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Common Core LiteracyGrades 9–10History & Social Studies

RH.9-10.4: Political, Social and Economic Vocabulary

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.4 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.

Get the Frayer ModelAll 29 Grades 9–10 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social studies.

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

What RH.9-10.4 Means in Plain English

Ninth and tenth graders work out what a history text means by terms like tariff, suffrage or the gold standard, the vocabulary of politics, society and the economy. In an 1896 farm editorial, “sound money” names a fight between people who owed and people who lent.

Middle school (RH.6-8.4) taught the vocabulary of history, civics, geography and economics. Ninth and tenth grade focus on terms that name political, social and economic forces in context. In eleventh and twelfth grade (RH.11-12.4), students trace how an author refines a key term, like faction in Federalist No. 10.

RH.9-10.4 I Can Statements

  • I can explain a political or economic term as a text uses it.
  • I can use nearby sentences to work out a historical term.
  • I can tell when a writer repeats an opponent’s phrase to mock it.

RH.9-10.4 Worked Example

The editorial borrows its opponents’ phrase “sound money” to mock it, and the weak answer reads every term literally.

Read the Story
From an editorial in a Midwestern farm weekly, August 1896 (invented): “Since the war, the price of wheat has fallen year after year, and the farmer who borrowed a thousand dollars must now sell nearly twice the wheat he once did to pay it back. This is what the bankers call sound money.”“The gold standard is a blessing to the creditor and a curse to the debtor. Every year it holds, the dollar grows dearer and the debt grows heavier, though not a penny has been added to it.”“We ask for the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one, so that there may be money enough in the land to pay what we owe. Mr. Bryan put it plainly to the convention in July.”From William Jennings Bryan’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, July 9, 1896 (public domain): “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
A short passage written for this page.
Question: As this editor uses them, what do “sound money,” “the gold standard” and “the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one” mean, and what does Bryan’s “cross of gold” say about them?
Not Yet“Sound money means money that is safe and reliable. Free coinage means the government gives out free coins. A cross of gold is a cross made of gold.”Each meaning is a literal or dictionary guess, and two are wrong in context. The editor repeats “sound money” to mock it, free coinage is about how much money gets minted, and Bryan’s cross is a metaphor for suffering.
Meets the Standard“‘Sound money’ is the bankers’ name for a dollar tied to gold, and the editor repeats it with sarcasm, since that ‘sound’ dollar is ruining him. Under the gold standard the supply of money is limited, prices fall, and each dollar ‘grows dearer.’ That is deflation, and it is ‘a curse to the debtor,’ who must repay a fixed debt with harder-earned dollars, and ‘a blessing to the creditor’ who lent them. ‘The free coinage of silver at sixteen to one’ does not mean free coins. It means the government would coin all the silver brought to it, sixteen ounces of silver counting as one of gold, so that more money circulates and crop prices rise. Bryan’s ‘cross of gold’ turns the gold standard into an instrument of torture on which working people are being sacrificed.”It defines each term as this text uses it, names the economic idea underneath them, deflation, and explains who gains and who loses, including the sarcasm and the metaphor.
Question Stems to Use
What would this word mean in a dictionary? What does it mean in this sentence?Is the writer using this term sincerely, or repeating someone else’s phrase to mock it?Who gains and who loses under the arrangement this term names?Which nearby sentence explains the term without defining it?Is this phrase literal or a metaphor? What is it compared to?

Common Mistakes with RH.9-10.4

Reading the term literally

“Free coinage means the government gives out free coins.”

Try this: Have students test each dictionary meaning against the sentence around it and keep only the meaning the context supports.

Missing a borrowed, sarcastic term

Taking “This is what the bankers call sound money” as the editor’s praise

Try this: Ask students whose phrase each term is, the writer’s own or an opponent’s, and how the sentence’s tone shows it.

Defining a term without its stakes

“The gold standard means money is backed by gold,” and nothing about who it helped

Try this: Pair every economic term with a sentence naming who gained and who lost under it, using the text’s own words.

Where RH.9-10.4 Fits

Comes BeforeRH.6-8.4Determine the meaning of history and social studies vocabulary as it is used in a text.
AlongsideL.9-10.4Work out unknown and multiple-meaning words from context, word parts and reference works.RI.9-10.4Determine figurative, connotative and technical meanings and how word choice shapes tone.
Comes NextRH.11-12.4Trace how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over a text.

Practice RH.9-10.4

Vocabulary Worksheet GeneratorFree ToolEnter terms like creditor, debtor and deflation to build a worksheet to edit, then add the sentence from the source beside each one.Economic termsContext sentencesGrades 9-10
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Quick Check

  1. Why does the editor call the gold standard “a curse to the debtor”?
  2. What does “the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one” mean?
  3. How is the editor using the phrase “sound money”?

RH.9-10.4: Other Names

RH.9-10.4CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.4

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.