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ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1

Description: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
Maps to Reading Plus skills: 1A, 1A, 1B, 1B, 2B, 2C, 2C, 3A, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3C, 4B, 4C, 6B, 7C, 8A, 8B, 9A, 9A, 9B

Exemplars

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

Description: Identifying explicit details including character, time, setting and speaker

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-8

H-8

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1818 words
Author: Tamara Ellis Smith
Synopsis: Roselind Franklin was a scientist whose contributions were ignored.
Excerpt: Fascinated by mathematics and numbers, she spent her free time studying mathematical concepts for enjoyment. In addition, she possessed an impressive memory, excelling not only in mathematics and science in school but also in athletics. Her friends described her as being the best at everything she attempted with her hand, her brain, and her foot. This early, repetitive, and intense training of both her mind and body probably shaped her subsequent steadfast determination and dedicated work ethic.

Question: Based on this excerpt, which two factors laid the foundation for Franklin's work ethic?
  1. athletic training for her body
  2. mathematical studies for her mind
  3. artistic endeavors for her creativity
  4. research success for her reputation
  5. learning from failure for her confidence

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a website for a non-fiction selection you read. Include the main idea and supporting details. Include images that would help viewers of your website better understand the topic.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

Description: Drawing Conclusions, Making Inferences from information in text

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-10

H-10

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1799 words
Author: Mike Buchanan and Diane Lang
Synopsis: Vaccinations are a way to protect the population from devastating diseases.
Excerpt: During the 1940s and 1950s, when the virus was at its height in the United States, Salk developed a vaccine to halt the spread of the disease.

So, what exactly is polio? Many people today are unaware of the disease and its devastating effects but, at one time, everyone dreaded this disease.

Question: Why are many people unaware of polio today?
  1. It reached its height 60 years ago and is no longer a threat.
  2. The government wants to keep it a secret.
  3. Research is no longer being done on polio.
  4. The media do not want to scare people with stories about it.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Create a diagram that shows what you already know about a topic, what you want to learn about the topic, and sources where you will find that information.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2C: Summarizing

2C: Summarizing

Description: Summarizing

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-16

H-16

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1759 words
Author: Diane Lang
Synopsis: A Mexican American author draws on her heritage for inspiration.
Excerpt: This novel and many of the author's other works reflect Cisneros' experiences while growing up. Like many young people, she struggled with cultural loyalties and feelings of isolation and low self-esteem associated with poverty. She often portrays the consequences of Mexico's economic hardships and the struggle of Mexicans to survive in America while endeavoring to acclimate to its culture.

Question: Cisneros is sympathetic to poor Mexican immigrants because
  1. she experienced the same problems of adjusting to a new culture.
  2. she researched the challenges they faced in coming to America.
  3. while growing up she had a best friend who was an immigrant.
  4. she read about the hardships in Mexico that drove people to leave.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Imagine you are an attorney. Prepare a summation of a selection you have read to present to a jury for deliberation.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3A: Predicting Outcomes

3A: Predicting Outcomes

Description: Predicting Outcomes

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-31

H-31

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1705 words
Author: Luke Cooper
Synopsis: After World War II ended, the Monuments Men helped return looted treasures to their rightful owners.
Excerpt: Experts are hopeful that more lost or stolen works will emerge in the years to come. "Things will keep appearing," said a spokesman for a group working to recover art lost in the war. "Everything will surface eventually."

Question: In the years ahead, what will probably happen to the rest of the art treasures lost or stolen during the war?
  1. They will be uncovered gradually and returned to descendants of the rightful owners.
  2. They will be displayed in a museum dedicated to showing the atrocities of the Hitler regime.
  3. They will deteriorate in their hidden storage places, from which they will never be recovered.
  4. They will become the legal property of the people who are in possession of them.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Based on the selection's conclusion, what other sequence of events could have generated the same outcome? Demonstrate how these interactions, while different from the author's original plan, make the same conclusion feasible.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

Description: Analyzing Cause and Effect

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-31

H-31

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1705 words
Author: Luke Cooper
Synopsis: After World War II ended, the Monuments Men helped return looted treasures to their rightful owners.
Excerpt: The MFAA began its mission by drawing up lists of monuments and other important cultural sites and providing them to Allied forces. For example, in Florence, Italy, which is home to some of the greatest art treasures of Europe, the MFAA provided Allied forces with aerial photographs marked with key cultural sites. These photos helped pilots avoid damaging the sites during bombing raids.

