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Minnesota Standards

Minnesota 8th Grade ELA Standards

All 40 Minnesota English language arts standards for 8th grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Minnesota Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

40 standards

Reading

19 standards
8.1.2.1
Read grade 8 texts on your own, check that you understand and annotate as you go, and use fix-up strategies like looking things up when confused, with guidance.
8.1.2.2
Choose and read grade 8 level texts with strong understanding for school assignments, like a novel or article for a class project.
8.1.2.3
Find and read texts about personal identity and how identities overlap, using different search methods like library catalogs and keyword searches.
8.1.3.1
Pick and read texts for a purpose like enjoyment or a class task that show the views and identities of Dakota and Anishinaabe people, past and present.
8.1.4.1
Cite the text evidence that best backs up what a text states and what you infer from it, including what characters or people say, and write an objective summary.
8.1.4.2
Identify more than one theme or central idea in a text and analyze how each one develops from beginning to end.
8.1.4.3
Analyze how dialogue and interactions between complex characters and events move a story's plot or reveal something about a character.
8.1.4.4
Analyze how an informational text links people, events or ideas, like how an article connects an inventor to a later discovery.
8.1.5.1
Evaluate how the structures and points of view of two or more literary texts on a similar theme, like a poem and a short story, shape their meaning and style.
8.1.5.2
Analyze how an informational text is organized, like cause and effect or problem and solution, and how one sentence or paragraph builds a key idea.
8.1.5.3
Compare the ideas shown in illustrations, graphics and other audio or visual features across texts, judging their accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance.
8.1.6.1
Analyze how writers, including Dakota and Anishinaabe authors, shape a character's identity and point of view to make a story richer.
8.1.6.2
Analyze how a modern novel or story borrows themes, event patterns or character types from myths and traditional tales, and describe how it makes them new.
8.1.6.3
Analyze two or more texts that disagree on a topic, one from or about Dakota and Anishinaabe people or another culture, and point out where facts or readings differ.
8.1.7.1
Judge an argument and its claims, deciding whether the reasoning holds up and whether the evidence is relevant and enough to prove the point.
8.1.8.1
Analyze how an author's word choices, including analogies and allusions to other works, shape meaning and tone in a story or poem.
8.1.8.2
Analyze how academic, technical and subject-specific words in informational texts affect meaning and tone, like the terms in a science article.
8.1.9.1
Gather information from many kinds of sources that cover both sides of an issue or several viewpoints, like news sites, books and interviews.
8.1.9.2
Judge sources for perspective, bias, credibility, relevance and whether they give enough information for the task, including the author's motive.

Writing

15 standards
8.2.1.1
Write and proofread work so punctuation, spelling, capitalization and grammar are correct every time.
8.2.1.3
Put parts of speech like nouns, verbs and adverbs to work in real writing, with clauses and phrases placed where they belong in each sentence.
8.2.2.1
Write often for different tasks, purposes and readers, picking your own topics and formats and adding visuals like charts or tables when they help.
8.2.2.2
Write a reflection on how your own perspective and identity have grown through belonging to social or cultural groups, like a family, team or community.
8.2.3.1
Plan and draft several pieces, then choose which ones to carry through revision, editing and publishing and how to do it.
8.2.3.2
Choose words, phrases and sentence structures that say ideas exactly and briefly, cutting wordy or repeated parts.
8.2.4.1
Write arguments that show clearly how claims and evidence connect, for both your argument and a counterargument, like a debate on school start times.
8.2.4.2
Write persuasive pieces that make clear how your opinions and the facts behind them connect, like a letter asking the city for a new skate park.
8.2.5.1
Write to inform or explain a topic using facts, correctly cited summary, paraphrase and quotation, precise subject words and a clear text structure.
8.2.5.2
Write a response to a literary text that shows you understand its style, mood and tone, through personal reactions, analysis or interpretation.
8.2.6.1
Write creative pieces in various forms, using advanced techniques like complicated plots, pacing, rhythm and rhyme to build mood and tone.
8.2.6.2
Write dialogue that fits each character's or narrator's viewpoint and situation, and choose a structure that suits the style and tone of a story or poem.
8.2.7.1
Come up with your own questions to guide an inquiry, then add new questions that lead to further research.
8.2.7.2
Plan and carry out independent research, combining information from many sources of different formats and viewpoints, and share what you found in writing.
8.2.8.1
Use and cite many print and digital sources by quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing them, without plagiarizing.

Listening, Speaking, Viewing and Exchanging Ideas

6 standards
8.3.1.1
Discuss and tell stories that weigh Dakota, Anishinaabe and other views, extend others' ideas, back your own with evidence, and team up online toward a shared goal.
8.3.1.2
Come to discussions prepared, ask questions that tie together several speakers' ideas, and answer with relevant evidence and observations.
8.3.1.3
Use helpful feedback from yourself and others to revise a speech, piece of writing or other message.
8.3.2.1
Use word choice, sentence structure and features of speech to build your own voice, style and tone, and notice how they affect your audience in each setting.
8.3.3.1
Present claims and findings in a focused, clear way with strong evidence, sound reasoning and chosen details, in different presentation styles, communicating ethically and safely.
8.3.3.2
Create and share a persuasive multimedia or digital piece alone or with a group, picking tools that fit the task and audience and showing awareness of your 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.