Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Writing · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What W.11-12.9 Means in Plain English
Seniors bring the grades 11 to 12 reading standards into their writing. With literature, they compare how two foundational American works from one period treat a theme, like two tales of hidden guilt. With literary nonfiction, they evaluate the reasoning of seminal U.S. texts, like a Supreme Court dissent.
Grades 9 to 10 (W.9-10.9) trace how an author transforms a source and flag fallacious reasoning. Grades 11 to 12 compare how texts of one period treat a theme and weigh legal and constitutional reasoning. This last band is the college and career readiness goal for writing from texts.
W.11-12.9 I Can Statements
I can compare how two works from one period treat a theme.
I can quote both texts to support my analysis.
I can evaluate the reasoning in a seminal U.S. text.
W.11-12.9 Worked Example
Both students read the two tales in the same American literature unit. Only one explained how each author treats the theme.
Prompt
Write a paragraph comparing how two works of American Romanticism treat hidden guilt: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” (1836), in which the Reverend Mr. Hooper covers his face with a black veil for the rest of his life, and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843), in which a murderer who has hidden his victim beneath the floorboards confesses to the police. Quote both texts.
Not YetBoth stories are about guilt. Mr. Hooper wears a veil, and the narrator in Poe’s story hears a heart beating. Both characters feel guilty about their sins, so the authors are saying that guilt is bad.It names a shared topic but treats the two tales as one story, quotes neither, and ends on a moral nobody would argue with. W.11-12.9a asks how each text treats the theme, which means finding where the two authors part ways.
Meets the StandardHawthorne and Poe both write about guilt that cannot stay hidden, but they disagree about whose guilt it is. Poe makes it private and psychological: his narrator insists on his sanity, asking “How, then, am I mad?”, yet the heartbeat he hears under the floor is his own guilt made audible, and it drives him to shriek “I admit the deed!” to the officers. Hawthorne makes guilt universal. Mr. Hooper calls his veil “a type and a symbol,” and his dying words turn the accusation outward: “I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” Where Poe’s guilt belongs to one man and ends in a confession, Hawthorne’s belongs to everyone and ends with no confession at all, since Hooper is buried still wearing the veil. Read together, the tales show two directions in the period’s fascination with sin: one turns inward to the mind, the other outward to the community.The claim names the shared theme and the difference between the two treatments, then quotes each text at the moment the guilt surfaces. The writer compares directly (Where Poe’s… Hawthorne’s…) and closes on what the pairing shows about the period, the knowledge of foundational American works that W.11-12.9a applies.
Moves to Use
Name the shared theme and the difference between the two treatments in one claim.Quote each text where the theme surfaces most clearly.Compare directly in one sentence, with where or while, not in separate paragraphs.Close on what the pairing shows about the period.For a seminal U.S. text, lay out the premises and reasoning, then judge whether they hold.
Common Mistakes with W.11-12.9
Same theme, same treatment
“Both stories are about guilt, and both say guilt is bad.”
Try this: Require a claim with two halves, one per author, joined by but, while or where, before students choose any quotation.
Summarizing a dissent instead of evaluating it
“In Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice Harlan dissented and said the Constitution is color-blind.”
Try this: Have students restate the dissent’s premise, trace each step of its reasoning, then judge whether each step follows from the Constitution.
A period pairing across periods
An 1840s tale paired with a recent novel to show what one era believed
Try this: Check that both works come from the same period before writing, and name that period and its concerns in the introduction.
According to the strong response, how do the two authors treat guilt differently?
Poe makes guilt private and psychological, ending in one man’s confession; Hawthorne makes it universal, and Hooper is buried still wearing the veil.
Which quotation shows Hooper turning the accusation outward?
His dying words: “I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!”
What would W.11-12.9b ask a student to do with a Supreme Court dissent?
Lay out its premises and reasoning, including how it applies constitutional principles, and evaluate whether that reasoning holds, not just summarize it.