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Responses to Text Prompts

8th Grade

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.3*

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--fluency. The student reads grade-level text with fluency and comprehension. The student is expected to adjust fluency when reading grade-level text based on the reading purpose.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.4*

Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--self-sustained reading. The student reads grade-appropriate texts independently. The student is expected to self-select text and read independently for a sustained period of time.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5

Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.A*

establish purpose for reading assigned and self-selected text;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.B*

generate questions about text before, during, and after reading to deepen understanding and gain information;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.C

make and correct or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.D*

create mental images to deepen understanding;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.E

make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.F

make inferences and use evidence to support understanding;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.G

evaluate details read to determine key ideas;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.H

synthesize information to create new understanding;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.5.I*

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6

Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.A*

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.B

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.C

use text evidence to support an appropriate response;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.D

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.E*

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.F*

respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.G*

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.H*

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.I*

reflect on and adjust responses as new evidence is presented;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.6.J*

defend or challenge the author's claims using relevant text evidence.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.7

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--literary elements. The student recognizes and analyzes literary elements within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.7.A

analyze how themes are developed through the interaction of characters and events;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.7.B

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.7.C

analyze non-linear plot development such as flashbacks, foreshadowing, subplots, and parallel plot structures and compare it to linear plot development; and

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.7.D

explain how the setting influences the values and beliefs of characters.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.8

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.8.B

analyze the effect of graphical elements such as punctuation and line length in poems across a variety of poetic forms such as epic, lyric, and humorous poetry;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.8.C

analyze how playwrights develop dramatic action through the use of acts and scenes;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.8.D

analyze characteristics and structural elements of informational text, including:
  1. the controlling idea or thesis with supporting evidence;
  2. features such as footnotes, endnotes, and citations; and
  3. multiple organizational patterns within a text to develop the thesis;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.8.F*

analyze characteristics of multimodal and digital texts.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9

Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.A

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.B

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.C

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.D

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.E

identify and analyze the use of literary devices, including multiple points of view and irony;

NOTE: The use of irony is not eligible for assessment until the 2021-2022 school year.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.F

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

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.9.G

explain the purpose of rhetorical devices such as analogy and juxtaposition and of logical fallacies such as bandwagon appeals and circular reasoning.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.10

Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--writing process. The student uses the writing process recursively to compose multiple texts that are legible and uses appropriate conventions.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.10.B

develop drafts into a focused, structured, and coherent piece of writing by:
  1. organizing with purposeful structure, including an introduction, transitions, coherence within and across paragraphs, and a conclusion; and
  2. developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with specific facts, details, and examples;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.10.E*

publish written work for appropriate audiences.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.11

Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student uses genre characteristics and craft to compose multiple texts that are meaningful.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.11.B

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;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.12

Inquiry and research: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student engages in both short-term and sustained recursive inquiry processes for a variety of purposes.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.12.F*

synthesize information from a variety of sources;

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS): 8.12.H*

examine sources for:
  1. reliability, credibility, and bias, including omission; and
  2. faulty reasoning such as bandwagon appeals, repetition, and loaded language;

Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking: ELA.8.C.1.3

Write to argue a position, supporting at least one claim and rebutting at least one counterclaim with logical reasoning, credible evidence from sources, elaboration, and using a logical organizational structure.

Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking: ELA.8.C.1.4

Write expository texts to explain and analyze information from multiple sources, using relevant supporting details, logical organization, and varied purposeful transitions.

Florida - Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking: ELA.8.V.1.1

Integrate academic vocabulary appropriate to grade level in speaking and writing.

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