Standard 3: Critical Reading and Writing

Students will apply critical thinking skills to reading and writing.

 For more specific genre information, please refer to Genre Guidance (page 4 of the Support Documents.).

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will read multiple texts (print/non-print) on the same topic.
• Students will note similarities or differences between methods the authors use to achieve their purpose.
• Students will support analysis with implicit and/or explicit textual evidence.

• Teachers provide topically related texts.
• Teachers provide examples of methods that authors use to support their claims.
• Teachers help students identify similarities and differences between the methods used by authors.
• Teachers model how to compare and contrast the methods used by authors.
• Teachers model how to use textual evidence to prove the analysis.

Supporting Resources

Teacher Insights

• For more specific genre information, please refer to Genre Guidance (page 4 of the Support Documents).

• Authors make many rhetorical and style choices regarding the arrangement of the idea(s) or argument(s), the syntax, and the diction. All of these choices are made for different effects including appeals to ethos, pathos, and/or logos.

• Ethos: the credibility and/or character of the speaker

• Pathos: the emotional appeals; tugging at the heartstrings

• Logos: the use of facts, statistics, and logic

• Purpose is the specific reason(s) for writing a text, and is the objective that the writer wishes to achieve.  

• There are three primary purposes of a text: to inform, to persuade, and to entertain.  

• These three purposes may be specified with more active verbs, particularly when comparing works.

• When analyzing literature, students should identify the concrete elements authors include (diction, details, syntax, etc.) that impact the abstract elements created by the work as a whole (theme, tone, author’s purpose etc.)

• Example: The dark and oppressive diction in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” helps establish the ominous mood or tone of the piece.  

• This standard goes beyond simply identifying rhetorical and style choices an author makes by including an analysis of those choices.  

• A rhetorical analysis is an evaluation of a text that assesses the rhetorical and stylistic choices the speaker made to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the writer’s message--What are the effects of the choices? How successful was the author’s purpose?  This is also known as a critical analysis. (More info on how to write a rhetorical analysis.)

• The following sites are good references for lists of the different choices and devices along with providing examples and explanations of why they would be used for each item: literarydevices.com.

• Students may compare different types of texts on the same topic that may include, but are not limited to, essays, articles, op-eds, blogs, interviews, poems, short stories, novels, and plays.

• Students may read all of or an excerpt from texts that focus on a similar topic; for example, war and analyze how each author addresses that theme.

• Textual details must be cited (see Standard 9.6.R.2 for details about citations).

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.