Massachusetts Standards
Massachusetts Grades 11–12 ELA Standards
All 41 Massachusetts English language arts standards for grades 11–12, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's document, linked at the end of this page.
41 standards
Reading Standards for Literature
9 standardsRL.11–12.1
Use strong, thorough evidence to back your reading of what a story states and implies, and point out where it leaves matters open.
RL.11–12.2
Identify two or more themes or central ideas, analyze how they develop and build on each other into a complex account, and write an objective summary.
RL.11–12.3
Analyze the effect of an author's choices in shaping a story, poem, or play, like where it is set, how events are ordered, and how characters are introduced.
RL.11–12.4
Interpret figurative and connotative meanings, and analyze how specific words or rhetorical patterns create a sense of time and place or signal a new perspective.
RL.11–12.5
Analyze how an author's structural choices, like where a story starts or ends or whether it ends in comedy or tragedy, shape its meaning and artistic impact.
RL.11–12.6
Analyze a text where understanding point of view means telling what is said from what is meant, like satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement.
RL.11–12.7
Analyze one or more critical responses to literature, including how a critical lens, like a historical, feminist, or psychological one, shapes the reading.
RL.11–12.9
Know the foundational American literature of the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, and show how two works from the same era handle a shared theme.
RL.11–12.10
Read literature at the grades 11 and 12 level on your own with full understanding, choosing works from a broad range of genres, cultures, and perspectives.
Reading Standards for Informational Text
10 standardsRI.11–12.1
Back your analysis of a nonfiction text's explicit points and your inferences with strong, thorough evidence, and identify where the text leaves things unresolved.
RI.11–12.2
Identify two or more central ideas of a nonfiction text, analyze how they interact and build into a complex analysis, and write an objective summary.
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.
RI.11–12.4
Work out figurative, connotative, and technical meanings, and analyze how an author refines a key term over a text, like how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10.
RI.11–12.5
Analyze and judge how well an author's structure in an explanation or argument makes the points clear, coherent, convincing, and engaging.
RI.11–12.6
Find the purpose behind a powerful speech or essay and explain how its style and content give it force, persuasion or beauty.
RI.11–12.7
Combine and evaluate information from charts, graphs, photos, videos, maps, and written text to answer a question or solve a problem.
RI.11–12.8
Trace and evaluate the reasoning in landmark historical texts, like Supreme Court opinions and dissents or The Federalist, including their constitutional and legal arguments.
RI.11–12.9
Analyze the themes, purposes, and rhetoric of major documents written before 1900, like the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.
RI.11–12.10
Read literary nonfiction at the grades 11 and 12 level independently and with full understanding, like memoirs and essays across genres, cultures, and perspectives.
Writing Standards
10 standardsW.11–12.1
Write arguments on substantial topics or texts with precise claims and their significance, fair treatment of counterclaims, the strongest evidence, varied syntax, and a conclusion.
W.11–12.2
Write informative essays, reports, or articles that build complex ideas into a unified whole, using key facts, precise terms, analogies or metaphors, and a strong conclusion.
W.11–12.3
Write narratives that set up a problem and its significance, use several points of view or plot lines, build toward a tone like suspense or growth, and end reflectively.
W.11–12.4
Match how a piece of writing is developed, organized and styled to its task, its purpose and the people who will read it.
W.11–12.5
Plan, revise, edit and rewrite a history essay or lab report, or start over with a new approach, fixing first what matters most for its purpose and readers.
W.11–12.6
Use technology and online platforms to create, publish, and keep updating individual or shared writing as feedback, new arguments, or new information come in.
W.11–12.7
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.
W.11–12.8
Use advanced searches of authoritative sources, weigh each source's strengths and limits, and cite information smoothly without plagiarism or relying on one source.
W.11–12.9
Bring evidence from literature or informational texts into your writing to support analysis, interpretation, reflection, and research, using grades 11 and 12 reading skills.
W.11–12.10
Write regularly for many tasks, purposes and audiences, from a research paper drafted and revised over weeks to a response finished in a single sitting or a day or two.
Speaking and Listening Standards
6 standardsSL.11–12.1
Lead and join discussions on grades 11-12 topics, prepared with research, keeping the exchange civil, airing every position, and deciding what still needs research.
SL.11–12.2
Combine information from charts, data, speeches and text to make a decision or solve a problem, judging each source's credibility and noting where the data disagree.
SL.11–12.3
Judge a speaker's stance, premises, evidence and rhetoric, from how the ideas link up to word choice, emphasis and tone.
SL.11–12.4
Present findings and evidence from a clear perspective that listeners can follow, addressing opposing views and fitting style to purpose, audience, and formal or informal tasks.
SL.11–12.5
Use digital media such as audio, visuals, or interactive features strategically in presentations to make findings, reasoning, and evidence clearer and more engaging.
SL.11–12.6
Adjust how you speak to many settings and tasks, using polished formal English when it is called for, like in a college interview or a formal presentation.
Language
6 standardsL.11–12.1
Apply correct grammar, knowing that usage rules are conventions that change and are sometimes disputed, and settle tricky usage questions with usage guides.
L.11–12.2
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the word I, name the period and question mark, and spell simple words the way they sound, like kat for cat.
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.
L.11–12.4
Work out an unfamiliar grades 11-12 word from context, word families like conceive, conception and conceivable, or a specialized reference, then verify the guess.
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.
L.11–12.6
Learn and accurately use advanced academic and subject words, and research new terms independently to keep growing your vocabulary.
The official Massachusetts documents
- Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy, Pre-K to 12, 2017 · adopted March 2017 · current for 2026-27
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Massachusetts's standards, not the official wording, which Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.