Question: Why did the Monuments Men provide Allied bombers with aerial photographs of key cultural sites?
  1. so the bombers could avoid damaging them during air raids
  2. so the bombers could destroy the sites before the Nazis did
  3. so there would be photographs to help reconstruct any destroyed sites
  4. so the photographs would not fall into the hands of the Nazis

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe the cause and effect relationship in a selection you read.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

7C: Interpreting Images

7C: Interpreting Images

Description: Intepreting Images and Maps

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-38

H-38

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1787 words
Author: Luke Cooper
Synopsis: After parachuting into the dense jungle, the crew puts its fate into the hands of the natives.
Image:
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Question: Based on the selection, which characteristic of this plane helps to identify it as a B-24 bomber?
  1. long, slender wings
  2. propeller engines
  3. flat, painted tail
  4. wide fuselage

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Can an image help you understand a selection's main idea or theme? Choose two selections you have read and explain how the image did or did not help you understand the selection.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

8A: Judging Validity

8A: Judging Validity

Description: Judge Validity

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-40

H-40

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1938 words
Author: Guinevere Tobias
Synopsis: During a television broadcast, Winton comes face to face with the people whom he had saved during the war.
Excerpt: Nicholas Winton, whose gray hair and weathered features betrayed his 78 years, sat in the first row of the television studio. He had come to the live broadcast of this famous British television program because of a notebook that his wife Grete had recently unearthed while sorting through some long-neglected possessions in his home's attic. The couple had been married for decades, but Winton had never shared the notebook with his wife or discussed his activities in the years before World War II.

Question: Which sentence provides evidence that Winton was truly modest about his work on the Kindertransports?
  1. Winton had never shared the notebook with his wife or discussed his activities in the years before World War II.
  2. Traveling throughout Europe during the 1930s, Nicholas Winton observed Adolf Hitler's rise to power with increasing horror.
  3. After working at the Stock Exchange during the day, Winton and his mother worked on the first Kindertransport in the evening.
  4. It seemed to the elderly couple that the notebook belonged in the collection of a library or an archive.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Imagine you are developing a new app to determine if a text is true or not true. What text clues would the app need to search for to judge validity? Provide examples.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

8B: Reasoning

8B: Reasoning

Description: Reasoning

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-41

H-41

Grade level: 8
Word count: 2036 words
Author: Lucy McNamara
Synopsis: An eye doctor devotes his life to curing avoidable blindness in poor and remote parts of the world.
Excerpt: The results of the trial showed that patient outcomes after six months were about the same: 98 percent of each group had excellent eyesight. However, Dr. Ruit took only about half as much time to perform each of his surgeries, and more of his patients had normal vision on the first day after surgery. It was clear that his results were equal to, or better than, those at a modern Western hospital, and at a fraction of the expense.

The publication of this trial in a professional journal, combined with Dr. Ruit's live demonstration at the 2008 meeting in Hong Kong, removed any possible reasons for other eye doctors to question the value of Dr. Ruit's cataract procedure.

Question: Dr. Ruit invited Dr. Chang to participate in a clinical trial so that other eye doctors
  1. would adopt his efficient and economical surgical method that yielded excellent results.
  2. would move to Nepal and open their own eye centers to cure avoidable blindness.
  3. would raise funds so he could purchase modern equipment like that used in California.
  4. would nominate him for an award that would bring him international recognition for his work.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: How would you apply what you learned in a selection to your own life?

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

9A: Comparing/Contrasting

9A: Comparing/Contrasting

Description: Compare, Contrast, and/or Integrate

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-51

H-51

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1624 words
Author: David Alexander
Synopsis: Tennis legends Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King shared many of the same qualities and used their fame for good causes.
Excerpt: In 1974, Billie Jean established the Women's Sports Foundation to make the lives of women and girls better through sports. "In the 1970s, we had to make it acceptable for people to accept girls and women as athletes," she said. "We had to make it okay for them to be active."

