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Common Core ELA8th GradeReading: Literature

RL.8.9: How Modern Fiction Remakes Myths

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.9 · Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

All 41 8th Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 8, Reading: Literature · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RL.8.9 Means in Plain English

Eighth graders spot what a modern story borrows from a myth, a folk tale or the Bible, like a theme, a plot pattern or a character type, and show what the modern version changes. A teen whose every video goes viral can be King Midas with a phone.

In 7th grade (RL.7.9) students compared a fictional portrayal of a time or place with a historical account of it. Eighth grade turns to older stories as the source. In grades 9 and 10 (RL.9-10.9) students analyze how one author transforms a specific source, like Shakespeare drawing on Ovid.

RL.8.9 I Can Statements

  • I can name the myth or traditional story a modern text borrows.
  • I can identify the theme, pattern or character type it reuses.
  • I can explain how the modern story makes the old material new.

RL.8.9 Worked Example

A short retelling of King Midas, then a modern story that borrows his pattern without ever naming him.

Read the Story
The traditional story, retold: King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. He was delighted until his bread hardened in his teeth and his daughter, running to hug him, became a golden statue.He begged the god who had granted the wish to take it back, and was told to wash his hands in a river.The modern story: By ninth grade Anjali had forty thousand followers, and everything she filmed turned into views: her breakfast, her dog, her little brother’s science fair volcano.Then her grandmother died. At the funeral Anjali caught herself framing the candles for the light, her thumb already on the record button.She put the phone face down on the pew and left it there, and for the first time in a year, nobody saw what she saw.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: What pattern from the Midas story does the modern story borrow, and how does it make that pattern new?
Not Yet“Both stories are about greed. Anjali is like Midas because she wants a lot of followers.”It names a broad topic but not the pattern of events, and it says nothing about what the modern story changes. Any story about wanting more would fit.
Meets the Standard“Both follow the same pattern: a gift that turns everything into value becomes a curse when it reaches someone you love. Midas’s touch reaches his daughter, who ‘became a golden statue.’ Anjali’s reaches her grief: at the funeral her thumb is ‘already on the record button.’ The modern story renders it new by trading gold for views and the touch for a camera. It also changes the cure. Midas needs a god and a river to undo the wish, but Anjali undoes it herself: ‘She put the phone face down on the pew.’ In this version, privacy is the thing worth more than gold.”It names the shared pattern of events, quotes where each story reaches it, then explains two ways the modern version changes the material: what turns to value, and who breaks the curse.
Question Stems to Use
Which myth, folk tale or Bible story does this remind you of, and why?What pattern of events do the two stories share?Which character in the modern story plays the old role?What did the modern author keep, and what did they change?Why might the author have changed the ending?

Common Mistakes with RL.8.9

Matching on topic, not pattern

“Both stories are about greed.”

Try this: Have students line up the events of both stories in order and find the step where the two plots match.

Stopping at the similarity

“Anjali is a modern Midas.”

Try this: Require a second half to every comparison, “but the modern story changes…”, with a quoted detail that has no match in the original.

Not knowing the source well enough

Students who know Midas only as “the gold guy” and miss what happens to his daughter

Try this: Read or retell the traditional story in full before the modern text, so students can match its turning points, not just its famous image.

Where RL.8.9 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.7.9Compare a fictional portrayal of a time, place or character with a historical account of it.
AlongsideRL.8.2Find the theme each story develops before comparing what the modern one borrows.W.8.9Write an analysis comparing a modern story with its traditional source.
Comes NextRL.9-10.9Analyze how an author draws on and transforms a specific source, like Shakespeare using Ovid.

Practice RL.8.9

Quick Check

  1. What happens to Midas’s daughter?
  2. What plays the part of Midas’s gold in Anjali’s story?
  3. How is the end of Anjali’s story different from the end of the Midas story?

RL.8.9: Other Names

RL.8.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.9

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.