8th Grade ELAR TEKS:

Fluency
8.1: Students read grade-level text with fluency and comprehension. Students
are expected to:
8.1A: Adjust fluency when reading aloud grade-level text based on the reading
purpose and the nature of the text.
Vocabulary Development
8.2: Students understand new vocabulary and use it when reading and
writing. Students are expected to:
8.2A: Determine the meaning of grade-level academic English words derived from
Latin, Greek, or other linguistic roots and affixes.
8.2B: Use context (within a sentence and in larger sections of text) to determine or
clarify the meaning of unfamiliar or ambiguous words or words with novel meanings.
8.2C: Complete analogies that describe a function or its description (e.g., pen:paper
as chalk: ______ or soft:kitten as hard: ______).
8.2D: Identify common words or word parts from other languages that are used in
written English (e.g., phenomenon, charisma, chorus, pass, flora, fauna).
8.2E: Use a dictionary, a glossary, or a thesaurus (printed or electronic) to determine
the meanings, syllabication, pronunciations, alternate word choices, and parts of speech
of words.
Theme and Genre
8.3: Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about theme
and genre in different cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and
provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are
expected to:
8.3A: Analyze literary works that share similar themes across cultures.
8.3B: Compare and contrast the similarities and differences in mythologies from
various cultures (e.g., ideas of afterlife, roles and characteristics of deities, purposes of
myths).
8.3C: Explain how the values and beliefs of particular characters are affected by the
historical and cultural setting of the literary work.
Poetry
8.4: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
structure and elements of poetry and provide evidence from text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to:
8.4A: Compare and contrast the relationship between the purpose and
characteristics of different poetic forms (e.g., epic poetry, lyric poetry).
Drama
8.5: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
structure and elements of drama and provide evidence from text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to:
8.5A: Analyze how different playwrights characterize their protagonists and
antagonists through the dialogue and staging of their plays.
Fiction
8.6: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support

their understanding. Students are expected to:

8.6A: Analyze linear plot developments (e.g., conflict, rising action, falling action,
resolution, subplots) to determine whether and how conflicts are resolved.
8.6B: Analyze how the central characters' qualities influence the theme of a fictional
work and resolution of the central conflict.
8.6C: Analyze different forms of point of view, including limited versus
omniscient, subjective versus objective.
Literary Nonfiction
8.7: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
varied structural patterns and features of literary
nonfiction and respond by providing evidence from text to support their
understanding. Students are expected to:
8.7A: Analyze passages in wellknown speeches for the authors use of literary
devices and word and phrase choice (e.g., aphorisms, epigraphs) to appeal to the
audience.
Sensory Language
8.8: Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about how
an authors sensory language creates imagery in
literary text and provide evidence from text to support their understanding.
Students are expected to:
8.8A: Explain the effect of similes and extended metaphors in literary text
Culture and History
8.9: Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about the
author's purpose in cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts and
provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Students are
expected
to:
8.9A: Analyze works written on the same topic and compare how the authors
achieved similar or different purposes.
Expository Text
8.10: Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about
expository text and provide evidence from text to support
their understanding. Students are expected to:
8.10A: Summarize the main ideas, supporting details, and relationships among ideas
in text succinctly in ways that maintain meaning and logical order.
8.10B: Distinguish factual claims from commonplace assertions and opinions and
evaluate inferences from their logic in text.
8.10C: Make subtle inferences and draw complex conclusions about the ideas in text
and their organizational patterns.
8.10D: Synthesize and make logical connections between ideas within a text and
across two or three texts representing
similar or different genres and support those findings with textual evidence.
Persuasive Text
8.11: Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about
persuasive text and provide evidence from text to support their analysis.
Students are expected to:
8.11A: Compare and contrast persuasive texts that reached different conclusions

