Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
Common Core State Standards, Grade 8, Writing · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What W.8.2 Means in Plain English
Eighth graders explain a topic the way a textbook section does: an opening that previews what is coming, well-chosen facts grouped under broader categories with headings or a chart when it helps, precise terms like vasodilation, varied transitions that hold the sections together, a formal voice and a conclusion.
Seventh grade (W.7.2) names organizing strategies like comparison and cause and effect, and asks for appropriate transitions. Eighth grade asks for broader categories, well-chosen facts and transitions that are varied as well as appropriate. Grades 9 to 10 (W.9-10.2) take on complex ideas and the connections among them.
W.8.2 I Can Statements
I can preview my topic and group ideas into broader categories.
I can develop each category with well-chosen facts and precise terms.
I can vary my transitions, keep a formal style and conclude.
W.8.2 Worked Example
Both students worked from the same science notes on body temperature. The difference is how the facts are grouped and joined.
Prompt
Explain how the human body keeps its temperature steady, for a reader who has not studied our unit. Use the science terms from your notes, group the facts into broader categories and connect them with transitions.
Not YetThe body has many ways to control its temperature. When you are hot you sweat. When you are cold you shiver. Also your blood vessels change, and also the brain controls it.The facts are correct, but they arrive in the order they came to mind, with no categories to hold them. “Also” is the only transition, “change” stands where a precise term belongs, and nothing previews or concludes the explanation.
Meets the StandardThe human body holds its core temperature near 37°C through homeostasis, and its responses fall into two groups: those that release heat and those that keep or make it. The control center for both is the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that works much like a thermostat. When the body overheats, sweat glands release water that carries heat away as it evaporates, while blood vessels near the skin widen, a response called vasodilation, so more warm blood can shed heat through the surface. When the body is too cold, by contrast, those same vessels narrow through vasoconstriction, keeping warm blood near the organs. If that is not enough, the muscles begin to shiver, and the rapid contractions generate heat. In both directions, then, the body corrects small changes before they can become dangerous.The first sentence previews the two broad categories the rest follows. Precise terms (homeostasis, hypothalamus, vasodilation, vasoconstriction) replace “change,” each defined in passing, every fact explains a mechanism, and varied transitions (while, by contrast, if that is not enough, then) carry the reader across the categories to a conclusion.
Moves to Use
Preview the categories in the first sentence so the reader has the map.Group facts under a broader idea, such as releasing heat and keeping heat, instead of listing them.Use the precise term and define it in passing: vasodilation, the widening of blood vessels.Choose each transition for its job: by contrast for opposites, as a result for causes.Close by saying what the categories add up to.
Common Mistakes with W.8.2
A list of facts with no categories
Sweating, shivering, blood vessels, the brain and goose bumps, each in its own sentence in the order the student found them
Try this: Have students sort their note cards into two or three piles and name each pile before drafting, and each pile becomes a section.
The also chain
“Also your blood vessels change. Also the brain controls it. Also you get goose bumps.”
Try this: Ban also for one draft and give a transition bank sorted by job: contrast, cause, addition, example and sequence.
Everyday words where a term belongs
“Your blood vessels get bigger so the heat can get out.”
Try this: Post the unit’s word wall and require each paragraph to use and briefly define at least two of its domain-specific terms.