RI.9-10.10: Read Complex Literary Nonfiction
Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.10 · Cluster: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity.
The Official Wording
By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literary nonfiction in the grades 9-10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 9-10, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What RI.9-10.10 Means in Plain English
Ninth graders read literary nonfiction like speeches, memoirs and narrative histories across the grades 9 to 10 range, with support on the hardest texts. By the end of tenth grade they read those texts alone, such as a history of an eruption told through sound, waves and sky.
Eighth grade (RI.8.10) read the top of the grades 6 to 8 range independently. Ninth grade steps up to a harder band and brings back support at its high end. Eleventh grade (RI.11-12.10) moves up again, to the grades 11 to college-ready band, with the same pattern.
RI.9-10.10 I Can Statements
- I can read a hard narrative history with little help.
- I can retell events in an order the question asks for.
- I can explain how a writer’s short sentences and endings make meaning.
RI.9-10.10 Worked Example
The passage moves outward from the island and packs its point into short sentences, and the weak answer fills the gaps with guesses.
On the morning of August 27, 1883, the volcanic island of Krakatoa, in the narrow strait between Java and Sumatra, blew itself apart, and by evening most of it had slid beneath the sea.Nearly 3,000 miles away, on the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, a police chief heard what he took for the roar of distant guns and noted it in his log. It is often called the loudest sound in recorded history.The sea did the killing. Waves as tall as a ten-story building struck the nearby coasts of Java and Sumatra, sweeping away whole towns, and some 36,000 people died. Barometers as far off as London twitched as the blast’s pressure wave passed, then twitched again, and again, as it circled the planet over the following days.Then the sky itself changed. Ash and gas flung high into the atmosphere spread around the globe, and for months sunsets burned an unnatural red. That November, firefighters in Poughkeepsie, New York, raced toward a glow on the horizon, expecting a burning town. They found only the sky.An island most of the world had never heard of had reached every sky on Earth.
Common Mistakes with RI.9-10.10
Filling gaps with outside assumptions
“Lava killed the people,” though the passage says the waves did
Try this: Ask students to back every retold event with the sentence that states it, and cross out anything the text never says.
Reading a turn of phrase literally
“Firefighters put out a fire in New York caused by the volcano.”
Try this: Have students mark lines where the writer sets up an expectation and then overturns it, and explain each in plain words.
Skipping the writer’s design
A correct list of facts with no word on why the passage moves outward
Try this: Ask what order the writer chose and why, then have students name the idea that the closing sentence ties together.
Where RI.9-10.10 Fits
Practice RI.9-10.10
Quick Check
- What killed most of the people who died?
- Why did firefighters in Poughkeepsie race toward the horizon?
- What does the last sentence of the passage mean?