Figure 6.25. Circles of Implementation of ELA/Literacy and ELD InstructionMeaning Making
In grade eight, the level of rigor and text complexity
continues to increase from earlier grades as students also
increase in their ability to generate meaningful analysis and
demonstrate understanding. Eighth graders make meaning
by analyzing and presenting relationships and connections
among ideas and information in reading, writing, and speaking.
Specifically they analyze the relationship of a theme to
characters, setting, and plot (RL.8.2) and analyze how a text
makes connections among and distinctions between individuals,
ideas, or events (RI.8.3). They delineate and evaluate
arguments and claims in a text (RI.8.8) and distinguish the
claims they make in their own writing from alternate or opposing
claims (W.8.1a). They explore and present relationships among
experiences, events, information, and ideas as they write
(W.8.3c, W.8.6) and pose questions during discussions that connect the ideas of several speakers
(SL.8.1c).
As in previous grades, students engage in meaning making as they read closely to understand
what a text says explicitly and to draw inferences from a text. Developing summaries, students sort
through the ideas of a text to identify those that are central, distilling their understandings to the
essence of a piece. For example, teachers might employ the activity in figure 6.26, This Is About/
This Is Really About, for this purpose. This activity guides students to be more precise when writing
summaries because it leads them to infer the main idea when it refers to an unstated theme or big
idea.
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