Common Core ELA7th GradeWriting

W.7.9: Use Evidence from Texts in Your Writing

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.9 · Cluster: Research to Build and Present Knowledge.

The Official Wording

Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 7, Writing · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What W.7.9 Means in Plain English

In seventh grade, writing about reading leans on evidence from the page. With fiction, students set a historical novel’s moon-landing night beside a history book’s account to show what the novelist kept and invented. With nonfiction, they trace an author’s argument and judge whether the evidence is relevant and sufficient.

Sixth grade (W.6.9) compares texts in different genres and separates supported claims from unsupported ones. Seventh grade asks how fiction uses or alters history and whether an argument’s reasoning is sound. Eighth grade (W.8.9) traces how modern fiction draws on myths and notices when irrelevant evidence is introduced.

W.7.9 I Can Statements

I can quote evidence from literature and nonfiction to support my analysis.
I can compare a fictional portrayal with a historical account of the period.
I can evaluate whether an author’s reasoning and evidence support the claims.

W.7.9 Worked Example

Both students read the same two passages about the night of the first moon landing, and only one of them let the passages do the comparing.

Prompt

Read both passages about the night of July 20, 1969, when the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon. Write a paragraph explaining what the novelist kept from history, what she added and why. From a historical novel: “Mrs. Kowalski had the only television on our street, so by ten o’clock twenty-three of us were sitting on her rug. The picture was gray and jumpy, like a ghost moving through snow. When the ghost stepped off the ladder, nobody cheered. Then Grandpa Joe, who was born before the Wright brothers left the ground, took off his glasses and cried.” From a history book: “On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the moon. A little before 11 p.m. Eastern time, Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the surface. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people watched the grainy black-and-white broadcast live. Only sixty-six years earlier, the Wright brothers had first lifted a powered airplane off the ground.”

Not YetThe novel and the history book are both about the moon landing. The novel is more interesting because it has characters. The history book has more facts. Both are good.It notices that one text is fiction and one is history, but it never quotes either, never says what the novelist kept or changed, and “more interesting” is a preference, not an analysis of how fiction uses history.

Meets the StandardThe novelist keeps the facts of the landing but makes up the people watching it. Her details match the history book closely: the picture on Mrs. Kowalski’s television is “gray and jumpy,” just as the real broadcast was “grainy black-and-white,” and the ghost “stepped off the ladder” the way Armstrong “climbed down the ladder and stepped onto the surface.” What the history book cannot show is how the moment felt in one room, and that is what the novelist adds. The history book reports that “hundreds of millions of people” watched and that the Wright brothers’ first powered airplane rose only “sixty-six years earlier,” but the novel folds both facts into Grandpa Joe, a man “born before the Wright brothers left the ground,” crying on a neighbor’s rug. By inventing him, the novelist turns a span of years in a history book into a single lifetime the reader can feel.The first sentence names what was kept and what was invented. Each point sets a quotation from the novel’s scene beside one from the history book, and the last sentence explains why a novelist would change history this way, which is the analysis W.7.9a asks for.

Moves to Use

State in one sentence what the fiction kept and what it changed or added.Set a quotation from each text side by side for every point.Quote exactly, and introduce each quotation with where it comes from.Explain why the author of fiction used or changed history, not just that they did.

Common Mistakes with W.7.9

Comparing without quoting

“The novel is more interesting. The history book has more facts.”

Try this: Require one quotation from each text for every point of comparison, set side by side in the same or the next sentence.

Calling every invented detail a mistake

“The novel is wrong because the history book never mentions Grandpa Joe.”

Try this: Have students sort the novel’s details into kept from history and invented, then explain what each invented detail does for the reader.

Summarizing an argument instead of evaluating it

A response to an essay that retells the author’s three points and stops

Try this: Have students write, after each of the author’s claims, whether its evidence is relevant and whether there is enough of it.

Where W.7.9 Fits

Comes BeforeW.6.9Compare texts in different genres, and separate claims that are supported from claims that are not.

AlongsideRL.7.9The reading side of W.7.9a: compare a fictional portrayal of a period with a historical account of it.RI.7.8The reading side of W.7.9b: trace an argument and judge its reasoning and evidence.

Comes NextW.8.9Analyze how modern fiction draws on myths and traditional stories, and spot irrelevant evidence.

Practice W.7.9

Quick Check

According to the strong response, what did the novelist keep from history?
The gray, jumpy picture, matched with the grainy black-and-white broadcast, and the step off the ladder, each set beside a quotation from the history book.
What did the novelist invent, and why, according to the strong response?
The crowd on Mrs. Kowalski’s rug and Grandpa Joe, born before the Wright brothers left the ground, crying. He turns the sixty-six years between their first airplane and the landing into a single lifetime the reader can feel.
Which part of W.7.9 would an essay judging an author’s argument that the Apollo program was worth its cost practice?
W.7.9b, applying the grade 7 reading standards to literary nonfiction: tracing the argument and judging whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence relevant and sufficient.

W.7.9: Other Names

W.7.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.9