Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
Common Core State Standards, Grade 8, Writing · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What W.8.6 Means in Plain English
Eighth graders use digital tools for what they do best: a shared draft where partners comment and revise together, and a published piece where a chart, table or link shows how ideas connect faster than paragraphs could. Twenty slides of daily numbers become one chart.
Seventh grade (W.7.6) focuses on linking to and citing sources. Eighth grade asks students to make the links between ideas visible at a glance, which is a design choice, not just a tool skill. Grades 9 to 10 (W.9-10.6) add keeping shared work updated and displaying information flexibly.
W.8.6 I Can Statements
I can choose a digital format that shows how my ideas connect.
I can publish writing that links each claim to its data or source.
I can collaborate in a shared draft by commenting and revising.
W.8.6 Worked Example
Two groups logged the same four weeks of hall noise. One turned it into twenty slides of numbers, and the other built one chart that shows how the numbers connect.
Prompt
Your group measured the noise in the main hall during every passing period for four weeks with a sound meter app, logging the decibels, the time of day and whether rain had moved recess indoors. Publish your findings on the class blog so readers can see how those three things relate, and explain how your group worked together on it.
Not YetOur slideshow has twenty slides, one per school day, and each one lists the six passing periods with the loudest decibel reading for each. A last slide says some of the days had indoor recess. Each of us made five slides at home, and we combined them the morning the project was due.The technology only reproduces the log. A reader has to flip through twenty slides and hold the numbers in mind to spot a pattern, the indoor-recess detail is cut off from the readings it affected, nothing links to the data, and the collaboration is a division of slides, not people working on each other’s writing.
Meets the StandardOur blog post opens with one line chart of the loudest reading in each of the six passing periods, with rainy days and dry days as two colored lines, so readers can see at a glance that the hall gets louder through the morning and peaks right before lunch. The gap between the lines shows the second pattern: on rainy days, when recess moves indoors, the afternoon readings run about six decibels higher. Below the chart, a short table links each finding to our raw readings in the shared spreadsheet, so anyone can check our numbers. We drafted the post in one shared document, where each of us wrote a section and commented on the others, and our teacher approved the final version before we published.Technology does work here that paper could not. One chart shows the relationship among time of day, weather and noise at once, the gap between two lines carries the second pattern without another slide, the table links every claim to the readings, and the shared document with comments shows the group interacting, not just splitting the job.
Moves to Use
Ask what relationship the reader must see, then choose the format that shows it fastest.Replace a series of slides with one chart or table when the point is a comparison.Link each claim to its data or source so readers can check it.Collaborate inside one shared draft, with comments, not separate files stitched together.
Common Mistakes with W.8.6
A slideshow that is really a list
Twenty slides, one per day, each with the same two bullet points
Try this: Ask students to state the pattern in one sentence first, then build the single chart or table that shows that sentence.
Collaboration as splitting up
Four sections in four fonts, written separately and pasted together the night before
Try this: Require every member to leave two comments on a partner’s section in the shared draft, and have each writer answer them.
Effects that bury the information
Spinning transitions, a photo behind the text and a chart with nine colors
Try this: Set a rule that every visual element must answer a question a reader would ask, and cut anything that answers none.
Rubric GeneratorFree ToolMake a rubric for a published digital piece with one row for how clearly the format shows relationships and one for each member’s comments in the shared draft.Grade 8Digital publishingCollaboration
What relationship does the line chart in the strong response show at a glance?
How hall noise changes across the six passing periods, rising through the morning and peaking right before lunch, on both rainy and dry days.
How does the strong response show the effect of indoor recess without another slide?
Rainy days and dry days are two lines on the same chart, so the gap between them shows that afternoons with indoor recess run about six decibels louder.
Why does “Each of us made five slides at home” fall short on collaboration?
It describes splitting the work, not interacting. In the strong response the members comment on each other’s sections in one shared document.