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Common Core ELA6th GradeReading: Literature

RL.6.9: Compare How Different Genres Treat a Theme

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.9 · Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

All 41 6th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres (e.g., stories and poems; historical novels and fantasy stories) in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.

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

What RL.6.9 Means in Plain English

Sixth graders compare how two genres, such as a historical novel and a fantasy, handle one theme. Both may be about leaving home, but one grounds it in the real Irish famine and the other in a humming magic stone, and students explain what each genre makes possible.

In 5th grade (RL.5.9) students compared two stories in the same genre, like two adventures, on a shared theme. Sixth grade crosses genres, so the genre becomes part of the comparison. In 7th grade (RL.7.9) students compare fiction set in a real period with a historical account of it.

RL.6.9 I Can Statements

  • I can name the genre of each text and what marks it.
  • I can find the theme or topic two texts share.
  • I can explain how each genre’s tools shape that theme differently.

RL.6.9 Worked Example

Two excerpts about leaving home, one from a historical novel set in the Irish famine of 1847 and one from a fantasy, with the same theme handled by different tools.

Read the Story
Historical novel, Ireland, 1847: Mam wrapped the iron door key in her good shawl and laid it at the bottom of the trunk. “The landlord can have the house,” she said. “He is not having the key.”On the road to the harbor they passed cabins with their roofs pulled down and potato fields left bare, and Brigid did not look back, because Da had told her not to.Fantasy story: On the morning Ren left the floating city, her grandmother pressed a stone into her palm. It was warm, and it hummed, faintly, with the sound of the city’s bells.“As long as it sings, you can always find your way back,” her grandmother said. Ren closed her fingers around it and stepped off the edge.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Both excerpts are about what you carry when you leave home. How does each genre approach that theme?
Not Yet“Both stories are about leaving home and taking something with you. They are both sad.”It finds the shared theme and stops. It never says what the historical novel or the fantasy does with that theme, or how the genre shapes it.
Meets the Standard“Both send a child away from home with one object, but the genres give the object different powers. The historical novel keeps it real: Mam’s ‘He is not having the key’ makes an ordinary door key hold the family’s pride, while the cabins ‘with their roofs pulled down’ show a real famine emptying the countryside. The fantasy can make the object magic: the stone ‘hummed, faintly, with the sound of the city’s bells’ and promises ‘you can always find your way back.’ In the history you carry home because you can’t go back: the key opens a door the family will never see again. In the fantasy you carry it so you can.”It names the shared theme, shows a tool of each genre at work, real history in one and magic in the other, quotes both excerpts, and ends on the contrast.
Question Stems to Use
What genre is each text, and which clues tell you?What theme or topic do both texts share?What can this genre do with the theme that the other genre can’t?How do the real history, or the magic, change what the theme means?If you swapped the genres, what would change about the message?

Common Mistakes with RL.6.9

Stopping at the shared theme

“Both are about leaving home.”

Try this: Treat the shared theme as the first sentence only, then require one sentence per text on what its genre does with it.

Ignoring the genre

“The key and the stone are both things they bring.”

Try this: Have students list what marks each genre, like real places and dates or magic, before they compare anything else.

Two separate summaries

A paragraph on the historical novel, then a paragraph on the fantasy, never connected

Try this: Require comparison words like “both,” “but” and “while” in every sentence after the first, so each sentence touches both texts.

Where RL.6.9 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.5.9Compare stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes.
AlongsideRL.6.2Find a theme and the particular details that carry it.RI.6.9Compare how two authors present the same events, like a memoir and a biography.
Comes NextRL.7.9Compare a fictional portrayal of a time or place with a historical account of the same period.

Practice RL.6.9

Quick Check

  1. What does Mam refuse to leave behind?
  2. What is special about the stone Ren’s grandmother gives her?
  3. Which details mark the first excerpt as historical fiction and the second as fantasy?

RL.6.9: Other Names

RL.6.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.9

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.