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Common Core LiteracyGrades 6–8History & Social Studies

RH.6-8.3: Key Steps in a History or Civics Process

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.3 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

Get the Sequence OrganizerAll 29 Grades 6–8 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Identify key steps in a text's description of a process related to history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered).

Common Core State Standards, Grades 6-8, Reading: History & Social Studies · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RH.6-8.3 Means in Plain English

Students pull the key steps out of a text that explains how something works in civics, history or economics, in order and with what triggers each one. A textbook account of the Northwest Ordinance hides three statehood steps among details about surveys and rights.

Fifth grade (RI.5.3) explained how events and ideas in a historical text relate. Grades 6 to 8 narrow that to processes, like how a territory becomes a state. Ninth and tenth grade (RH.9-10.3) ask whether earlier events caused later ones or simply came first.

RH.6-8.3 I Can Statements

  • I can find the steps of a process in a history text.
  • I can tell a real step from background information.
  • I can name what has to happen before each step.

RH.6-8.3 Worked Example

The passage tucks three statehood steps among surveys and rights, and the weak answer counts the wrong things as steps.

Read the Story
From a textbook written for this page: In 1785, Congress ordered the western land north of the Ohio River surveyed into square townships, six miles on each side, so it could be sold to settlers.Two years later, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 laid out how that land would become states. At first, Congress itself would appoint a governor, a secretary and three judges to run each territory.Once a territory counted 5,000 free adult men, its voters could elect representatives to a territorial legislature and send a delegate to Congress, who could speak but not vote.When a territory reached 60,000 free inhabitants, it could write a state constitution and ask to join, in the Ordinance’s words, “on an equal footing with the original States.”The Ordinance also banned slavery in the territory and promised settlers freedom of religion and trial by jury.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: What are the key steps a territory followed to become a state under the Northwest Ordinance? List them in order, with what triggered each one.
Not Yet“1. Congress surveyed the land into townships. 2. Congress appointed a governor. 3. Slavery was banned. 4. The territory became a state.”It mixes in two things that are not steps toward statehood, the survey and the slavery ban, and it skips the elected legislature. It also never says what moved a territory from one step to the next: its population.
Meets the Standard“Step 1: Congress appoints a governor, a secretary and three judges to run the territory. Step 2: once there are 5,000 free adult men, voters elect a legislature and send a delegate to Congress who can speak but not vote. Step 3: at 60,000 free inhabitants, the territory writes a state constitution and joins as an equal of the original states. The survey and the slavery ban matter, but they are not steps in this process.”It keeps only the steps of the process, puts them in order, names the population number that triggers each, and explains why the other facts were left out.
Question Stems to Use
What process does this text describe? Where does it begin and end?What has to happen before the next step can start?Which words signal a new step: at first, once, when, then?Is this detail a step in the process, or background about it?Could you draw this process as a flowchart from what the text says?

Common Mistakes with RH.6-8.3

Counting background as steps

“Step 1: The land was surveyed into townships.”

Try this: Have students ask of each detail whether the process could still happen without it, and keep only the details that are true steps.

Listing steps without what triggers them

“Then the territory got a legislature.”

Try this: Require a when or once clause for every step, naming the condition, such as a population number, that moves the process forward.

Copying the paragraph instead of extracting steps

Three full sentences of the passage copied out and numbered

Try this: Limit each step to ten words in the student’s own phrasing, then check the steps against the text for order and completeness.

Where RH.6-8.3 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.5.3Explain how people, events or ideas in a historical or scientific text relate, using specific details.
AlongsideRI.8.3Analyze the connections and distinctions a text draws among people, ideas and events.WHST.6-8.2Explain a historical or civic process in writing, with precise subject terms.
Comes NextRH.9-10.3Analyze a series of events and decide whether earlier ones caused later ones.

Practice RH.6-8.3

Fill-in-the-Blank GeneratorFree ToolTurn the steps of a civics process into a cloze passage, blanking the triggers and order words so students rebuild the process themselves.Civics processOrder wordsGrades 6-8
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Quick Check

  1. What triggered the second step, an elected legislature?
  2. What could a territory do once it reached 60,000 free inhabitants?
  3. Why is the 1785 survey not a step in this process?

RH.6-8.3: Other Names

RH.6-8.3CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.3

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.