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Minnesota Standards

Minnesota 7th Grade ELA Standards

All 41 Minnesota English language arts standards for 7th grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Minnesota Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

41 standards

Reading

19 standards
7.1.2.1
Monitor understanding while reading alone and annotate without help, and when meaning slips, predict, recall the reading purpose or use prior knowledge to check understanding.
7.1.2.2
Choose and read seventh grade level texts with skill for academic work, like a young adult novel or an article on the water cycle.
7.1.2.3
Find and read texts from many viewpoints and identities, like and unlike one's own, identify a text's perspective, and seek out other views on its subject.
7.1.3.1
Choose texts to read for interest, enjoyment or class assignments that present Dakota and Anishinaabe voices and identities, historical and current.
7.1.4.1
Back up conclusions about what a text states and implies with several pieces of evidence, and write an objective summary.
7.1.4.2
Analyze how themes or central ideas grow and take shape from the beginning to the end of one text.
7.1.4.3
Analyze how characters, settings, events and ideas in a story affect one another, like how a setting shapes a character's choices.
7.1.4.4
Analyze how people, events and ideas in nonfiction influence each other, like how a leader's speech changed the course of a movement.
7.1.5.1
Analyze how the order in which events are told in a story, play or poem, like a flashback, builds its meaning.
7.1.5.2
Analyze a nonfiction text's structure, like compare and contrast or problem and solution, and how its major sections build the whole and develop ideas.
7.1.5.3
Interpret, combine, evaluate and use information from images, graphs and other media, checking it for accuracy, viewpoint, credibility and relevance.
7.1.6.1
Analyze how authors, including Dakota and Anishinaabe authors, use who they say they are to earn readers' trust on an issue or topic.
7.1.6.2
Compare a fictional portrayal of a time, place or character, including Dakota and Anishinaabe ones, with a historical account to see how fiction uses or bends history.
7.1.6.3
Analyze how two or more authors on one topic, including Dakota and Anishinaabe topics, shape key information by stressing different evidence or reading facts differently.
7.1.7.1
Identify a text's argument and specific claims, and judge whether there is enough evidence to back each claim.
7.1.8.1
Figure out what words and phrases mean in a story or poem, including figurative meanings and the feelings they suggest, like a cold welcome.
7.1.8.2
Analyze how specific word choices shape meaning and tone in academic and technical texts, like suggests versus proves in a science article.
7.1.9.1
Find and evaluate information from many kinds of sources that offer diverse viewpoints on a topic, like news sites, experts and community voices.
7.1.9.2
Judge sources for their viewpoint, reliability and relevance, and whether together they give enough information for the task and purpose.

Writing

16 standards
7.2.1.1
Write and edit work every time for correct punctuation, spelling, capitals and grammar, like proofreading each essay before turning it in.
7.2.1.2
Use word study such as roots and affixes to spell academic terms correctly in one's own writing, like hypothesis or democracy.
7.2.1.3
Use parts of speech, including intensive pronouns like herself, explain their job in a sentence, and keep agreement correct even in compound-complex sentences.
7.2.2.1
Write regularly for varied tasks, purposes and audiences, picking topics and formats, like a fan fiction story, an editorial or a research summary.
7.2.2.2
Write a reflection on how one's viewpoint and identity have formed through one's own experiences and relationships with others.
7.2.3.1
Draft several pieces, choose which to take through the writing process, pick ways to revise and edit, like peer review or digital tools, and publish.
7.2.3.2
Choose words, phrases and sentence patterns that keep voice, style and tone steady throughout a piece, suited to the audience and setting.
7.2.4.1
Write an argument that gathers and organizes evidence for both a claim and an opposing claim, building on earlier argument skills.
7.2.4.2
Write to persuade by pairing a strongly felt opinion with solid facts that back it up, like a letter urging the city to build a skate park.
7.2.5.1
Explain one topic in two ways for two audiences, like for classmates and for younger kids, using precise terms, clear structure and steady transitions that link ideas.
7.2.5.2
Respond in writing to different literary forms, comparing narrative elements like plot or narrator across a short story and a poem.
7.2.6.1
Write poems, plays, myths, stories or life stories that set up context and a narrator's perspective and use literary techniques to shape style, tone and plot.
7.2.6.2
Use the structural features that fit a genre, like stanzas in a poem, scenes in a play or chapters in a novel, in one's creative writing.
7.2.7.1
Write one's own research questions and narrow or widen them as needed, like moving from sports to concussions in youth football.
7.2.7.2
Plan and carry out independent research that combines information from many sources into one picture, and share the findings in writing.
7.2.8.1
Draw on many print and online sources, crediting each one and blending quotes, paraphrases and summaries without plagiarizing.

Listening, Speaking, Viewing and Exchanging Ideas

6 standards
7.3.1.1
Exchange ideas in stories and teamwork that weigh Dakota, Anishinaabe and other views, building on others' ideas, collaborating live or online, and mediating decisions.
7.3.1.2
Ask questions that draw out more detail, and answer with relevant observations and ideas that show one came prepared to the discussion.
7.3.1.3
Revise how one speaks, writes or communicates by acting on useful feedback from peers and one's own review, like reworking a speech after practice.
7.3.2.1
Use word choice, sentence structure and speaking features to build a personal voice, style and tone, matched to the audience and situation.
7.3.3.1
Share claims and findings in logical order with supporting facts and details, communicating ethically and safely, and team up to explore a topic's many sides, like a group blog.
7.3.3.2
Alone or in a team, make and share an artistic or entertaining multimedia piece, like a short film, with tools suited to the purpose and audience, minding one's digital footprint.

The official Minnesota documents

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