Unit Plan 13 (Grade 8 ELA): Informational Text Structures Across Articles
8th graders analyze how authors use sequence, cause/effect, and comparison structures to connect ideas and events across multiple informational texts, building comprehension and synthesizing structure-driven insights across a text set.
Focus: Sequence, cause/effect, comparison; reading across a text set
Grade Level: 8
Subject Area: English Language Arts (Reading—Informational)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Writers of informational texts make structural choices—sequence, cause/effect, comparison—that guide readers to see connections and distinctions among people, ideas, and events. This week, students analyze those choices in a three-piece text set on a shared topic, track how sections contribute to the whole, and synthesize structure-driven insights across articles to build independent, grade-level comprehension.
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to…
- Identify and analyze dominant and embedded structures (sequence, cause/effect, comparison) and explain how sections contribute to ideas in the whole text (RI.8.5).
- Trace connections and distinctions among individuals, ideas, and events using authors’ organizational moves (RI.8.3).
- Read and annotate grade-level complex informational texts with increasing independence; produce a structure-aware synthesis across a text set (RI.8.10).
Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 8
- RI.8.5: Analyze the structure an author uses, including how major sections contribute to the whole and to idea development.
- RI.8.3: Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events (e.g., comparisons, analogies, categories).
- RI.8.10: Read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of grades 6–8 complexity independently and proficiently.
Success Criteria — student language
- I can name the dominant structure of a section and cite signal words/features.
- I can explain how a section advances or clarifies the author’s overall idea.
- I can map connections/distinctions among key ideas/people/events.
- I can write a cross-text synthesis that uses structure language (e.g., “in contrast,” “as a result,” “subsequently”).