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Common Core ELAGrades 9–10Reading: Literature

RL.9-10.6: Point of View in World Literature

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.

All 41 Grades 9–10 ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.

Common Core State Standards, Grades 9-10, Reading: Literature · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RL.9-10.6 Means in Plain English

Ninth and tenth graders read literature from outside the United States, like Chinua Achebe’s novels, and analyze the viewpoint inside it: what a narrator takes for granted, what she questions, and how her culture shapes both. A Korean girl hears her country’s exam-day silence as pressure, not care.

Wide reading matters, since one book can’t stand for a culture. In 8th grade (RL.8.6) students analyzed gaps between what characters and readers know. In grades 11 and 12 (RL.11-12.6) students separate what a text says from what it means in satire, irony and understatement.

RL.9-10.6 I Can Statements

  • I can describe the cultural experience a work from abroad reflects.
  • I can explain how a narrator’s culture shapes the way she sees events.
  • I can connect a work to other world literature I have read.

RL.9-10.6 Worked Example

A younger sister in Seoul narrates the day of the national college entrance exam, the one her brother has studied toward for years.

Read the Story
On exam morning all of Seoul held its breath for my brother, or that is how it felt. Offices opened an hour late to keep the roads clear, and a police motorcycle carried one boy who had overslept, siren wailing, to his school gate.Mother had given Jun-ho a block of yeot, the sticky taffy, so that he would stick to a good university. She had been praying at the temple for a hundred days.In the afternoon, during the listening test, the planes stopped. I stood in our schoolyard and heard nothing in the sky at all.Everyone said it was beautiful, a whole country keeping quiet for its children. I thought it sounded like a whole country waiting to see if my brother would fail.In three years, it would wait for me.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: What cultural experience does this narrator describe, and how does her point of view on it differ from the view she says “everyone” holds?
Not Yet“In Korea the test is really important and people take it seriously. The sister is nervous for her brother.”It describes the culture from outside and treats the narrator as a bystander. It misses that she sees the custom differently from the adults around her, and that difference is what the passage is built on.
Meets the Standard“The passage shows a culture where one exam belongs to everyone: offices open late, a police motorcycle rushes a late boy to his gate, and during the listening test ‘the planes stopped.’ Her family’s part is just as public, with taffy so Jun-ho will ‘stick to a good university’ and a hundred days of prayer. The adults read the silence as care, ‘a whole country keeping quiet for its children.’ The narrator hears pressure instead, a country ‘waiting to see if my brother would fail,’ and the last line makes it personal: ‘In three years, it would wait for me.’ She stands inside the custom and still questions it, so her view is more than a tour of exam traditions.”It names the cultural details, separates the community’s reading of them from the narrator’s, and quotes where the two split. It analyzes a viewpoint from inside the culture rather than summarizing customs from outside.
Question Stems to Use
What customs or beliefs does the narrator take for granted?Whose view of the custom does the narrator report, and does she share it?What would a reader in the United States notice that the narrator does not?Which other work of world literature shows a similar pressure or custom?How does the narrator feel about belonging to this culture?

Common Mistakes with RL.9-10.6

Treating the text as a culture report

A list of exam-day customs with no word about the narrator’s view of them

Try this: Ask students what the narrator thinks of each custom, not just what it is, and quote the line that shows it.

Judging the culture from outside

“This is crazy. No test should matter that much.”

Try this: Separate the student’s reaction from the narrator’s, then have students explain the custom from inside before they evaluate it.

One narrator standing for a whole country

“Koreans all think the exam is too much pressure.”

Try this: Point out that the narrator disagrees with the adults around her, and pair the text with other world literature for more views.

Where RL.9-10.6 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.8.6Analyze how differences in what characters and readers know create suspense or humor.
AlongsideSL.9-10.1Respond to diverse perspectives in class discussions of a text.W.9-10.9Draw evidence from literature to support analysis in their own writing.
Comes NextRL.11-12.6Analyze a point of view where what is said differs from what is meant, as in satire or irony.

Practice RL.9-10.6

Quick Check

  1. Why does the mother give Jun-ho yeot?
  2. What happens in the sky during the listening test?
  3. How does the narrator’s view of the silence differ from everyone else’s?

RL.9-10.6: Other Names

RL.9-10.6CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.6

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.