Find resources aligned to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

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. The student is expected to:

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

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

use text evidence to support an appropriate response;

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

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

respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate;

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

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

reflect on and adjust responses as new evidence is presented; and

defend or challenge the authors' claims using relevant text evidence.

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. The student is expected to:

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

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

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

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

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. The student is expected to:

demonstrate knowledge of literary genres such as realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, humor, fantasy, science fiction, and short stories;

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;

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

analyze characteristics and structural elements of informational text, including:

the controlling idea or thesis with supporting evidence;

features such as footnotes, endnotes, and citations; and

multiple organizational patterns within a text to develop the thesis;

analyze characteristics and structures of argumentative text by:

identifying the claim and analyzing the argument;

identifying and explaining the counter argument; and

identifying the intended audience or reader; and

analyze characteristics of multimodal and digital texts.

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. The student is expected to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. The student is expected to:

plan a first draft by selecting a genre appropriate for a particular topic, purpose, and audience using a range of strategies such as discussion, background reading, and personal interests;

develop drafts into a focused, structured, and coherent piece of writing by:

organizing with purposeful structure, including an introduction, transitions, coherence within and across paragraphs, and a conclusion; and

developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with specific facts, details, and examples;

revise drafts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety;

edit drafts using standard English conventions, including:

complete complex sentences with subject-verb agreement and avoidance of splices, run-ons, and fragments;

consistent, appropriate use of verb tenses and active and passive voice;

prepositions and prepositional phrases and their influence on subject-verb agreement;

pronoun-antecedent agreement;

correct capitalization;

punctuation, including commas in nonrestrictive phrases and clauses, semicolons, colons, and parentheses; and