GENERAL STANDARD 9: Making Connections Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work by relating it to its contemporary context or historical background. By including supplementary reading selections that provide relevant historical and artistic background, teachers deepen students’ understanding of individual literary works and broaden their capacity to connect literature to other manifestations of the creative impulse.
9.1: Identify similarities in plot, setting, and character among the works of an author or illustrator.
For example, students read (or hear read aloud) several picture books by one author/illustrator such as Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss, William Steig, Peter Spier, Eric Carle, or Marc Brown. They make a list of the similarities they notice in the books.
9.2: Identify different interpretations of plot, setting, and character in the same work by different illustrators (alphabet books, nursery rhymes, counting books).
Grades 3–4
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
9.3: Identify similarities and differences between the characters or events in a literary work and the actual experiences in an author’s life.
For example, students read excerpts from a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and discuss how she drew upon her personal experiences when she wrote Little House on the Prairie.
5–8
Grades 5–6
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
9.4: Relate a literary work to information about its setting.
For example, students read The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen, by Lloyd Alexander. In order to understand its historical background, they read information about the T’ang dynasty of China and excerpts from the Analects of Confucius and relate what they learn to events and characters in the book.
Grades 7–8
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
9.5: Relate a literary work to artifacts, artistic creations, or historical sites of the period of its setting.
For example, students read Irene Hunt’s Across Five Aprils or Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage. In order to understand the historical background of the work, they examine Matthew Brady’s photographs from the Civil War, read excerpts from various soldiers’ diaries and letters, and study Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other Civil War songs. Then they relate what they learn to events, settings, and characters from the book.
9–10
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
9.6: Relate a literary work to primary source documents of its literary period or historical setting.
For example, students read The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In order to deepen their understanding of the early colonial period and of Puritan beliefs, they read poems by Anne Bradstreet, transcripts of witch trials in Salem, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” by Jonathan Edwards (a sermon written during the Great Awakening), and excerpts from several colonial-era diaries (Judge Sewall, William Byrd III, Mary Rowlandson). Then students relate what they have learned to events, characters, and themes in The Scarlet Letter.
11–12
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
9.7: Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time.
For example, students read Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Dover Beach.” In order to understand the 19th century controversy over the implications of evolutionary theory, they read letters, essays, and excerpts from the period. Then they use what they have learned to inform their understanding of the poem and write an interpretive essay.
Reading and Literature:
GENERAL STANDARD 10: Genre Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the characteristics of different genres. We become better readers by understanding both the structure and the conventions of different genres. A student who knows the formal qualities of a genre is able to anticipate how the text will evolve, appreciate the nuances that make a given text unique, and rely on this knowledge to make a deeper and subtler interpretation of the meaning of the text.
Grade Level
Learning Standards
PreK–4
Grades PreK–2
10.1: Identify differences among the common forms of literature: poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction (informational and expository), and dramatic literature. (See Glossary for definitions.)
For example, the teacher and students read together an Aesop tale, a Thornton Burgess tale, and a magazine article about woodland animals. They fill in a graphic organizer that shows the similarities and differences in the fable, fiction, and nonfiction and discuss what they learned from each form of literature.
Grades 3–4
(Continue to address earlier standard as needed and as it applies to more difficult texts.)
10.2: Distinguish among forms of literature such as poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, and drama and apply this knowledge as a strategy for reading and writing.
For example, after reading a variety of materials on bats, students write a class magazine that includes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction articles on the subject.
5–8
Grades 5–6
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
10.3: Identify and analyze the characteristics of various genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short story, dramatic literature) as forms with distinct characteristics and purposes.
For example, students read a variety of materials and write a short anthology of works, including several genres of literature, on an event or person in American history, or on an animal they have studied.
Grades 7–8
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
10.4: Identify and analyze the characteristics of various genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short story, dramatic literature) as forms chosen by an author to accomplish a purpose.
For example, students read Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and the play based on it. After analyzing the differences between them, students take excerpts from the diary not used in the play, create a scene, and perform it.
9–10
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
10.5: Compare and contrast the presentation of a theme or topic across genres to explain how the selection of genre shapes the message.
For example, students compare and contrast three reactions to Lincoln’s death: Walt Whitman’s poem, “O Captain, My Captain,” Frederick Douglass’s eulogy, and the report in the New York Times on April 12, 1865. They make specific contrasts between the impersonal newspaper report and the personal poem and eulogy and between the two personal genres.
11–12
(Continue to address earlier standards as needed and as they apply to more difficult texts.)
10.6: Identify and analyze characteristics of genres (satire, parody, allegory, pastoral) that overlap or cut across the lines of genre classifications such as poetry, prose, drama, short story, essay, and editorial.
For example, as they read Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, students consider: “Satirists harbor some distaste for the establishment and are most effective only when they present their message subtly. One way to present the savage follies of human beings more subtly is to create a fictional world in which humor, irony, circular logic, and double talk are used to make the disturbing, vulgar, and the gruesome more palatable.” They write essays evaluating the novel as an effective piece of satire based on the criteria in the statement.
