RH.11-12.5: How a Primary Source Is Built
Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.5 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.
The Official Wording
Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Reading: History & Social Studies · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What RH.11-12.5 Means in Plain English
Juniors and seniors take a demanding primary source apart and explain the job each part does, from a single sentence to a whole section. The Monroe Doctrine is not one statement but two passages, set far apart in a long 1823 message to Congress about other business.
Ninth and tenth grade (RH.9-10.5) asked how a history text’s structure, like a timeline or a cause-and-effect chapter, builds its explanation. Grades 11-12 take on primary sources, where the order of parts was itself a decision. This is the last band of the line, the college and career readiness level.
RH.11-12.5 I Can Statements
- I can outline how a complex primary source is organized.
- I can explain what a key sentence or paragraph does for the whole.
- I can explain why the author placed a section where it is.
RH.11-12.5 Worked Example
The passage describes the real 1823 message and quotes two of its sentences, which are in the public domain; the weak answer reads the doctrine as if it stood alone.
Context: On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe sent Congress his annual message, a long report on the state of the nation. Most of it covered ordinary business, such as the Treasury, the army and the navy.Early in the message, in a paragraph about talks with Russia over the northwest coast of the continent, Monroe stated that “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”Near the end, he turned to Spain’s former colonies, which had declared independence, and to fears that European monarchies might help Spain win them back. The United States, he wrote, would regard any attempt to extend their system “to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”Around that second passage, Monroe added two promises: the United States would stay out of Europe’s own wars, and it would not interfere with European colonies that already existed.Context: Monroe’s cabinet had weighed a joint statement with the British government and chose to speak for the United States alone. The two passages were not called the Monroe Doctrine until decades later.
Common Mistakes with RH.11-12.5
Reading the famous line alone
“The Monroe Doctrine is the sentence about future colonization.”
Try this: Have students mark where each famous line sits in the full document and summarize the paragraphs on either side of it.
Outlining without analyzing
“Part one is about Russia. Part two is about Spain’s colonies.”
Try this: Require a because for every part of the outline, naming the job that part does for the document’s overall purpose.
Treating a later label as the author’s plan
“Monroe wrote the Monroe Doctrine as a single policy document.”
Try this: Ask students to separate the document as written from what later readers named and built on it, and to date each.
Where RH.11-12.5 Fits
Practice RH.11-12.5
Quick Check
- Where in the message does the rule against future colonization appear?
- What fear does the passage near the end answer?
- What two promises does Monroe make around the second passage?