Below are the Common Core standards for literatures. Read them carefully, then sort them into categories by dragging each standard into the appropriate column. If you prefer, you can also do this activity using a form with radio buttons. Some browsers may work best with (or show only) one or the other format; use the one that works best for you.
| Standards | Categories | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Key Ideas and Details | Craft and Structure | Integration of Knowledge and Ideas | |
| Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics. | |||
| Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution. | |||
| Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. | |||
| Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text. | |||
| Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g. how setting shapes the characters or plot). | |||
| Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. | |||
| Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g. parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g. pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. | |||
| 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. | |||
| Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone. | |||
| Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text. | |||
| Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text. | |||
| Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g. the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. | |||
| 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). | |||
| Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision. | |||
| Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g. alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama. | |||
| 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. | |||
| Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g. how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare). | |||
| 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. | |||
| Analyze how a drama’s or poem’s form or structure (e.g. soliloquy, sonnet) contributes to its meaning. | |||
| Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. | |||
| Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g. satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). | |||
| 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. | |||
| Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments. | |||
| Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g. created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor. | |||
| Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts. | |||
| Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g. Auden’s “MusÉe des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). | |||
| 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. | |||
| 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. | |||
| Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. | |||
| Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g. recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.) | |||
| Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new. | |||
| Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail 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. | |||
| Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. | |||
| Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. | |||
| Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text. | |||
| Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g. where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). | |||
| Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g. how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). | |||
| Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. | |||
| Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature. | |||
| Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.) | |||