Common Core ELA6th GradeReading: Informational

RI.6.3: Trace How a Person, Event or Idea Is Developed

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.3 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

The Official Wording

Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).

Common Core State Standards, Grade 6, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.6.3 Means in Plain English

Sixth graders follow a key person, event or idea through a nonfiction text: how the author presents it, which anecdotes show it in action and what later paragraphs add. A profile of Mary Anning opens at a fossil stall and ends at a scientific society that shut her out.

Fifth graders (RI.5.3) explained how two or more people, events or ideas connect. Sixth grade slows down on one subject and studies how the author builds it. Seventh grade (RI.7.3) returns to connections, asking how people, events and ideas shape one another.

RI.6.3 I Can Statements

I can explain how an author first introduces a key person or idea.
I can tell what each example or anecdote shows about the subject.
I can explain how later paragraphs add to the first picture.

RI.6.3 Worked Example

The passage builds Mary Anning up one anecdote at a time, and the weak answer lists the anecdotes without saying what any of them adds.

Read the Story

In the early 1800s, visitors to the seaside town of Lyme Regis, England, could buy curled stone shells at a small fossil stall. The girl selling many of them was Mary Anning, and her family needed the money to pay its debts.In 1811, her brother Joseph found a strange skull in the crumbling cliffs. Mary, about twelve, kept searching. Months later she uncovered the rest of the skeleton: a sea creature about 17 feet long, with a long snout and paddles instead of legs.Years later she found the first complete skeleton of a plesiosaur, a sea reptile with a neck so long that a famous French scientist at first suspected the fossil was a fake. Experts examined the bones and found them genuine.Scientists bought her fossils and wrote papers about them, often without naming her. The Geological Society of London did not admit women, so she could not join the group that met to discuss her own discoveries.

A short passage written for this page.

Question: How does the author introduce Mary Anning, and what does each anecdote add to the reader’s picture of her?

Not Yet“Mary Anning sold fossils. Then she found a 17-foot skeleton and a plesiosaur. Scientists wrote about her fossils.”It retells the events in order but never says how the author introduces her or what any anecdote shows. A list of what happened is not an analysis of how she is developed.

Meets the Standard“The author introduces her as a poor girl selling stone shells to pay family debts, so at first she looks like a shopkeeper. The skeleton anecdote shows she was more than that: at about twelve she ‘kept searching’ until she found the whole creature. The plesiosaur story shows her finds were so remarkable that a famous scientist doubted they were real. The last paragraph elaborates on the cost: scientists used her work ‘often without naming her,’ and she could not join the society that discussed it.”It names how she is introduced, then says what each anecdote adds, so the answer follows the build from fossil seller to a scientist the world would not credit.

Question Stems to Use

How does the author first present this person, event or idea?What does this anecdote show that the introduction did not?Why might the author have chosen this example?How has your picture of the subject changed by the last paragraph?Which detail does the most to develop the subject? Why?

Common Mistakes with RI.6.3

Retelling instead of analyzing

“First she sold fossils, then she found a skeleton, then she found a plesiosaur.”

Try this: Add a second sentence after each event that begins “This shows that she…” so every anecdote is tied to what it reveals.

Skipping the introduction

An answer that starts with the skeleton and never mentions the fossil stall or the debts

Try this: Ask students to quote the first sentence that names the subject and describe the impression it creates before reading further.

Treating every anecdote as the same point

“All the stories show she was good at finding fossils.”

Try this: Have students label each anecdote with a different word, such as determined, skilled or overlooked, and defend the label with a quotation.

Where RI.6.3 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.5.3Explain how two or more people, events or ideas in a history or science text connect.

AlongsideRL.6.3Describe how a plot unfolds in episodes and how characters change, the fiction side of tracking development.W.6.2Develop a topic with facts, details and examples, the same building done as a writer.

Comes NextRI.7.3Analyze how the people, events and ideas in a text act on one another.

Practice RI.6.3

Quick Check

How does the author first introduce Mary Anning?
As a girl selling stone shells at a fossil stall to help pay her family’s debts.
What does the skeleton anecdote show about her?
That she was determined and skilled: at about twelve she kept searching after her brother found the skull and uncovered the whole 17-foot skeleton.
What does the last paragraph add to the picture of Mary Anning?
That she was denied credit: scientists wrote about her fossils often without naming her, and the Geological Society of London would not let her join.

RI.6.3: Other Names

RI.6.3CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.3