about the same issue and explain how the authors reached their conclusions through
analyzing the evidence each presents.
8.11B: Analyze the use of such rhetorical and logical fallacies as loaded terms,
caricatures, leading questions, false assumptions, and incorrect premises in persuasive
texts.
Procedural Texts
8.12: Students understand how to glean and use information in procedural
texts and documents. Students are expected to:
8.12A: Analyze text for missing or extraneous information in multi-step directions or
legends for diagrams.
8.12B: Evaluate graphics for their clarity in communicating meaning or achieving a
specific purpose
Media
8.13: Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words,
images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to
impact meaning. Students will continue to apply earlier standards with
greater depth in increasingly more complex texts.
Students are expected to:
8.13A: Evaluate the role of media in focusing attention on events and informing
opinion on issues.
8.13B: Interpret how visual and sound techniques (e.g., special effects, camera
angles, lighting, music) influence the message.
8.13C: Evaluate various techniques used to create a point of view in media and the
impact on audience.
8.13D: Assess the correct level of formality and tone for successful participation in
various digital media
Writing Process
8.14: Students use elements of the writing process (planning, drafting,
revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students are expected to:
8.14A: Plan a first draft by selecting a genre appropriate for conveying the intended
meaning to an audience, determining appropriate topics through a range of strategies
(e.g., discussion, background reading, personal interests, interviews), and developing a
thesis or controlling idea.
8.14B: Develop drafts by choosing an appropriate organizational strategy (e.g.,
sequence of events, cause-effect, compare-contrast) and building on ideas to create a
focused, organized, and coherent piece of writing.
8.14C: Revise drafts to ensure precise word choice and vivid images; consistent
point of view; use of simple, compound, and complex sentences; internal and external
coherence; and the use of effective transitions after rethinking how well questions of
purpose, audience, and genre have been addressed.
8.14D: Edit drafts for grammar, mechanics, and spelling.
8.14E: Revise final draft in response to feedback from peers and teacher and publish
written work for appropriate audiences.
Literary Texts
8.15: Students write literary texts to express their ideas and feelings about
real or imagined people, events, and ideas.
Students are expected to:
8.15A: Write an imaginative story that:

8.15A.i: Sustains reader interest.

8.15A.ii: includes well-paced action and an engaging story line.
8.15A.iii: creates a specific, believable setting through the use of sensory details.
8.15A.iv: develops interesting characters.
8.15A.v: uses a range of literary strategies and devices to enhance the style
and tone.
8.15B: Write a poem using:
8.15B.i: etic techniques (e.g., rhyme scheme, meter).
8.15B.ii: figurative language (e.g., personification, idioms, hyperbole).
8.15B.iii: graphic elements (e.g., word position).
Personal
8.16: Students write about their own experiences. Students are expected to:
8.16A: Write a personal narrative that has a clearly defined focus and includes
reflections on
decisions, actions, and/or consequences.
Expository and Procedural Texts
8.17: Students write expository and procedural or work-related texts to
communicate ideas and information to specific audiences for specific
purposes.
8.17A: Write a multi-paragraph essay to convey information about a topic
that:
8.17A.i: presents effective introductions and concluding paragraphs.
8.17A.ii: contains a clearly stated purpose or controlling idea.
8.17A.iii: is logically organized with appropriate facts and details and includes no
extraneous information or inconsistencies.
8.17A.iv: accurately synthesizes ideas from several sources.
8.17A.v: uses a variety of sentence structures, rhetorical devices, and transitions
to link paragraphs.
8.17B: Write a letter that reflects an opinion, registers a complaint, or requests
information in a business or friendly context.
8.17C: Write responses to literary or expository texts that demonstrate the use of
writing skills for a multi-paragraph essay and provide sustained evidence from the text
using quotations when appropriate.
8.17D: Produce a multimedia presentation involving text, graphics, images, and
sound using available technology.
Persuasive Texts
8.18: Students write persuasive texts to influence the attitudes or actions of a
specific audience on specific issues. Students are
expected to write a persuasive essay to the appropriate audience that:
8.18A: Establishes a clear thesis or position.
8.18B: Considers and responds to the views of others and anticipates and answers
reader concerns and counterarguments.
8.18C: Includes evidence that is logically organized to support the author's viewpoint
and that differentiates between fact and opinion.
Conventions
8.19: Students understand the function of and use the conventions of
academic language when speaking and writing.
Students will continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity.

