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make inferences and use evidence to support understanding;

evaluate details read to determine key ideas;

synthesize information to create new understanding; and

monitor comprehension and make adjustments such as re-reading, using background knowledge, asking questions, and annotating when understanding breaks down.

describe personal connections to a variety of sources, including self-selected texts;

write responses that demonstrate understanding of texts, including comparing sources within and across genres;

use text evidence to support an appropriate response;

paraphrase and summarize texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order;

interact with sources in meaningful ways such as notetaking, annotating, freewriting, or illustrating;

respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate;

discuss and write about the explicit or implicit meanings of text;

respond orally or in writing with appropriate register, vocabulary, tone, and voice; and

reflect on and adjust responses as new evidence is presented.

infer multiple themes within and across texts using text evidence;

analyze how characters' qualities influence events and resolution of the conflict;

analyze plot elements, including the use of foreshadowing and suspense, to advance the plot; and

analyze how the setting influences character and plot development.

demonstrate knowledge of literary genres such as realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, humor, myths, fantasy, and science fiction;

analyze the effect of rhyme scheme, meter, and graphical elements such as punctuation and capitalization in poems across a variety of poetic forms;

analyze how playwrights develop characters through dialogue and staging;

the controlling idea or thesis with supporting evidence;

features such as references or acknowledgements; and

organizational patterns that support multiple topics, categories, and subcategories;

identifying the claim;

explaining how the author uses various types of evidence and consideration of alternatives to support the argument; and

identifying the intended audience or reader; and

analyze characteristics of multimodal and digital texts.

explain the author's purpose and message within a text;

analyze how the use of text structure contributes to the author's purpose;

analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;

describe how the author's use of figurative language such as metaphor and personification achieves specific purposes;

identify the use of literary devices, including subjective and objective point of view;

analyze how the author's use of language contributes to mood, voice, and tone; and

explain the purpose of rhetorical devices such as direct address and rhetorical questions and logical fallacies such as loaded language and sweeping generalizations.

plan a first draft by selecting a genre appropriate for a particular topic, purpose, and audience using a range of strategies such as discussion, background reading, and personal interests;

organizing with purposeful structure, including an introduction, transitions, coherence within and across paragraphs, and a conclusion; and

developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with specific facts, details, and examples;

revise drafts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety;

complete complex sentences with subject-verb agreement and avoidance of splices, run-ons, and fragments;

consistent, appropriate use of verb tenses;

conjunctive adverbs;

prepositions and prepositional phrases and their influence on subject-verb agreement;

pronoun-antecedent agreement;

subordinating conjunctions to form complex sentences and correlative conjunctions such as either/or and neither/nor;

correct capitalization;

punctuation, including commas to set off words, phrases, and clauses, and semicolons; and

correct spelling, including commonly confused terms such as its/it's, affect/effect, there/their/they're, and to/two/too; and

publish written work for appropriate audiences.

compose literary texts such as personal narratives, fiction, and poetry using genre characteristics and craft;

compose informational texts, including multi-paragraph essays that convey information about a topic, using a clear controlling idea or thesis statement and genre characteristics and craft;

compose multi-paragraph argumentative texts using genre characteristics and craft; and

compose correspondence that reflects an opinion, registers a complaint, or requests information in a business or friendly structure.

generate student-selected and teacher-guided questions for formal and informal inquiry;

develop and revise a plan;

refine the major research question, if necessary, guided by the answers to a secondary set of questions;

identify and gather relevant information from a variety of sources;