Ashe was active in protesting the apartheid policies that discriminated against blacks in South Africa. In 1985, he was arrested at an anti-apartheid rally outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. He was arrested again in 1992 while protesting a crackdown on refugees from Haiti.

Question: Read these two excerpts. What two things do they tell you about King and Ashe?
  1. They both were active in fighting discrimination.
  2. They both experienced some kind of discrimination.
  3. They both were willing to be arrested for protesting unfair government policies.
  4. They both retired from tennis and became owners of successful tennis businesses.
  5. They both thought all boys and girls should join the tennis teams at their schools.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Compare and contrast two stages of a fictional or real person's life. Use details from a selection you have read to illustrate and explain your answer.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

9B: Classifying

9B: Classifying

Description: Classify

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-64

H-64

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1684 words
Author: Ellen R. Braaf
Synopsis: So where did dogs come from? Scientists have narrowed down the dog's ancestors to a single species—the gray wolf.
Excerpt: During the last Ice Age, about 60,000 to 12,000 years ago, ancient humans and wolves had much in common. They were hunters who shared the same lands and competed for the same prey. And both lived in well-organized social groups.

Question: Which list of words best describes the similarities between wolves and ancient humans?
  1. hunters, territorial, organized, social
  2. gatherers, peaceful, messy, aloof
  3. scavengers, dangerous, smart, quick
  4. vicious, aggressive, productive, lonely

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: List three of your personal interests. By using the Internet or visiting a library, find five books that relate to each of those interests. Label the books as fiction or non-fiction and indicate how each book relates to an interest.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

1A: Recalling Explicit Details

Description: Identifying explicit details including character, time, setting and speaker

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-1

H-1

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1899 words
Author: Tamara Ellis Smith
Synopsis: A boy and his father fight the waves and wind to escape an epic storm.
Excerpt: Zavion turned his head and saw his house, or what was remaining of his house, which now appeared as a receding, tattered box in the distance. Damaged beams gave the impression of legs buckled at the knees. Then more tiles flew off the collapsing roof, like seagulls crashing into waves to snatch their dinner.

Zavion decided to grab two shattered shingles as they drifted by.

Question: What does Zavion grab from his house as he departs?
  1. shingles from the roof
  2. one of his dad's paintings
  3. a box of juice
  4. a roll of canvas

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe a selection you have read that has an untrustworthy narrator and explain how you know the narrator is untrustworthy.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

1B: Analyzing Implicit Details

Description: Drawing Conclusions, Making Inferences from information in text

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-2

H-2

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1800 words
Author: Jules Verne
Synopsis: Is the mysterious object a floating island, a gigantic whale, or a creature unknown to science?
Excerpt: On March 5, 1867, the "Moravian" from the Montreal Ocean Company ran afoul of a rock marked on no charts of these waterways.

This event, extremely serious in itself, might perhaps have been forgotten like so many others, if three weeks later it had not been reenacted under the same conditions. Only, thanks to the nationality of the ship damaged by this new ramming, and thanks to the reputation of the company to which this ship belonged, the event caused a huge uproar.

Question: Choose the sentence in this excerpt that explains why the damage to the "Scotia" made big news.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: What text clues in a selection led you to conclude that a character was good or evil?

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

2B: Analyzing Relative Importance

Description: Determining Relative Importance

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-4

H-4

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1968 words
Author: Anonymous
Synopsis: Things go wrong when Cupid wounds himself with his own arrow.
Excerpt: Cupid prepared to obey his mother's orders. There were two fountains in Venus' garden, one of sweet waters, another of bitter. Cupid filled two vases, one from each fountain, and rushed to the chamber of Psyche, whom he found asleep. He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips, and then touched her side with the point of his arrow. At the touch she opened her eyes upon Cupid (himself invisible), who was so startled in his confusion that he wounded himself with his own arrow.