Students are expected to:

8.19A: Use and understand the function of the following parts of speech in
the context of reading, writing, and speaking:
8.19A.i: verbs (perfect and progressive tenses) and participles.
8.19A.ii: appositive phrases.
8.19A.iii: adverbial and adjectival phrases and clauses.
8.19A.iv: relative pronouns (e.g., whose, that, which).
8.19A.v: subordinating conjunctions (e.g., because, since).
8.19B: Write complex sentences and differentiate between main versus
subordinate clauses.
8.19C: Use a variety of complete sentences (e.g., simple, compound, complex) that
include properly placed modifiers, correctly identified antecedents, parallel structures,
and consistent tenses.
Conventions of Language
Handwriting
8.20: Students write legibly and use appropriate capitalization and
punctuation conventions in their compositions. Students will continue to
apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
8.20A: Use conventions of capitalization.
8.20B: Use correct punctuation marks, including:
8.20B.i: commas after introductory structures and dependent adverbial
clauses, and correct punctuation of complex sentences.
8.20B.ii: semicolons, colons, hyphens, parentheses, brackets,
and ellipses.
Spelling
8.21: Students spell correctly. Students are expected to:
8.21A: Spell correctly, including using various resources to determine and
check correct spellings
Research Plan
Students ask open-ended research questions and develop a plan for
answering them. Students are expected to:
8.22A: Brainstorm, consult with others, decide upon a topic, and formulate a major
research question to address the major research topic.
8.22B: Apply steps for obtaining and evaluating information from a wide variety of
sources and create a written plan after preliminary research in reference works and
additional text searches.
Gathering Sources
8.23: question and systematically record the information they gather.
Students are expected to:
8.23A: Follow the research plan to gather information from a range of relevant print
and electronic sources using advanced
search strategies.
8.23B: Categorize information thematically in order to see the larger constructs
inherent in the information.
8.23C: Record bibliographic information (e.g., author, title, page number) for all
notes and sources according to a standard format.
8.23D: Differentiate between paraphrasing and plagiarism and identify the
importance of using valid and reliable sources.

Synthesizing Information
8.24: Students clarify research questions and evaluate and synthesize
collected information. Students are expected to:
8.24A: Narrow or broaden the major research question, if necessary, based on
further research and investigation.
8.24B: Utilize elements that demonstrate the reliability and validity of the sources
used (e.g., publication date, coverage,
language, point of view) and explain why one source is more useful and relevant than
another.
Organizing and Presenting Ideas
8.25: Students organize and present their ideas and information according to
the purpose of the research and their audience.
Students are expected to synthesize the research into a written or an oral
presentation that:
8.25A: Draws conclusions and summarizes or paraphrases the findings in a
systematic way.
8.25B: Marshals evidence to explain the topic and gives relevant reasons
for conclusions.
8.25C: Presents the findings in a meaningful format.
8.25D: Follows accepted formats for integrating quotations and citations into the
written text to maintain a flow of ideas
Listening
8.26: Students will use comprehension skills to listen attentively to others in
formal and informal settings. Students will continue to apply earlier standards
with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
8.26A: Listen to and interpret a speaker's purpose by explaining the content,
evaluating the delivery of the presentation, and
asking questions or making comments about the evidence that supports a speaker's
claims.
8.26B: Follow and give complex oral instructions to perform specific tasks, answer
questions, or solve problems.
8.26C: Summarize formal and informal presentations, distinguish between facts and
opinions, and determine the effectiveness of rhetorical devices.
Speaking
8.27: Students speak clearly and to the point, using the conventions of
language. Students will continue to apply earlier
standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
8.27A: Advocate a position using anecdotes, analogies, and/or illustrations, and use
eye contact, speaking rate, volume,
enunciation, a variety of natural gestures, and conventions of language to communicate
ideas effectively.
Teamwork
8.28: Students work productively with others in teams. Students will continue
to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are expected to:
8.28A: Participate productively in discussions, plan agendas with clear goals and
deadlines, set time limits for speakers,
take notes, and vote on key issues

Figure 19
Fig19A: Establish purposes for reading selected texts based upon own or others
desired outcome to enhance comprehension.
Fig19B: Ask literal, interpretive, evaluative, and universal questions of text.
Fig19C: Reflect on understanding to monitor comprehension (e.g., summarizing and
synthesizing; making textual, personal, and world connections; creating sensory
images).
Fig19D: Make complex inferences about text and use textual evidence to
support understanding.
Fig19E: Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize texts in ways that maintain meaning
and logical order within a text and across texts.
Fig19F: Make intertextual links among and across texts, including other media (e.g.,
film, play), and provide textual evidence.