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Common Core ELAGrades 9–10Reading: Literature

RL.9-10.9: How Authors Transform Their Sources

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.9 · Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

All 41 Grades 9–10 ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

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

What RL.9-10.9 Means in Plain English

Ninth and tenth graders study one work and the source it reshapes, like Shakespeare drawing on Ovid or West Side Story remaking Romeo and Juliet. They name what is borrowed, then show what the change means: a story can keep a myth’s pattern and argue with its lesson.

In 8th grade (RL.8.9) students showed how a modern novel reuses a theme or character type from myth or the Bible. Grades 9 and 10 trace one author’s transformation of one source. In grades 11 and 12 (RL.11-12.9) students compare foundational American works of the same period.

RL.9-10.9 I Can Statements

  • I can identify the source a later work draws on.
  • I can show where a later work follows its source closely.
  • I can explain how a change to the source changes its meaning.

RL.9-10.9 Worked Example

An invented old tale about a shepherd with a voice the wind obeys, then a modern story that reworks it.

Read the Story
The source, an old tale: The wind-god gave the shepherd Ardo a voice the wind obeyed, on one condition: “Call me for your village, never for yourself.” For forty years Ardo called rain over other men’s fields.In a dry year his own flock lay dying, and he called the wind to his own pasture. The rain came. So did the silence: the god took his voice, and he never spoke again.The modern story: Since she was eight, Luz had been her parents’ voice at the bank, at the clinic and on the phone with the landlord, saying in English what they could not.At her own college interview the woman across the desk asked, “And what do you want?” Luz opened her mouth and, for a long moment, had no words for herself at all.Then, slowly, she found them, and the story ends with her speaking.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: What does the modern story take from the old tale, and how does it transform the tale’s meaning?
Not Yet“Both stories are about a person whose voice helps other people. Luz is like Ardo because she talks for her parents.”It finds the borrowed character type and stops. It never notices that the modern story turns the tale’s lesson upside down, which is the transformation the standard asks about.
Meets the Standard“The modern story borrows the tale’s pattern: a voice that exists to serve others, ‘Call me for your village, never for yourself.’ Luz has been ‘her parents’ voice’ since she was eight. But it moves the silence. Ardo loses his voice as punishment for using it for himself. Luz is silent first, with ‘no words for herself at all,’ because she has only ever spoken for others. Then the story reverses the tale’s ending: it ‘ends with her speaking.’ The old tale warns that serving yourself is a betrayal. The new one says a voice used only for others can leave you without one, so speaking for yourself is the cure, not the crime.”It names what is borrowed, quotes where the two stories match, then explains the transformation: the same silence moved to a new place in the plot, so the moral flips.
Question Stems to Use
Which pattern, character type or theme does the newer work borrow?Where does the newer work follow its source most closely?What does the author change, and what does the change say?Does the newer work agree with the source’s lesson or argue with it?How would the story end if the author had kept the source’s ending?

Common Mistakes with RL.9-10.9

Spotting the borrowing and stopping

“Luz is a modern Ardo.”

Try this: Require a “but” after every similarity, naming one change and what that change does to the source’s meaning.

Listing changes without interpreting them

“The god becomes the parents, the wind becomes English, the village becomes the family.”

Try this: Have students pick the one change that matters most and explain how it alters the source’s message, not just its surface.

Not knowing the source

Students meet a Shakespeare scene drawn from Ovid without ever reading Ovid’s version

Try this: Teach the source first, even as a short retelling, so students can see exactly where the later author keeps and breaks it.

Where RL.9-10.9 Fits

Comes BeforeRL.8.9Analyze how a modern story draws on myths, traditional stories or the Bible and renders the material new.
AlongsideRL.9-10.2Trace how a theme develops, including how a reworked source shifts it.W.9-10.9Write an analysis of how a later work transforms its source.
Comes NextRL.11-12.9Show how two or more foundational American works of one period treat similar themes.

Practice RL.9-10.9

Quick Check

  1. What condition does the wind-god set on Ardo’s gift?
  2. Where has Luz been her parents’ voice?
  3. How do the endings of the two stories differ?

RL.9-10.9: Other Names

RL.9-10.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.9

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.