Common Core Standards

Resources and ideas for instructors who teach RL.9 in middle school ELA.

I love a great historical drama set in the 1800s with just enough accuracy to be interesting but not enough accuracy to be a bore or downright depressing.

You know what I mean.

Sometimes we don’t want the real history. We want a semblance of the time period rather than anything real or actually historical because, let’s face it, sometimes real history or historical events just don’t have the same pizzazz as something a good writer or screenwriter can create.

Take the 1997 Titanic film. We all knew the boat was going to sink, and yet the screenwriters put in just enough fiction and interesting additions to the real history to make us feel like this time, it just might not.

It’s like we are really interested in the olden times as long as they have enough of a modern twist to appeal to our current sensibilities and interests to keep us invested in the characters and their problems.

That is what makes the RL.9 standard so interesting. This standard is all about dissecting how writers and directors play with history and what elements they use to do just that.

So, without further ado, let’s dig into the actual standards and learning targets for RL.9.

Learning Targets

A big part of teaching ELA in middle school is making sure that all of the many standards are given due diligence, and there are a lot of standards that ELA teachers are responsible for. To help keep it all straight and to make a plan for the year, I just the standards checklist below.

• 6th Grade Standards Checklist
• 7th Grade Standards Checklist
• 8th Grade Standards Checklist

When starting to deconstruct a standard, start with the learning targets. To get the learning targets, break down the standard into 3-5 parts or key skills. 

To begin our discussion on RL9, I will list the actual standard for each grade level and the learning targets. We’ve broken the standard down below. These are the learning targets that we focus on in our standards-based units for RL.9, which are also linked below.

Teaching RL.6.9 (6th Grade)

6th Grade Standard: Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres (e.g., stories and poems; historical novels and fantasy stories) in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.

6th Grade Learning Target

• I can compare and contrast texts of different forms on their treatment of the same topic or theme.

Teaching RL.7.9 (7th Grade)

7th Grade Standard: 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

7th Grade Learning Targets

• I can distinguish between historical fiction and historical accounts.
• I can identify how the author used or altered history to write a fictional portrayal.
• I can compare/contrast a historical portrayal of a time, place, or character against a historical account of the same period.

Teaching RL.8.9 (8th Grade)

8th Grade Standard: Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works

8th Grade Learning Targets

• I can analyze how a modern work of fiction integrates themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works.
• I can describe how the material is rendered new.

Growing through Middle School

As students move through middle school, the RL.9 standard is one that actually changes quite a bit. At the beginning of middle school, the focus of this standard is mostly historical. It is not specific to any kind of history, part of history, or a specific type of writing; however, once students get into 8th grade, that changes.

In 8th grade, the standard takes a spin and starts to be more selective with the kind of works students are expected to interact with. Students need to look at any work that draws from history in 7th grade; in 8th grade, they are specifically looking for how the patterns of myths, traditional stories, and religious works are being used and how they are made new in the more modern version.

This is much more specific and puts a lot more pressure on teachers to find the right kinds of resources and works to draw from as part of that unit of study.

Historical Accounts vs. Historical Fiction

Probably the most important point that you need to get through to students when you teach RL.9 in middle school is the difference between historical accounts and historical fiction.

The goal of a historical account is to narrate the actual events as accurately as possible.

The goal of historical fiction is to entertain. The writer of historical fiction may draw from and use historical events in their writing, but they are not required to retell the events accurately or even use the right people or places or any actual historical data as part of their story. They are ultimately creating their own universe that draws on history. They are not married to it.

In contrast, a historical account is expected to be as accurate as possible with correct people, places, and depictions that people can count on as aligning with people’s interpretation of the actual historical event.

The sooner your students can identify and pick out the differences between these two different types of depictions, the better!

Resources for teaching RL.9

When picking resources to help teach RL.9, you’ll want to make sure the resource teaches, practices, and reviews the standard at the appropriate level for the students you’re teaching.

We have created resources for almost all of the 7th and 8th grade ELA standards. Learn more about what these resources include by reading this post about The Sparkly Notebook Standard Product Line!

