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Common Core LiteracyGrades 9–10History & Social Studies

RH.9-10.3: Caused It or Simply Came First

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.3 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 29 Grades 9–10 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

Common Core State Standards, Grades 9-10, Reading: History & Social Studies · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RH.9-10.3 Means in Plain English

Ninth and tenth graders trace a chain of events in a history text and decide, link by link, whether each earlier event produced the next or only happened first. A 1969 river fire came before new environmental laws, but earlier fires on the same river had changed nothing.

Middle school (RH.6-8.3) asked students to pick out the key steps of a process, like how a bill becomes law. Ninth and tenth grade test the links between events. In eleventh and twelfth grade (RH.11-12.3), students weigh rival explanations and judge which the evidence supports best.

RH.9-10.3 I Can Statements

  • I can put a series of historical events in order.
  • I can tell an event that caused another from one that preceded it.
  • I can use an earlier case to test a claimed cause.

RH.9-10.3 Worked Example

The passage lists a river fire and three new laws in order, and the weak answer takes the order as proof of cause.

Read the Story
On June 22, 1969, oil-soaked debris floating on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. Firefighters had it out within the hour, and the next morning’s local papers treated it as a minor story.It was not the river’s first fire. The Cuyahoga had burned many times since the 1860s, and a 1952 blaze had done far more damage, yet those fires had led to no national laws.What changed in 1969 was the audience. Concern about dirty air and water had been building through the decade. That January, an oil well blowout off Santa Barbara, California, had sent crude onto the beaches, and television carried pictures of oil-soaked seabirds across the country. In August, Time magazine ran a story on the Cuyahoga, illustrated with a dramatic photograph that was in fact from the 1952 fire.On January 1, 1970, President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act. That December the new EPA opened its doors, and in 1972 the Clean Water Act became law over Nixon’s veto.Ever since, the 1969 fire has been told as the spark that lit the nation’s environmental laws.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: The passage moves from 1952 to 1972. Which earlier events does the text show producing later ones, and which simply came first? Use the text to decide whether the 1969 fire caused the new laws.
Not Yet“The river caught fire in 1969, then the EPA opened in 1970 and the Clean Water Act passed in 1972. So the fire caused the laws, like the passage says.”It treats order as proof of cause and takes the last sentence, a report of how the story is usually told, as the author’s own claim. It skips the 1952 fire, which did more damage and changed nothing.
Meets the Standard“The text shows that the fire alone did not cause the laws. Earlier fires, including a worse one in 1952, ‘had led to no national laws,’ so a burning river was not enough by itself. What the passage does connect is attention: concern had been ‘building through the decade,’ the Santa Barbara spill put oil-soaked seabirds on television across the country, and Time turned a ‘minor story’ into a national symbol with a photograph that was ‘in fact from the 1952 fire.’ That attention plausibly fed the pressure behind the 1970 act, the EPA and the 1972 Clean Water Act. So the 1969 fire preceded the laws and became a symbol of the need for them, but the passage gives no evidence that it caused them. Calling it ‘the spark’ mistakes order for cause.”It uses the earlier fire as a test case, separates what the passage shows from how the story is retold, and names the causal link the text does support: public attention, not the fire itself.
Question Stems to Use
Which events does the passage connect with words like because, so or led to?Did something like this happen earlier without the same result? What does that tell you?What else was happening at the same time that could explain the later event?Is the passage stating a cause, or reporting what people say the cause was?Would the later event have happened without the earlier one? What in the text suggests an answer?

Common Mistakes with RH.9-10.3

Treating order as cause

“The fire happened in 1969 and the EPA opened in 1970, so the fire caused the EPA.”

Try this: Require text evidence for every causal link, a stated connection or a pattern, before students write that one event caused another.

Ignoring the earlier cases

Skipping the sentence about the 1952 fire because it seems out of order

Try this: Point students to earlier cases in the text and ask why the same event did not produce the same result then.

Repeating the popular story as the text’s claim

“The passage says the fire was the spark for the laws.”

Try this: Have students mark sentences that report what people say happened, and keep them apart from what the author demonstrates with evidence.

Where RH.9-10.3 Fits

Comes BeforeRH.6-8.3Identify the key steps in a text’s description of a civics or economics process.
AlongsideRI.9-10.3Analyze how an author orders and connects a series of ideas or events.WHST.9-10.1Argue a historical claim with precise evidence and a fairly weighed counterclaim.
Comes NextRH.11-12.3Weigh rival explanations for an event and judge which the evidence supports best.

Practice RH.9-10.3

Quick Check

  1. Why does the 1952 fire matter to the question of cause?
  2. What does the passage say changed in 1969?
  3. What was unusual about the photograph Time used?

RH.9-10.3: Other Names

RH.9-10.3CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.3

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.