Colorado Academic Standards Online
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clear Content Area: Reading, Writing and Communicating - 2019 // Grade Level: Eleventh / Twelfth Grade Band // Standard Category: 2. Reading for All Purposes
Reading, Writing and Communicating - 2019
Eleventh / Twelfth Grade Band, Standard 2. Reading for All Purposes
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- 3. Read a wide range of literary texts to build knowledge and to better understand the human experience.
1. Interpret and evaluate complex literature using various critical reading strategies.
Students Can:
- Use Key Ideas and Details to:
- 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. (CCSS: RL.11-12.1)
- 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. (CCSS: RL.11-12.2)
- Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (for example: where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). (CCSS: RL.11-12.3)
- Use Craft and Structure to:
- 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.) (CCSS: RL.11-12.4)
- Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (for example: 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. (CCSS: RL.11-12.5)
- Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (for example: satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). (CCSS: RL.11-12.6)
- Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:
- By the end of 12th grade, analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (for example: recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (for example: a play by Shakespeare and/or a play by an American dramatist.) (adapted from CCSS: RL.11-12.7)
- By the end of 12th grade, demonstrate knowledge of foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics. (adapted from CCSS: RL.11-12.9)
- Use Range of Reading and Complexity of Text to:
- By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. (CCSS: RL.11-12.10)
- By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently. (CCSS RL.11-12.10)
Academic Contexts and Connections:
- Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis. (Entrepreneurial Skills, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving)
- Develop, plan, and organize self-behavior. (Personal Skills, Personal Responsibility)
- Analyze both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes and use information accurately, ethically, and creatively for the issue or problem at hand. (Professional Skills, Information Literacy)
- How does form affect meaning?
- How is literature a product of its time?
- How do we analyze texts to deepen our understanding?
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- 4. Read a wide range of informational texts to build knowledge and to better understand the human experience.
2. Interpret and evaluate complex informational texts using various critical reading strategies.
Students Can:
- Use Key Ideas and Details to:
- 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. (CCSS: RI.11-12.1)
- Determine two or more 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 provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS: RI.11-12.2)
- Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text. (CCSS: RI.11-12.3)
- Designate a purpose for reading expository texts and use new learning to complete a specific task (such as convince an audience, shape a personal opinion or decision, or perform an activity).
- Predict the impact an informational text will have on an audience and justify the prediction.
- Use Craft and Structure to:
- Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (for example: how Madison defines "faction" in Federalist No. 10). (CCSS: RI.11-12.4)
- Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging. (CCSS: RI.11-12.5)
- Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of the text. (CCSS: RI.11-12.6)
- Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:
- Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (for example: visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. (CCSS: RI.11-12.7)
- Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning (for example: in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents) and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy (for example: The Federalist Papers, presidential addresses) by the end of 12th grade. (adapted from CCSS: RI.11-12.8)
- Analyze 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (for example: The Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address) for their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features by the end of 12th grade. (adapted from CCSS: RI.11-12.9)
- Use Range of Reading and Complexity of Text to:
- By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. (CCSS: RI.11-12.10)
- By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
- Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis. (Entrepreneurial Skills, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving)
- Participate effectively in civic life. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills, Civic Engagement)
- Analyze both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes and use information accurately, ethically, and creatively for the issue or problem at hand. (Professional Skills, Information Literacy)
- How do we analyze text to deepen understanding?
- How does text structure influence its effectiveness?
- How do rhetorical devices and logic impact the reader?
- What is the role of logic in informational texts?
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- 5. Understand how language functions in different contexts, command a variety of word-learning strategies to assist comprehension, and make effective choices for meaning or style when writing and speaking.
3. Understand how language influences the comprehension of narrative, argumentative, and informational texts.
Students Can:
- Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies. (CCSS: L.11-12.4)
- Use context (for example: the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. (CCSS: L.11-12.4a)
- Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (for example: conceive, conception, conceivable). (CCSS: L.11-12.4b)
- Consult general and specialized reference materials (for example: dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, its etymology, or its standard usage. (CCSS: L.11-12.4c)
- Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (for example: by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary). (CCSS: L.11-12.4d)
- Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. (CCSS: L.11-12.5)
- Interpret figures of speech (for example: hyperbole, paradox) in context and analyze their role in the text. (CCSS: L.11-12.5a)
- Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations. (CCSS: L.11-12.5b)
- Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. (CCSS: L.11-12.6)
Academic Contexts and Connections:
- Take responsibility for and pursue opportunities. (Personal Skills, Initiative/Self-Direction)
- Demonstrate ways to adapt and reach workable solutions. (Personal Skills, Adaptability/Flexibility)
- Demonstrate an accurate and clear sense of goals, abilities, needs and knows how to request and/or acquire them. (Professional Skills, Self-Advocacy)
- What strategies are most useful when reading, understanding, and making personal connections to literary texts?
- How do different genres, formats, and text features used in informational texts help readers understand an author’s purpose?
- What is the relationship between figurative language and audience understanding of a text?
Need Help? Submit questions or requests for assistance to bruno_j@cde.state.co.us