Each of our resources we’ve created to practice the skills associated with this standard work through the skills using grade-level-specific passages and activities that allow students to thoroughly practice and review the standards. They also provide opportunities for both formative and summative assessment. Click on the links below to learn more about each resource!

• 6th Grade RL.9 Resource
• 7th Grade RL.9 Resource
• 8th Grade RL.9 Resource

Activities and Projects for Practicing and Assessing RL.9 in Middle School

We’ve covered the standards, the learning targets, and discussed the difference between historical accounts and historical fiction. We’ve also provided some links to the resources we have available to help you set up these units, and we’ve discussed how the standards grow from grade level to grade level in middle school. Now, we want to give some ideas of activities that you can do with your students to practice this standard.

• Have students read a story and then create a drama scene using that same story. We include this in the 6th-grade resource and add follow-up questions at the end of the activity.
• Create a chart of words, phrases, and cultural points that someone writing about ‘today’ might use in the future. Basically, ask students to think into the future and try to figure out what writers then might pull out of our current year/decade. We have a worksheet dedicated to this activity in the 7th-grade resource.
• Do movie trivia, where students have to pick the fictional elements out of a scene from a historical fiction film. We have an activity in the 7th-grade resource that asks several of these questions for students to grapple with.
• Study allusions and how they appear in myths, religious, and historical works. Learning some of the idioms and allusions that were popular at different time periods or in different kinds of works can give students a deeper understanding of how people spoke and interpreted those works. We do this activity in 8th grade.
• Use an example of a story that is retold over and over (like a Cinderella story or something like that) and ask them to pull out the key elements of that story. Then have them brainstorm all the different places (books, movies, lyrics, etc.) where references or elements of that story show up. We do this activity in full in the 8th-grade unit.

When you teach RL.9 in middle school, it can really be a lot of fun, but finding all the right stories and deciding what pieces of history or mythical literature you’re going to use can be super overwhelming. Hopefully, having these fully built-out resources will help save you a whole lot of time and a bunch of questions as you work on this standard with your students.

A full introduction for teachers who teach RL.7 in middle school ELA. In this post, we’ve included learning targets, concept breakdown, resource suggestions, and activity and assessment ideas!

I love watching and analyzing different versions of stories and characters. 

Whether it is a real-life version of a classic movie or a shorter adaptation of a longer work, I am always intrigued by how the creator makes the choices they do.

I’m constantly frustrated that they removed one of my favorite moments or excited that they kept a specific scene in. I’m intrigued by how they showed the connection between the characters.

In the last 10 years, it seems like adaptations of old films and books have made quite the comeback, and we’ve been gifted remakes and different dimensions of some of our favorite books and big-screen characters.

As we begin to dive into the RL.7 standard, which focuses on analyzing different versions of the same story, it is fun to consider why variations do so well.

A conversation that follows this line of thought may be the perfect way to open up this unit with your students.

After talking with students about why adaptations and remakes are so popular, you can introduce them to the learning targets associated with RL.7.

Learning Targets

When you deconstruct a standard, start with the learning targets. To get the learning targets, break down the standard into 3-5 parts or key skills by focusing on the key concepts of the standard. In the checklists below, we have broken down the middle school standards into key concepts.

• 6th Grade Standards Checklist
• 7th Grade Standards Checklist
• 8th Grade Standards Checklist

Now that we know the key concepts, let’s outline the learning targets for each grade level.

Teaching RL.6.7 (6th Grade)

6th Grade Standard: Compare and contrast the experience of reading a story, drama, or poem to listening to or viewing an audio, video, or live version of the text, including contrasting what they “see” and “hear” when reading the text to what they perceive when they listen or watch.

6th Grade Learning Targets

• I can recognize the differences between multiple text formats – text, audio, visual, and live performances.
• I can compare and contrast what is seen/heard in a text when visually/ auditorily presented to what is experienced when read.
• I can determine the similarities and differences between the experience of reading a story, drama, or poem to that of listening or viewing the audio, video, or live version of the text.