Question: The main reason Cupid falls in love with Psyche is he
  1. wounded himself with his own arrow.
  2. was obeying his mother's orders.
  3. mixed up the bitter and sweet water.
  4. was charmed by her golden locks.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Have you ever read a selection in which you felt the author "got off the track"? Describe parts of the selection that could be eliminated without affecting the overall plot.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

2C: Summarizing

2C: Summarizing

Description: Summarizing

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-12

H-12

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1910 words
Author: Mary R. Dunn
Synopsis: Many Japanese families living in the United States were uprooted during the war.
Excerpt: When the truck finally reached its destination, Jackson yanked aside the tarp and surveyed the strange world outside. A barbed-wire fence enclosed the property and armed soldiers paced back and forth near a sign that read, "Manzanar War Relocation Center." In a tower high above the grounds, another armed soldier stood guard, surveying the landscape and shouting orders to soldiers below.

Question: What does this excerpt tell you about the relocation center?
  1. The people inside were treated like prisoners.
  2. The armed soldiers were there to protect the people inside.
  3. The people inside could come and go as they pleased.
  4. The tower was a good place for the people inside to view the landscape.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Write ten "Tweets" describing the plots of your favorite stories.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3A: Predicting Outcomes

3A: Predicting Outcomes

Description: Predicting Outcomes

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-9

H-9

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1657 words
Author: Ben Robinson
Synopsis: Germs are everywhere so it's a good idea to have a plan of protection.
Excerpt: After the athletic director and Coach Carter were notified, new policies to arrest the spread of MRSA and prevent future contamination were adopted. All athletes were checked and those who showed signs of infection received treatment. The mats had to be washed after every practice and meet to eliminate any residue from perspiration. In addition, all wrestlers were required to wash their hands with soap or hand sanitizer in the bathroom before and after practice. Finally, all team members had to wash their uniforms after every use.

Question: How could Steve's case of MRSA be viewed as something positive?
  1. New policies were enacted to prevent its spread to others.
  2. Wrestling team members were provided with new mats.
  3. Infected members were barred from watching sports events.
  4. Bathrooms were cleaned and inspected at regular intervals.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe a selection that had a cliffhanger ending and explain why you were unable to predict the ending from context clues.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

3B: Analyzing Plot/Character

Description: Analyzing setting, plot, and character

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-32

H-32

Grade level: 8
Word count: 2030 words
Author: Anna Fisher
Synopsis: Many people escaped from East Germany through tunnels under the Berlin Wall, but some did not make it.
Excerpt: "It's the anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall," Gram unexpectedly remarked, as Maggie started back into the kitchen. "Do you know about the wall that separated West Berlin from East Berlin?"

Maggie paused and faced her grandmother. "Of course, Gram, we studied the Cold War in history class. People from the eastern side couldn't escape, while those on the western side were free."

Then, one day, we watched as members of the Soviet militia brought out rolls of barbed wire, stringing it along the east-west border. Living conditions had worsened in East Germany, as the economic situation became bleak; in fact, government officials forced people to work on state-owned farms because there was a food shortage.

Question: In which two ways were the lives of people in East Berlin different from those in West Berlin?
  1. East Berliners could not travel freely to and from the area.
  2. East Berliners experienced shortages of food.
  3. East Berliners were not permitted to get an education.
  4. East Berliners had to turn in all their valuables to the government.
  5. East Berliners had no means of sending letters through the mail.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: How could an author use a change in setting to show the journey of a fictional character from innocence to maturity? Give an example from a selection you have read.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

3C: Analyzing Cause/Effect

Description: Analyzing Cause and Effect

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-34

H-34

Grade level: 8
Word count: 2065 words
Author: Claire O'Connell
Synopsis: The pressure is on Lucas. He is the only one of his brothers left to take over the family fishing business.
Excerpt: Lucas Tanner scratched a mosquito bite on his arm and then cast his line. "Saw the rest of the riggers go out to Minette Point this morning, so I guess we'll be the only fishing smack in Oyster Bay."

Mr. Tanner wrenched a dead shrimp from his barb, threw it over the side of the skiff, and hooked the curve of his Eagle Claw into an eyelet. "There's too much competition unless we find more remote inlets. After the oil spill of 2010, it's been near impossible to make a living, especially with your brothers off truck driving.

