Massachusetts Standards
Massachusetts Grades 9–10 ELA Standards
All 41 Massachusetts English language arts standards for grades 9–10, 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.9–10.1
Back up your analysis of what a text says outright and what you infer from it with strong, thorough evidence from the text.
RL.9–10.2
Identify a theme or central idea, analyze in detail how specific details introduce, shape, and refine it across the text, and write an objective summary.
RL.9–10.3
Follow a complex character with conflicting motives, like Macbeth, through the text and explain how their changes and clashes with others drive the plot or theme.
RL.9–10.4
Interpret figurative and connotative meanings, and analyze the effect of words with more than one meaning and of symbols or metaphors that run through a whole text.
RL.9–10.5
Explain how a writer's structure, like parallel plots, flashbacks or a slowed-down scene, builds mystery, tension or surprise in a story.
RL.9–10.6
Analyze how a character's views and actions accept or reject the cultural norms or ideas of a time and place, drawing on broad reading in world literature.
RL.9–10.7
Analyze a critical response to a literary work, like a book review or author documentary, summarizing its argument and judging how strong its evidence is.
RL.9–10.9
Trace how a specific work borrows and reworks an older source, like Shakespeare drawing on Ovid or West Side Story reshaping Romeo and Juliet.
RL.9–10.10
Read literature at the grades 9 and 10 level independently and with full understanding, including works from many genres, cultures, and perspectives.
Reading Standards for Informational Text
10 standardsRI.9–10.1
Support your analysis of a nonfiction text's direct statements and your inferences with strong, thorough evidence drawn from it.
RI.9–10.2
Identify a central idea of a nonfiction text, analyze how specific details introduce and refine it over the text, and write an objective summary.
RI.9–10.3
Analyze how an author builds an analysis or a series of ideas or events, including their order, how each is introduced and developed, and how they connect or do not.
RI.9–10.4
Work out figurative, connotative, and technical meanings, and analyze how word choices build up or clash in meaning and tone, like a court opinion versus a news story.
RI.9–10.5
Show in detail how particular sentences, paragraphs or a whole chapter build and sharpen a nonfiction author's ideas or claims.
RI.9–10.6
Pin down an author's purpose or stance and analyze the rhetoric that pushes it, like repetition, appeals to emotion or a pointed question.
RI.9–10.7
Analyze accounts of one subject in different media, like a life story in print and in a documentary, deciding which details each one stresses or plays down.
RI.9–10.8
Trace and evaluate a text's argument and claims, judging whether reasoning is valid and evidence sufficient, and spot false statements, half truths, and faulty logic.
RI.9–10.9
Analyze major historical and literary documents, like Washington's Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, or King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, and the themes they share.
RI.9–10.10
Read literary nonfiction at the grades 9 and 10 level on your own with full understanding, like essays and speeches across genres, cultures, and perspectives.
Writing Standards
10 standardsW.9–10.1
Write arguments analyzing substantial topics or texts, with precise claims, counterclaims treated fairly, valid reasoning, sufficient evidence, a formal style, and a conclusion.
W.9–10.2
Write informative essays, reports, or feature articles that explain complex ideas clearly, with strong organization, well-chosen facts, precise terms, and a conclusion.
W.9–10.3
Write narratives that open with a problem or situation, use one or more points of view and several plot lines, set mood and tone vividly, and end with reflection.
W.9–10.4
Match how a piece of writing is developed, organized and styled to its task, its purpose and the people who will read it.
W.9–10.5
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.9–10.6
Use technology and online platforms to create, publish, and update individual or shared writing, using links and dynamic displays of information.
W.9–10.7
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.9–10.8
Research with advanced searches in authoritative print and digital sources, judge how useful each is, and blend information smoothly into your writing with proper citations.
W.9–10.9
Draw evidence from fiction, poetry, or nonfiction into your writing to support analysis, interpretation, reflection, and research, using grades 9 and 10 reading skills.
W.9–10.10
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.9–10.1
Lead discussions on grades 9 to 10 texts, arriving with evidence, setting rules with peers, tying questions to larger ideas and revising your view when warranted.
SL.9–10.2
Combine information from several sources in different formats, like charts, data, and speeches, judging how credible and accurate each source is.
SL.9–10.3
Weigh a speaker's stance, reasoning, evidence and rhetoric, and catch a logical fallacy, an exaggerated statistic or a quotation twisted out of context.
SL.9–10.4
Present findings and evidence clearly, briefly, and logically so listeners can follow your reasoning, matching organization, words, and style to purpose and audience.
SL.9–10.5
Use digital media like audio, visuals, or interactive elements strategically in presentations to help listeners grasp findings, reasoning, and evidence and to keep them interested.
SL.9–10.6
Shift your speaking style to suit different settings and tasks, showing command of formal English when needed, like in a class debate or a job interview.
Language Standards
6 standardsL.9–10.1
Use correct grammar, like rearranging phrases and clauses with pronoun agreement and logical tenses, using varied phrase and clause types, and using parallel structure.
L.9–10.2
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.9–10.3
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.9–10.4
Work out an unfamiliar word in grades 9 to 10 reading from context, from word families like analyze and analytical, or from a specialized dictionary, then verify it.
L.9–10.5
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.9–10.6
Learn and accurately use high school academic and subject words, and research unfamiliar terms on your own to keep widening 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.