Teaching RL.7.7 (7th Grade)

7th Grade Standard: 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)

7th Grade Learning Targets

• I can analyze the effect of the techniques used.
• I can explain the similarities and differences between a written work and an audio/visual presentation of the same work.

Teaching RL.8.7 (8th Grade)

8th Grade Standard: 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.

8th Grade Learning Targets

• I can compare and contrast the text of a story or drama and the live or filmed production.
• I can analyze the faithfulness or departure between the text and the live/filmed production.
• I can evaluate the outcome/impact of choices made by directors and actors.

Growing through Middle School

This is one of the standards that actually changes quite a bit from the beginning of middle school to the end. Although you can do many of the same activities in 6th grade as in 7th and 8th grade, the complexity with which you explore the texts or videos chosen will completely change.

In 7th grade, you’ll focus mainly on the different techniques that the creators use. 

For example, if the book has a first-person narrator, how does the movie fulfill the same need?

How do they set the scene in different ways?

How do they use sound or music to add to a work that wasn’t originally created to include those types of sound?

In 8th grade, you can use a lot of the same films and texts, but this time you’ll focus on how well it stayed true to the original. Was the adaptation changed significantly to meet the needs of a video audience with a shorter attention span? What scenes did they choose to cut out or keep, and why?

This 8th-grade analysis will result in a much deeper discussion about the author’s/creator’s intent and audience expectations.

Common Misunderstanding: You do not need to read a full novel

A lot of teachers believe that in order to analyze how a film version or dramatic version of a story compares and contrasts with the text version, they need to view the entirety of both. That is simply not true.

Although it would be great if we had all the time in the world to do just that, it is not really an option when we only have 40-60 minutes a day with students and a whole slew of other standards we need to introduce, practice, and assess.

Instead, try reading just a short piece of a text and then watching just the corresponding scene in the film version or showing a few different examples of that scene from different plays and videos.

Students can compare and contrast the scene with the limited amount of information they have and still practice this standard.

Another good option is to use children’s stories and short film versions or variations from children’s programming. These tend to be much shorter and still provide a good option for practicing the skills associated with this standard.

Resources for teaching RL.7

With so many different options for resources and discussion prompts for teaching the RL.7 standard skills, it is hard to know where to start. If you are looking for a quick way to start and make sure that you’re covering the different elements of this standard, consider taking a closer look at our resources for this standard.

Click on the links below to learn more about each resource.

• 6th Grade RL.7 Resource
• 7th Grade RL.7 Resource
• 8th Grade RL.7 Resource

Each of the resources works through the standard using grade-level-specific passages and activities that help the student develop the standard completely.

The resources include a lesson/activity for each specific learning target or concept and also include assessments, posters, and answer keys.

Activities and Projects for Practicing and Assessing RL.7 in Middle School

You have lots of different activities and projects you can do related to the RL.7 standard. Here are a few of the activities we have built into our resources. Hopefully, they will prompt some ideas that you can use to create your own resources; however, if you find yourself wanting to save a whole lot of time, you can also grab our resources to start using immediately with your students.

• Compare and contrast a text version of a story with an audio, film, or play version. We compare different versions of Shrek in our 6th-grade resource.
• To discuss how creators might portray different elements in the film, study different film shots and the effects different shots have on mood and tone. In our 7th-grade resource, we take a closer look at different shots and how a director might use them in a movie.
• In addition to different shots, you can also discuss the use of music and lighting in films. These are examples of other ways a director might try to set a particular mood or elicit a specific feeling from an audience member. In our 7th-grade resource, we do an activity that is designed to consider these types of elements.
• Storyboarding scenes help students to analyze the differences between different versions of the story. In our summative assessment for 7th grade, students do just that!
• Break a text or story down into individual scenes and then compare and contrast the individual elements. Some elements or scenes may have even been left out of a version of the story altogether. Discuss the results. We do an activity like this as part of the 8th-grade unit.

Ensuring your students understand and master the standards feels like a huge challenge, and we understand that. We have created full bundles of units built around the middle school ELA standards. Take a closer look at the bundles below to learn more about what we have available!

