Common Core LiteracyGrades 9–10Science & Technical

RST.9-10.10: Reading Complex Science and Technical Texts

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.10 · Cluster: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity.

The Official Wording

By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

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

What RST.9-10.10 Means in Plain English

Tenth graders finish the year reading lab manuals and student journal articles at the grades 9 to 10 level on their own. A shop manual page on table saw kickback asks them to hold two causes, the fix for each and five safety rules in mind at once.

By the end of eighth grade (RST.6-8.10), students read science texts at the grades 6 to 8 level. Ninth and tenth grade raise the complexity, with denser procedures and more ideas per paragraph. By the end of twelfth grade (RST.11-12.10), students read at the college and career level.

RST.9-10.10 I Can Statements

I can read a dense technical page on my own.
I can use a text’s structure to find what applies.
I can reread to fix a part I misunderstood.

RST.9-10.10 Worked Example

A shop manual page packs two causes of kickback and five rules into five short paragraphs, and the weak answer grabs a rule from the wrong one.

Read the Story

Shop Manual, Section 4: Kickback. Kickback happens when the saw blade catches the workpiece and hurls it back toward the operator faster than anyone can react. It has two main causes, and every rule in this section answers one of them.First, as a board is ripped, stresses locked in the wood can make the cut close behind the blade and pinch it. The riving knife, a curved steel plate mounted just behind the blade that rises and falls with it, holds the cut open. Never make a rip cut with it removed.Second, if the board drifts away from the rip fence, the teeth rising at the back of the blade can catch it and lift it toward you. Keep the board flat on the table and tight to the fence, and feed it with a push stick whenever your hand would come within 6 inches of the blade.Never use the rip fence as a length stop while crosscutting with the miter gauge. The cut-off piece gets trapped between the blade and the fence, twists, and is thrown.Stand to one side of the blade, not directly behind it, so that a board that does kick back misses you.

A short passage written for this page.

Question: A student ripping a long oak board notices the cut closing behind the blade. Using the whole page, explain which cause of kickback this is, which part of the saw is meant to prevent it, and which other rules apply during the same cut.

Not Yet“The board is about to kick back, so the student should stop and use the miter gauge. Kickback is dangerous because the blade is very sharp.”It grabs a familiar rule from the wrong paragraph, since the miter gauge belongs to crosscutting, not ripping, and it explains the danger with something the page never says. The reader recognized words without following the page’s structure of two causes and their fixes.

Meets the Standard“This is the first cause: stresses in the wood make the cut ‘close behind the blade and pinch it.’ The riving knife, which ‘rises and falls with’ the blade, is there to hold the cut open, so the student should stop and check that it is installed. During the same rip, the student should keep the board ‘tight to the fence’ so the rising teeth cannot catch it, use a push stick once a hand would come within 6 inches of the blade, and stand to one side so a kicked board misses. The miter gauge rule does not apply, because that rule is for crosscuts.”It sorts the situation into the page’s two-cause structure, links the cause to its part of the saw, pulls in the rules from other paragraphs that apply to a rip and sets aside the one that does not.

Question Stems to Use

How is this page organized? What does each paragraph answer?Which cause does this situation match, and how do you know?Which part of the saw deals with that cause?Which rules from other paragraphs also apply to this cut?Which rule sounds related but belongs to a different cut?Where did you have to reread, and what did rereading fix?

Common Mistakes with RST.9-10.10

Matching words, not meaning

Applying the miter gauge rule to a rip cut because both mention the fence

Try this: Have students label each paragraph with the cause or situation it covers before answering, then check that every rule they cite fits.

Skipping the overview sentence

Reading five rules as an unconnected list

Try this: Ask students to find the sentence that tells how the page is organized and sketch that structure before they read the details.

Always reading with a guide

Students who understand manuals only after the teacher walks through them

Try this: Fade support across the year: preview the structure in fall, give only a guiding question by winter and nothing by spring.

Where RST.9-10.10 Fits

Comes BeforeRST.6-8.10Read science and technical texts in the grades 6 to 8 band independently by the end of grade 8.

AlongsideRI.9-10.10Read literary nonfiction in the grades 9 and 10 band independently and proficiently.WHST.9-10.10Write routinely in science and technical classes, over both long and short time frames.

Comes NextRST.11-12.10Read science and technical texts at the college and career level independently by the end of grade 12.

Practice RST.9-10.10

Quick Check

What are the two causes of kickback the page names?
The cut closing behind the blade and pinching it, and the board drifting from the fence so the rising teeth catch it and lift it.
What does the riving knife do?
It holds the cut open so the wood cannot close on the back of the blade.
Why should the operator stand to one side of the blade?
So that a board that does kick back misses them.

RST.9-10.10: Other Names

RST.9-10.10CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.10