Apply appropriate strategies to analyze, interpret and evaluate how authors use techniques and elements of fiction and non-fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.

Demonstrate comprehension before reading, during reading, and after reading on grade level texts to support understanding of a variety of literary works from different cultures and literary movements.

Distinguish between essential and non-essential information by examining an author’s explicit and implicit bias and assumptions, beliefs about a subject, use of fact and/or opinion, and /or the author’s argument or defense of a claim. Identify, infer, and distinguish the essential and non-essential details that support the main idea of complex texts.

Analyze textual evidence to make subtle inferences and draw complex conclusions.

Analyze the effectiveness of literary elements used by authors in various genres.

• Analyze how authors develop complex characters as well as their roles and functions in a variety of texts.
• Determine the effectiveness of setting as related to character, plot, and other key literary elements.
• Determine the effectiveness of the author’s use of point of view as related to content and specific types of genre.
• Analyze how the author structures plot to advance the action.
• Identify major themes in literature, comparing and contrasting how they are developed across genres.
• Explain how voice and choice of speaker (narrator) affect the mood, tone, and meaning of text.
• Describe how an author, through the use of diction, syntax, figurative language, sentence variety, etc., achieves style.

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.

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.

Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events.

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze 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.

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject.

Apply appropriate strategies to analyze, interpret, and evaluate how an author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.

Determine an author’s particular point of view and analyze how rhetoric advances the point of view.

Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text.

Analyze how words and phrases shape meaning and tone in texts.

Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing the validity of reasoning and relevance of evidence.

Reading for meaning—Nonfiction

Analyzing and interpreting literature—Nonfiction

Key Ideas and Details

Explain, interpret, describe, and/or analyze the author’s defense of a claim to make a point or construct an argument in nonfictional text.

Identify and/or analyze the author’s intended purpose of a text.

Explain, describe, and/or analyze examples of a text that support the author’s intended purpose.

Identify and/or explain stated or implied main ideas and relevant supporting details from a text.

Note: Items may target specific paragraphs.

Make inferences and/or draw conclusions based on analysis of a text.

Cite evidence from a text to support generalizations.

Explain, interpret, compare, describe, analyze, and/or evaluate point of view in a variety of nonfiction:

• the point of view of the narrator as first person or third person point of view
• the impact of point of view on the meaning of the text as a whole

Differentiate between fact and opinion.

Distinguish essential from nonessential information.

Identify, explain, and/or interpret bias and propaganda techniques in nonfictional text.

Explain, describe, and/or analyze the effectiveness of bias (explicit and implicit) and propaganda techniques in nonfictional text.

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.

Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.

Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, categories).