7th Grade Bundle: Every ELA Standard with Lessons & Activities

8th Grade Bundle: Every ELA Standard with Lessons & Activities

A full guide for teachers who teach RL.6 in middle school ELA. This post contains learning targets, resources, and activity suggestions!

I love teaching about perspective and point of view because it is kind of a little empathy lesson built into the reading standards for middle school.

As students learn about point of view, they start to realize that how a situation is interpreted varies based on the situations and vantage points of different people/characters.

This can lead to some really awesome discussions about why people don’t all look at situations the same way and what could cause a character (or person) to experience a different feeling toward a scenario, even if they were standing right next to another person.

In the Common Core, the standard that focuses on the point of view and perspective is called RL.6, and in this post, we are going to fully explore this standard.

As we start talking about how to teach RL.6 in middle school, let’s start with the learning targets!

Learning Targets

By focusing on learning targets, we can model our lessons to hit on very specific goals and skills. In this post, we talk about how we break down each standard and make a plan for learning, practicing, and reviewing the standards throughout the year using the checklists below.

• 6th Grade Standards Checklist
• 7th Grade Standards Checklist
• 8th Grade Standards Checklist

When starting to deconstruct a standard, start with the learning targets. To get the learning targets, break down the standard into 2-5 parts or key skills. 

Here are the learning targets on which we developed our resources for RL.6.

Teaching RL.6.6 (6th Grade)

6th Grade Standard: Explain how an author uses the point of view to develop the perspective of the narrator or speaker in a text.

6th Grade Learning Targets

• I can recognize author’s strategies to develop point of view.
• I can compare and contrast point of view of the narrator to characters.
• I can analyze how the author develops these different points of view.

Teaching RL.7.6 (7th Grade)

7th Grade Standard: Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text

7th Grade Learning Targets

• I can identify the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.
• I can contrast the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.
• I can analyze how an author develops the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.

Teaching RL.8.6 (8th Grade)

8th Grade Standard: Analyze how differences in the points of view of characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

8th Grade Learning Targets

• I can differentiate between the points of view of the characters and the audience/reader.
• I can evaluate how the differing points of view of the characters and the audience (created through but not limited to dramatic irony) create tone or mood in the passage.
• I can analyze the word choice and techniques used by an author to develop their point of view and include examples to support my analysis.

Growing through Middle School

This is a really interesting standard because of how it grows just between these few grade levels. The sixth-grade standard requires students to understand how an author uses the point of view to develop the narrator’s perspective. In the 7th grade standard, we are completely focused on the perspective of characters. How the character’s perspectives are represented and how they affect the story.

However, in 8th grade, the standard starts to introduce audience perspective, which has a lot more nuance. How does the author learn information, and how is that different than when/how the characters learn the same information? This introduces dramatic irony.

Different Points of View

As part of our middle school resources for the RL.6 standard, we focus on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd points of view.

1st Person Point of View

Mode of storytelling in which the storyteller recounts the happenings from his/her point of view; uses pronouns such as I, me, my, etc.

2nd Person Point of View

Mode of storytelling in which the storyteller talks to the audience directly, typically used for giving directions, offering advice, or providing an explanation; uses pronouns such as you, your, etc.

3rd Person Point of View

Mode of storytelling in which the storyteller exists outside the story; uses pronouns such as they, them, their, etc. 

The 3rd Person’s Point of View typically represents either a limited viewpoint or an omniscient viewpoint. 

A limited narrator is a third-person perspective in which the narrator only knows the heart and mind of one character; thus, their perspective is limited.

An omniscient narrator is a third-person perspective in which the narrator has no bias; they have full knowledge and understanding of all the characters; omniscient means all-knowing.

A major part of perspective and point of view is actions, reactions, thoughts, and dialogue. These are the ways a character can show how they feel about a situation. 

One fun part of discussing these four elements of characterization as part of reading comprehension is that students start to see how they can improve their writing by including more of these elements as well.

Resources for teaching RL.6

When picking resources to help teach RL.6, pick resources that teach, practice, and review the standard at the appropriate level for the students you’re teaching.

