Common Core ELA7th GradeReading: Informational

RI.7.10: Read Grade 7 Literary Nonfiction

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.10 · Cluster: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity.

Get the KWL Chart All 41 7th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 7, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.7.10 Means in Plain English

Seventh graders read literary nonfiction, the essays, memoirs and speeches where facts come through a personal voice, and by year’s end they handle texts across the grades 6 to 8 range. An essay on a meteor shower mixes comet science with a memory, and readers must follow both.

The wording matches sixth grade (RI.6.10) exactly: the same band, with scaffolding at the high end. What changes is how much of the year is spent near that high end. Eighth grade (RI.8.10) expects students to read the top of the band on their own.

RI.7.10 I Can Statements

I can follow a personal essay that mixes facts with reflection.
I can reread a hard sentence and explain it in my own words.
I can explain the larger point an essay writer is making.

RI.7.10 Worked Example

A short essay of the kind this standard means, with a dense science paragraph and a reflective ending, and the question checks whether the reader followed both.

Read the Story

Every August my grandfather drove us out past the last streetlight, spread a blanket over the hood of his truck and told us to stop talking and look up.What we saw were the Perseids, a meteor shower that peaks around the middle of August each year. The streaks are not falling stars. They are bits of dust and rock, most no bigger than a grain of sand, shed by a comet called Swift-Tuttle on its long loop around the sun.Each August, Earth passes through the trail of debris the comet has left behind, and the grains strike our atmosphere at about 37 miles per second, so fast that they heat the air around them until it glows, and they burn away in an instant.My grandfather did not know any of that. He called them “the August sparks” and made a wish on every one. I know the science now, and I still count them the way he taught me, out loud, as if each grain had crossed all that dark just to reach us.

A short passage written for this page.

Question: Explain in your own words what the Perseids are and why they return every August. Then explain what the writer means in the last sentence.

Not Yet“The Perseids are falling stars that come every August. The writer liked looking at them with their grandfather.”The essay says plainly that the streaks “are not falling stars,” a sign the reader skimmed the dense middle. The answer also flattens the ending into a hobby and misses that the writer keeps the grandfather’s wonder after learning the science.

Meets the Standard“The Perseids are grains of dust and rock that a comet called Swift-Tuttle left along its path. Every August, Earth moves through that trail, and the grains hit the air so fast, about 37 miles per second, that the air glows and they burn up. In the last sentence, the writer says knowing the science has not ruined the wonder: the writer still counts the meteors out loud like the grandfather did and pictures each grain traveling a long way to reach us.”The science is in the reader’s own words and in the right order, including why the shower returns each August. The answer also follows the essay’s turn from facts back to the memory, which is what makes it literary nonfiction.

Question Stems to Use

What is the writer remembering, and what is the writer explaining?Which sentence did you have to read twice? Say it in your own words.Why does the shower come back every August?How does the writer feel about the science? Where does it show?What does the last sentence mean, and why end there?

Common Mistakes with RI.7.10

Skimming the dense middle

Calling the Perseids falling stars, the very error the essay corrects

Try this: Have students paraphrase the longest sentence in the essay aloud to a partner before answering any question about the whole text.

Reading only for facts

A correct science summary with nothing about the grandfather or the ending

Try this: Ask two questions of every literary nonfiction text: what does the writer teach, and what does the writer feel about it?

Scaffolds that never come off

Every text in May still arrives with a vocabulary list and a teacher read-aloud

Try this: Remove one scaffold at a time as the year goes on, starting with the preread summary, and keep only the ones students still need.

Where RI.7.10 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.6.10Read literary nonfiction in the grades 6 to 8 band, with scaffolding at the high end.

AlongsideRL.7.10Read stories, dramas and poems in the same band, with the same support at the high end.RST.6-8.10Build toward reading science and technical texts in the grades 6 to 8 band on your own by the end of grade 8.

Comes NextRI.8.10Read literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 6 to 8 band independently.

Practice RI.7.10

Vocabulary Worksheet GeneratorFree ToolEnter the hard words from the essay you are teaching, such as debris and atmosphere, and preteach them so reading time goes to the ideas.Grade 7PreteachWords in context

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Quick Check

What are the Perseids, according to the essay?
Bits of dust and rock, most no bigger than a grain of sand, shed by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which burn up when they hit Earth’s atmosphere.
Why does the shower return every August?
Every August, Earth passes through the trail of debris the comet left behind.
How has learning the science changed the way the writer watches the meteors?
It has not taken away the wonder. The writer still counts them out loud, the way the grandfather did, and imagines each grain crossing the dark to reach us.

RI.7.10: Other Names

RI.7.10CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.10