able to intelligently talk about a book by backing up what they're saying with sensible quotes. The biggest part of the standard is choosing the correct quotes for the job; too often students will have to stretch the meaning of the quotes they choose to fit the topic they're writing about, and that's a no-no. Their analyses don't have to be super in-depth—for example, students don't have to conduct a thorough study on every single passage about choices in Holes (which is more of a high school standard thing); they just have to pick a handful of parts that support their analysis.
Example 1
Here's an example lesson to use when your students are reading Animal Farm.
Have students discuss censorship and consider why Animal Farm was banned in many U.S. schools. Then, in a short essay, students should explain the circumstances of banning books in America (who bans books, why, when, etc.). They should also defend or dispute the reasons for banning Animal Farm, citing evidence from the text to prove their points.
Aligned Resources
- ELA Drills, Advanced: Textual Analysis 3
- ASVAB Word Knowledge 4.2 Word Roots, Prefixes, and Suffixes
- CAHSEE 2.1 Passage Drill
- CAHSEE 4.1 Passage Drill
- Teaching A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Follow the Thread
- Teaching A Wrinkle in Time: Famous Kids Traveling in Threes (or Fours)
- Teaching Johnny Tremain: Good and Bad
- Teaching Murder on the Orient Express: Deadly Motives
- Teaching Murder on the Orient Express: The Theme's the Thing
- Teaching Dragonwings: Disasters
- Teaching The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963: Let's Do the Time Warp
- Teaching The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963: Birmingham 2.0
- Teaching The Westing Game: A Puzzle Mystery: "America the Beautiful": In Depth
- Teaching Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Integration In Our Nation
- Teaching The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Murder Mystery
- Teaching The Fault in Our Stars: It's in the Details – Plot and Themes
- Teaching The Little Prince: Things Passed Down – A Poem
- Teaching Out of the Dust: Art Imitates Life
- Teaching Because of Winn-Dixie: Because of Winn-Dixie: Yes, That's Actually the Title of This Assignment
- Teaching Because of Winn-Dixie: Channeling Winn-Dixie
- Teaching The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Fence-Painting in Other Contexts
- Teaching The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Childhood Treasures
- Teaching The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Modern-Day Toms and Hucks
- Teaching The View from Saturday: Create Your Own Knowledge Bowl
- Teaching The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Famous Islands
- Teaching The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Only in Dreams
- Teaching The Westing Game: A Puzzle Mystery: Wanted: Dead or Wax Look-Alike!
- Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird: A Dream Deferred
- Teaching Where the Red Fern Grows: An Instance of Persistence
- Teaching Dragonwings: The Real Windrider
- Teaching Dragonwings: Story Elements Game
- Teaching Flowers for Algernon: The Final Report
- Teaching Freak the Mighty: Lotsa Big Words
- Teaching Hatchet: Biology 101
- Teaching A Wrinkle in Time: Right Brain Versus Left Brain