Each of our resources for this standard is designed to be appropriate and grade-level specific. You can take a closer look at each resource by clicking the links below.

• 6th Grade RL.6 Resource
• 7th Grade RL.6 Resource
• 8th Grade RL.6 Resource

The resources include a lesson/activity for each specific learning target or concept and also include assessments, posters, and answer keys. The activities are also available both in a digital format and a standard, printable format.

Activities and Projects for Practicing and Assessing RL.6 in Middle School

• Building a graphic organizer that helps establish the speaker’s point of view…an activity in our 6th-grade resource.
• Using emoji charts to note how each character feels about different situations. This is an activity in our 7th-grade resource.
• Breaking down perspective by thoughts/feelings, actions, dialogue/words spoken, and narration. Using these four parts of character representation provide well-rounded proof of a character’s point of view or perspective on an event. This is also part of our 7th-grade resource.
• Create infographics to visually present how different characters feel about a given situation. This is a great summative assessment in our 7th-grade unit as it includes both identifying character points of view and perspective but also introduces and assesses the ability to compare and contrast!
• Role-playing as different stakeholders in different situations is also a fun activity when studying perspective. We have outlined this activity as part of our 8th-grade RL.6 unit.
• Rewriting scenes from the perspectives of different characters is one of my favorite types of assessments for this unit, as it is good practice in both reading comprehension and writing. We have one of these activities in the 8th-grade unit.

We know that ensuring your students understand and master the standards can be quite the undertaking, and that’s why we create units focused on each of the standards that you can download and start using ASAP. We want all teachers to feel prepared and at ease knowing that they are doing exactly what they need to do to make sure that all of their students are getting exposure to fun activities that focus on the standards.

A breakdown for teachers who teach RL.5 in middle school ELA. In this post, we’ve included learning targets, concept breakdown, resource suggestions, and activity and assessment ideas!

The structure of a text contributes to how it is interpreted and its overall meaning. 

Although many of us don’t realize it, we have different preferences when it comes to the structure of a story.

Some people love reading poetry or lyrics and feel really connected to the writing. Other people don’t care for poetry at all and will put a book back on a shelf if they find the text is written that way.

But not all poetry is the same. There are poems that rhyme, and there is free form. There are poems with repetition others focus on alliteration and assonance. Still, others are built from patterns and carefully placed syllables. 

There is so much to dive into here!

Then there are all the other text structures, such as dramas, scripts, letters, etc. All of these have different parts and pieces. For example, scripts are often written with limited stage direction or with or without a narrating voice. They lack the narration of a typical fictional telling that includes an omniscient narrator.

So many things to consider when dealing with text structure. 

So where do we begin?

The RL.5 standard in middle school ELA is completely focused on helping students work through these different text structures. Let’s begin by breaking down the standards into simple learning targets that we can focus on as we get started with our learning/teaching.

Learning Targets

Breaking standards down into learning targets is one of the best ways to begin deconstructing a standard and making a plan for how to teach the standard. Once the learning targets are clear, then you can build lessons and activities to focus on each. 

When we plan our year, we like to take a look at the year wholistically, so checklists, like the ones linked below, are super important and give us a chance to make sure that every standard we need to teach is getting its moment to shine!

• 6th Grade Standards Checklist
• 7th Grade Standards Checklist
• 8th Grade Standards Checklist

Once we’ve decided to focus on a specific standard, we break the standard down into 2-5 learning targets to guide our planning.

Here are the learning targets on which we developed our resources around for the RL.5 standard.

How to Teach RL.5 in Middle School

Teaching RL.6.5 (6th Grade)

6th Grade Standard: Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot.

6th Grade Learning Targets

• I can define the various structures of literary text.
• I can analyze how a sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text.
• I can analyze how particular structure contributes to development of theme, setting, or plot.

Teaching RL.7.5 (7th Grade)

7th Grade Standard: Analyze how a drama or poem’s form or structure (e.g., soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning.

