8th Grade ELA (Oregon Common Core)

Reading Foundational Skills (RF)

• ELA.8.RF.1 Read grade-level text fluently, with accuracy, good pace and expression, to support understanding.
  • a. Read with purpose and understanding.
  • b. Read aloud accurately, at a suitable pace and with expression.
  • c. Use the context to check or self-correct their reading of words, rereading when needed.

Reading Literature (RL)

• ELA.8.RL.1 Analyze what a literary text says directly and implies, citing the strongest evidence.
• ELA.8.RL.2 Find a theme and how it develops through characters, setting and plot, and summarize with evidence.
• ELA.8.RL.3 Analyze how specific lines of dialogue or incidents push the action on, reveal character or lead to decisions.
• ELA.8.RL.4 Recognize, say and interpret words and phrases, including figurative, connotative and technical senses, and analyze the effect of word choice.
• ELA.8.RL.5 Compare how several texts are structured and analyze how authors' structural choices, shaped by bias, affect meaning.
• ELA.8.RL.6 Analyze how differences between characters' and readers' viewpoints create effects such as suspense or humor.
• ELA.8.RL.7 Analyze how closely a filmed or live production sticks to its script, judging the choices of director and actors.
• ELA.8.RL.9 Analyze how modern fiction draws on myths, traditional stories or religious works and makes them new.
• ELA.8.RL.10 Use decoding and comprehension strategies flexibly, including for long words, to read and analyze complex literature on their own.

Reading Informational Text (RI)

• ELA.8.RI.1 Analyze what an informational text says directly and implies, and judge its credibility and any unsupported or unclear ideas.
• ELA.8.RI.2 Find central ideas and how key details develop them, supporting this with citation, paraphrase or summary.
• ELA.8.RI.3 Analyze how an author uses comparisons, analogies or categories to show links and differences between ideas.
• ELA.8.RI.4 Recognize, say and interpret words and phrases, including figurative, connotative and technical senses, and analyze the effect of word choice.
• ELA.8.RI.5 Analyze one paragraph's structure in detail, including the part each sentence plays in developing ideas.
• ELA.8.RI.6 Work out an author's background, viewpoint, bias or purpose and how the author deals with conflicting evidence or views.
• ELA.8.RI.7 Judge the pros and cons of different media for presenting a topic.
• ELA.8.RI.8 Evaluate an argument, judging how valid the reasoning is and whether the evidence is relevant and enough, and spot irrelevant evidence.
• ELA.8.RI.9 Analyze texts that give conflicting information on one topic and find where they disagree on facts or interpretation.
• ELA.8.RI.10 Use decoding and comprehension strategies flexibly, including for long words, to read and analyze complex informational texts on their own.

Writing (W)

• ELA.8.W.1 Write arguments that back claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
  • a. Introduce claims, recognize and rebut opposing claims and organize reasons and evidence logically.
  • b. Support claims with logical reasoning and credible, relevant evidence, showing understanding of the topic.
  • c. Use linking words to make clear how claims, counterclaims, reasons and evidence relate.
  • d. Keep a style that suits the content, purpose and audience.
  • e. Write a conclusion that follows from and supports the argument.
• ELA.8.W.2 Write informative or explanatory texts that examine a topic by choosing, organizing and analyzing content.
  • a. Introduce the topic with a preview, sort ideas into categories and add formatting or media when useful.
  • b. Develop the topic with relevant facts, definitions, details, quotations or examples.
  • c. Use varied linking words to hold the text together and show how ideas relate.
  • d. Use precise language and subject vocabulary.
  • e. Keep a style that suits the content, purpose and audience.
  • f. Write a conclusion that follows from the information given.
• ELA.8.W.3 Write narratives, and use narrative purposefully within other kinds of writing, with strong techniques, details and order.
  • a. Orient the reader to the situation, point of view and characters and build a smooth flow of events.
  • b. Bring experiences, events and characters to life with dialogue, pacing, description and reflection.
  • c. Use linking words to show order, shifts in time or setting and how events relate.
  • d. Use precise words, sensory language and relevant details to convey experiences and events.
  • e. Write an ending that follows from the events.
• ELA.8.W.4 Produce clear, connected writing whose development, organization and style suit the task, purpose and audience.
• ELA.8.W.5 With some guidance, improve writing through planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting or a fresh approach.
• ELA.8.W.6 Use digital tools and handwriting to produce and publish writing, work with others and cite sources consistently.
• ELA.8.W.7 Carry out short research projects on a question, which may be their own, using several sources.
• ELA.8.W.8 Gather information from several sources, judge credibility, quote or paraphrase accurately and cite in a standard format.
• ELA.8.W.9 Draw and cite evidence from literature or informational texts as support for analysis, reflection and research.
• ELA.8.W.10 Write regularly over short and long periods for a range of subject tasks, purposes and audiences.

Language (L)

• ELA.8.L.1 Use standard English grammar and usage correctly in writing and speech.
  • a. Explain what verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives) do in general and in particular sentences.
  • b. Build and use active and passive verb forms.
  • c. Build and use verbs in each mood: indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional and subjunctive.
  • d. Spot and fix unwanted shifts in voice and mood.
• ELA.8.L.2 Show control of capital letters, punctuation and spelling when writing.
  • a. Use punctuation to show a pause or break.
  • b. Use an ellipsis to show something has been left out.
  • c. Spell correctly.
• ELA.8.L.3 Apply what they know about how English works whenever they write, speak, read or listen.
  • a. Use active and passive voice and conditional and subjunctive mood for particular effects.
• ELA.8.L.4 Use strategies flexibly to work out unknown and multiple-meaning words in grade 8 reading and content.
  • a. Use context as a clue to meaning.
  • b. Use less common, more abstract Greek and Latin roots and affixes as hints to meaning.
  • c. Use dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses and other references for pronunciation, exact meaning or part of speech.
  • d. Check a first guess at a word's meaning.
• ELA.8.L.5 Show understanding of figurative language, word relationships and shades of meaning.
  • a. Interpret figurative language, including allusions, in context.
  • b. Use the relationship between particular words to understand each one better.
  • c. Tell apart the associations (connotations) of words with similar dictionary meanings.
• ELA.8.L.6 Learn and use correctly academic and subject words and phrases for grade 8.

Speaking and Listening (SL)

• ELA.8.SL.1 Take part well in group discussions with varied partners, building on others' ideas and stating their own clearly.
  • a. Come ready, citing evidence from the material to probe and reflect on ideas.
  • b. Follow discussion rules, track progress toward goals and deadlines and define roles as needed.
  • c. Ask questions that connect several speakers' ideas and reply with relevant evidence.
  • d. Recognize new information and qualify or justify their views when it is warranted.
  • e. Judge how well the discussion worked.
• ELA.8.SL.2 Analyze why information is presented in different media and formats and evaluate the motives behind it.
• ELA.8.SL.3 Set out a speaker's argument and claims and judge how sound the reasoning is and whether the evidence is relevant and enough.
• ELA.8.SL.4 Present claims or findings clearly and coherently with relevant evidence, sound reasoning and good delivery.
• ELA.8.SL.5 Blend media and visuals into presentations so information is clearer, claims stronger and the talk more interesting.
• ELA.8.SL.6 Adapt speech to different settings and tasks, using formal English when called for.