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Kentucky Standards

Kentucky Grades 11–12 ELA Standards

All 31 Kentucky English language arts standards for grades 11–12, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Kentucky Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

31 standards

Reading Standards for Literature

9 standards
RL.11-12.1
Support a close reading of a complex literary work with strong, thorough evidence, covering what it says outright and what it leaves readers to infer.
RL.11-12.2
Identify two or more themes in a literary work and analyze how they develop and play off each other to build a rich, layered whole across the text.
RL.11-12.3
Analyze how an author's choices about developing and connecting story elements, like where a scene is set or how characters are introduced, shape the text over time.
RL.11-12.4
Work out figurative and connotative meanings in literature and analyze how word choices build up to shape meaning, tone and the work as a whole, like a repeated image.
RL.11-12.5
Analyze how an author's choices in structuring parts of a work, like where to begin a novel or how to end a play, add to its overall structure, meaning and artistic effect.
RL.11-12.6
Analyze how a text's point of view and perspective steer readers toward a purpose or effect, like through satire, sarcasm, irony or understatement.
RL.11-12.7
Analyze several media versions of a story, play or poem, like two film adaptations of Shakespeare, judging how each one interprets the original.
RL.11-12.9
Draw on knowledge of different eras to analyze how several texts written in the same period treat similar themes or topics, like two Harlem Renaissance poems.
RL.11-12.10
Regularly read complex 11th and 12th grade literature on their own, like classic novels and modern drama, using background knowledge and strategies to understand and analyze it.

Reading Standards for Informational Text

10 standards
RI.11-12.1
Back up an analysis of complex nonfiction, like a court opinion or a policy speech, with strong, thorough evidence for what it states and what it implies.
RI.11-12.2
Identify two or more central ideas in a nonfiction text and analyze how they develop, interact and build on each other to form a complex account.
RI.11-12.3
Explain how the people, ideas and events in a complex nonfiction account interact and develop from its opening to its close.
Common Core RI.11-12.3
RI.11-12.4
Work out figurative, connotative and technical meanings in nonfiction and analyze how an author uses and reshapes a key term across a text, like faction in a founding essay.
RI.11-12.5
Analyze and judge how well the structure of an author's explanation or argument works, like whether the order of points makes it clear and convincing.
RI.11-12.6
Figure out the viewpoint, perspective and purpose of a text with especially strong rhetoric, and analyze how its style and content make it so effective.
RI.11-12.7
Combine and judge several sources in different print and non-print formats, like data, video and articles, to answer a question or solve a problem.
RI.11-12.8
Evaluate a text's argument, claims and evidence for validity, logic, relevance and sufficiency, and analyze false statements and faulty reasoning, like a straw man.
RI.11-12.9
Analyze major historical and literary documents, like Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, including how they treat related themes and ideas.
RI.11-12.10
Regularly read complex 11th and 12th grade nonfiction on their own, like court opinions and essays, applying background knowledge and strategies to understand and analyze it.

Composition

7 standards
C.11-12.1
Write arguments that establish why a precise claim matters, weigh counterclaims fairly with the best evidence, anticipate readers' values and biases, and revise for impact.
C.11-12.2
Write formal, objective explanations of complex ideas where each part builds on the last, using the most important facts, varied syntax and tools like analogy or metaphor.
C.11-12.3
Use storytelling strategically in other writing, like a personal account that introduces an issue or supports a claim, building events toward a chosen tone and outcome.
C.11-12.4
Create, publish and revise solo or shared digital work that links to related information and displays it dynamically, like a website, citing sources in varied formats.
C.11-12.5
Run short and longer research projects on a question you pose or are given, narrowing or widening it as needed and weaving several sources into one account.
Common Core W.9-10.7
C.11-12.6
Search print and online sources with advanced queries, weigh each one's strengths and limits, quote them without leaning on any one, and cite in a standard format.
Common Core W.11-12.8
C.11-12.7
Write as an ongoing routine, from long projects like a senior research paper to timed essays, for many tasks, purposes and audiences.

Language

5 standards
L.11-12.1
In speech and writing, show that rules of usage are shared customs that change and can be debated, and settle hard usage questions, like who versus whom, using references.
L.11-12.2
When writing, show full control of standard capitalization, punctuation and spelling in General American English.
L.11-12.3
Notice how language works differently in a lab report, a poem and a speech, and write and edit to a style manual such as the MLA Handbook when the task calls for one.
Common Core L.9-10.3
L.11-12.4
Work out unknown words with context, word-form patterns like persuade and persuasive, and general or specialized references, and gather college-ready vocabulary on their own.
L.11-12.5
Explain a nonliteral phrase like take steps, name someone who is friendly to link a word to real life, and rank knew, believed and suspected by how sure they are.
Common Core L.3.5

The official Kentucky documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Kentucky's standards, not the official wording, which Kentucky Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.