7th Grade Learning Targets

• I can determine the form or structure of a drama (e.g., soliloquy)
• I can determine the form or structure of a poem (e.g., sonnet)
• I can analyze how the form or structure contributes to the meaning of the drama or poem
• I can analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds on a section of a text (poem, story, or drama)

Teaching RL.8.5 (8th Grade)

8th Grade Standard: 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.

8th Grade Learning Targets

• I can analyze how text structure contributes to the meaning of a text.
• I can compare and contrast the structure of multiple texts.
• I can analyze how the differing structure of each text influences its meaning and style.

Growing through Middle School

As you can see in the standards above, the middle school RL. 5 standard takes a pretty sharp turn as students enter 8th grade.

In early middle school, the students focus primarily on text structure as it relates to poetry, and a 7th-grade teacher can spend much of their year focusing on text structure from the perspective of poetry and probably feel like they covered the standard fully.

In our 7th grade resource, many of our lessons talk about poetry, but we also have an activity specifically focused on working with a drama. 

As students get into 8th grade and start preparing for deeper analysis in high school, the text structure standard says nothing about poetry at all. Instead, the standard leaves the type of text wide open and instead starts to hone in on comparing the structure of multiple texts and how it influences the meaning.

That means that once students get into 8th grade, they will need exposure to lots of different types of text structures. This is a great time to start pulling in different kinds of dramatic works, lyrics, memoirs, letters, fictional and nonfiction books, memos, memes, comic strips, graphic novels, etc.

Standard Specific Skill

It is hard to break down this standard into just one major skill as it actually includes a whole slew of important concepts that students will need to have, including an understanding of figurative language (which is covered in RL.4) as well as an understanding of different types of poetry (i.e., limerick, haiku, sonnets, etc.) as well as a basic understanding of rhyme scheme. In regards to drama, students will need to know and practice working with different dramatic elements such as symbolism, plot, monologues, soliloquy, etc.

In our resources, the above elements are a big part of the makeup of the 6th-grade RL.5 resource and the 7th-grade RL.5 resource; however, the 8th-grade resource has some different focuses.

Rather than just focusing on poetry and dramas again in 8th grade, we turn the focus to more advanced types of structural analysis like point of view and literary devices like foreshadowing, parallel plots, and flashbacks. 

Resources for teaching RL.5

The Sparkly Notebook isn’t just another cutesy resource creation company. We pride ourselves on creating resources that align with the standards and help teachers plan the lessons their students need to be exposed to. Although it is great to supplement the standards with additional resources and practice, it is important to always start and plan with the standards in mind.

Each of our resources for this standard…

• 6th Grade RL.5 Resource
• 7th Grade RL.5 Resource
• 8th Grade RL.5 Resource

…works through the standard using grade-level-specific passages and activities that help the student develop the standard completely.

The resources include a lesson/activity for each specific learning target or concept and also include assessments, posters, and answer keys.

Activities and Projects for Practicing and Assessing RL.5 in Middle School

• Read lyrics to a song. Spend time analyzing the lyrics and considering their structure. Then listen to the song. Were the students surprised by what the song sounded like after reading it on paper? Spend some time in discussion.
• Split students into multiple small groups and have each practice and present the same short drama. Discuss how each group presented the play and how the text structure contributed to their choices. This is an activity in our 7th-grade resource.
• Give students a variety of poems of different types and see if they can identify what kind each one is. See if you can find poems on the same subject and spend time discussing how each piece of poetry treated the same subject. We explore different poem types in one of our 7th-grade activities.
• Watch a short clip from a movie and discuss how the producer has arranged the pieces of the film. This is an activity in our 8th-grade resource.
• Write your own parallel plot. After reading a passage or text, ask students to write their own parallel plot related to the text. Read the students’ submissions and discuss how they compare to the original. This is part of our 8th-grade unit.

I don’t know about you, but this standard has always felt like a big one with so many elements to cover, but hopefully, breaking it down this way and maybe even using our resources to support you will make it all a whole lot more manageable.

If you are looking for more passages to work with, make sure you check out some of our paired passages. We have a whole bunch of very popular middle school topics to choose from, so check them out by clicking this link!