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Common Core LiteracyGrades 11–12Science & Technical

RST.11-12.5: Categories, Hierarchies and What They Mean

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.5 · Cluster: Craft and Structure.

Get the T-ChartAll 29 Grades 11–12 Literacy Standards

The Official Wording

Analyze how the text structures information or ideas into categories or hierarchies, demonstrating understanding of the information or ideas.

Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Reading: Science & Technical Subjects · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RST.11-12.5 Means in Plain English

Juniors and seniors explain how a science or technical text sorts its information into categories or ranks it in a hierarchy, and prove they understand the content by using that structure. A shop safety guide ranks five ways to control silica dust, and the ranking is an instruction.

Ninth and tenth grade (RST.9-10.5) analyzed how key terms relate, like force, friction and reaction force. Grades 11-12 look at the larger architecture: the categories a text builds and the order it ranks them in. This is the last band of the line, what college and career readiness expects.

RST.11-12.5 I Can Statements

  • I can tell whether a text lists categories or ranks them.
  • I can explain the principle that puts each category in order.
  • I can place a new example in the right category and say why.

RST.11-12.5 Worked Example

The safety guide is written for this page. Both answers name the five levels, and only the strong one reads them as a ranking and acts on it.

Read the Story
Cutting and polishing engineered stone releases respirable crystalline silica, dust fine enough to settle deep in the lungs, where it can cause silicosis, an incurable scarring disease. Controls are ranked from most to least effective, and a shop must use the highest level that is feasible before relying on lower ones.Elimination and substitution, at the top, remove the hazard: a shop can stop cutting engineered stone, which is often more than 90 percent silica, or offer slabs that contain far less of it.Engineering controls come next and keep the dust away from people without anyone having to remember a rule: saws that spray water at the blade stop dust from becoming airborne, and local exhaust captures what escapes.Administrative controls change how people work, such as limiting time at the saw and banning dry sweeping. Respirators come last, because each one protects only the person wearing it, and only when it fits, is worn properly and is replaced on schedule.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: How does the text organize the controls, and what does that structure tell a shop owner who plans to protect workers by buying better respirators?
Not Yet“The text lists five kinds of controls: elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative and respirators. Respirators are the last one. The owner should buy good respirators because they protect workers from silica.”It names the categories in order but misses that the order is a ranking, and its advice contradicts the structure: the text puts respirators last precisely because they are the weakest control.
Meets the Standard“The text sorts the controls into a hierarchy from most to least effective, and the rule that a shop must use ‘the highest level that is feasible’ turns that order into instructions. The ranking follows how much each level depends on people: elimination removes the dust entirely, wet saws and local exhaust stop it at the source ‘without anyone having to remember a rule,’ work rules work only if everyone follows them, and a respirator protects one person, and only when it fits and is worn. So the owner is starting at the bottom. Before buying respirators, the shop should offer lower-silica slabs where it can, switch to wet cutting with local exhaust, and ban dry sweeping, keeping respirators as the last layer of protection.”It identifies the structure as a hierarchy, explains the principle that ranks it, and shows understanding by using the structure to answer a real decision the way the text intends.
Question Stems to Use
Is this a list of types or a ranking? Which words tell you?What principle decides where each category sits?Which level does this example belong to, and why not the one above it?What would change if two categories swapped places?How would you sketch the structure as a diagram?

Common Mistakes with RST.11-12.5

Reading a ranking as a list

“There are five types of controls, and shops can choose any of them.”

Try this: Have students circle the words that signal order, like top, last and highest, and redraw the list as a ranked pyramid.

Naming the categories without the principle

“Engineering controls are third because the text says so.”

Try this: Ask students what all the higher levels share that the lower ones lack, and test their answer on every level.

Sorting examples into the wrong category

“Wet cutting is an administrative control because it is a rule about how to cut.”

Try this: Give students new examples to place, like a dust-collecting vacuum or shorter shifts, and have them justify each placement with the text’s definitions.

Where RST.11-12.5 Fits

Comes BeforeRST.9-10.5Analyze how key terms in a science text relate to one another, like force, friction and reaction force.
AlongsideRI.11-12.5Evaluate whether an author’s structure makes points clear, convincing and engaging.WHST.11-12.2Organize complex technical information so each new element builds on the one before it.
Comes NextRST.11-12.6Analyze why an author explains or describes a procedure, and which issues the text leaves unresolved.

Practice RST.11-12.5

Jeopardy Game MakerFree ToolBuild a review board whose categories are the five control levels, with each clue a workplace example that teams must place in the right level.Five control levelsGrades 11-12Place the example
Make a Game

Quick Check

  1. Why does the text put respirators last?
  2. Which level does a saw that sprays water at the blade belong to?
  3. What does the rule about “the highest level that is feasible” add to the structure?

RST.11-12.5: Other Names

RST.11-12.5CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.5

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.