Question: Choose the sentence in this excerpt that indicates why Lucas and his father decided to fish in Oyster Bay.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Give an example of how recognizing cause and effect helped you better understand the plot development of a selection.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

4B: Interpreting Analogies

4B: Interpreting Analogies

Description: Interpreting Analogies

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-2

H-2

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1800 words
Author: Jules Verne
Synopsis: Is the mysterious object a floating island, a gigantic whale, or a creature unknown to science?
Excerpt: In every big city the monster was the latest rage. The people sang about it in the coffee houses. They ridiculed it in the newspapers. They dramatized it in the theaters. And the tabloids found it a fine opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In those newspapers short of copy, you saw the revival of every huge imaginary creature from "Moby Dick," that dreadful white whale, to the amazing squid that could entwine a 500-ton ship and drag it into the bottom of the ocean. They even reprinted reports from ancient times.

Question: Based on this excerpt, how could coverage of the monster by the media be described?
  1. making it the current fad
  2. ignoring it as a news item
  3. presenting just the facts
  4. calmly studying the situation

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Draw five columns and label each one with one of your five senses. Find examples of figurative language from selections you have read that relate to each sense.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

4C: Visualizing

4C: Visualizing

Description: Visualizing

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-6

H-6

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1907 words
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Synopsis: No one can escape death by hiding behind a mask.
Excerpt: Now in no one of the seven rooms was there any lamp amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or that hung from the roof. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a metal bowl of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances.

Question: If you took a tour of the section of the abbey with the seven rooms, you would see
  1. garish rays of light reflecting off tinted glass.
  2. elaborate lamps hanging from the roof.
  3. bright sunlight streaming in through clear windows.
  4. dark corridors having no source of illumination.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Describe how you relate scenes you visualize from reading with real life scenes. Give examples.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

6B: Recognizing Persuasion

Description: Recognizing Persuasive Devices

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-7

H-7

Grade level: 8
Word count: 1853 words
Author: Karen Berman
Synopsis: An immigrant takes a grueling voyage to improve her life.
Excerpt: In Poland, people endure great poverty and suffering, and the country's leaders blame Jews. Government officials permit people to take out their frustrations on us, rather than trying to make improvements."

"Remember, Sheyna," he had cautioned, "there are good-hearted people everywhere, and some neighbors have risked their lives to protect us from impending pogroms, enabling us to seek safe shelter in the forest. We have been very fortunate, and we owe them our gratitude."

Question: This excerpt shows the author refrains from portraying the villagers as stereotypes because she includes references to people
  1. who helped the Jews escape persecution.
  2. who protested the preparations for war.
  3. who supported the draft of the Russian Army.
  4. who disagreed with government policies.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Give examples of the use of rhetoric in a selection and tell how it influenced your interpretation of the selection's ideas or themes.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions

9A: Comparing/Contrasting

9A: Comparing/Contrasting

Description: Compare, Contrast, and/or Integrate

SeeReader
✓ standard met

Selection: H-32

H-32

Grade level: 8
Word count: 2030 words
Author: Anna Fisher
Synopsis: Many people escaped from East Germany through tunnels under the Berlin Wall, but some did not make it.
Excerpt: Gram shuffled into the kitchen, tapping her metal cane on the linoleum floor, her brocade lounging jacket hanging loosely over her shoulders. "Please help me into the parlor, Maggie; I hope you'll join me for some tea this afternoon."

A month later, Gram boarded the plane with almost no assistance from Maggie, who had noticed that her grandmother appeared much younger since they had started planning their trip. She was steadier on her feet and her face seemed to have fewer wrinkles.

Question: What do these two excerpts tell you about Gram?
  1. Gram felt revived by her decision to visit her homeland.
  2. Gram let her health deteriorate from inactivity.
  3. Gram was happy to be dependent on her family.
  4. Gram made a decision to take better care of herself.

Writing
✓ standard met

Writing prompt: Compare and contrast the views expressed by a fictional character to your own views.

Evaluator

Organization: Certica Solutions