Mississippi Standards
Mississippi English IV ELA Standards
All 41 Mississippi English language arts standards for English IV, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Mississippi Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.
41 standards
Reading Literature
9 standardsRL.12.1
Quote the strongest lines from a novel, play or poem to back a reading of it, including a point it only implies, and say where the text leaves a question open.
RL.12.2
Trace how the themes of a literary work develop and interweave to build a complex whole, and write an accurate summary based on that analysis.
RL.12.3
Analyze the effect of an author's decisions about where a story takes place, how events are ordered, and how characters are introduced and grow.
RL.12.4
Work out what words mean in a Shakespeare play or a modern poem, including double meanings and strikingly fresh phrasing, and say how they color the tone.
RL.12.5
Explain how choosing where a story begins or ends, or giving it a comic or tragic ending, shapes its overall structure, its meaning and its beauty.
RL.12.6
Analyze how a reader must separate surface meaning from intended meaning to grasp a point of view, like in satire, sarcasm, irony or understatement.
RL.12.7
Compare several versions of a play, like a live staging and a film of Hamlet or an American drama, and judge how faithfully each one reads the script.
RL.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.12.10
By the end of twelfth grade, read and understand stories, plays and poems at the top of the grades 11 and 12 range independently and with skill.
Reading Informational Text
10 standardsRI.12.1
Quote the strongest lines from a novel, play or poem to back a reading of it, including a point it only implies, and say where the text leaves a question open.
RI.12.2
Identify two or more central ideas in a nonfiction text and analyze how they interact and build on one another across it, then write an accurate summary.
RI.12.3
Explain how the people, ideas and events in a complex nonfiction account interact and develop from its opening to its close.
RI.12.4
Work out figurative, loaded and technical meanings in nonfiction, and track how a writer sharpens a key term, as Madison does with faction in Federalist No. 10.
RI.12.5
Judge whether the way an essay or argument is organized makes its points clear, convincing and engaging, and say what works and what does not.
RI.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.12.7
Pull together several sources on a question, including charts, data, images and text, weigh each one, and use them to answer it or solve a problem.
RI.12.8
Lay out and judge the reasoning in seminal American texts, like how a Supreme Court opinion or dissent applies the Constitution or how The Federalist argues its case.
RI.12.9
Examine founding U.S. documents from the 1600s through the 1800s, like the Preamble or Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, for their themes, purposes and rhetoric.
RI.12.10
Read and understand literary nonfiction at the top of the grades 11 and 12 range independently and with skill by the end of the year.
Writing
10 standardsW.12.1
Argue a substantive topic or text in writing with a precise claim, a counterclaim weighed for its strengths and limits, linked sections, a formal tone and a close.
W.12.2
Explain a complex topic in writing, sorting ideas to show connections, adding headings or figures where they help, using precise terms, and closing on why it matters.
W.12.3
Write a story that opens on a problem, sets up a narrator and point of view, weaves dialogue, pacing and more than one plot line, and closes with a reflection.
W.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.12.5
Polish writing through planning, revision, editing, rewriting or rethinking the approach, aimed at what matters most for a particular audience and purpose.
W.12.6
Publish writing online and keep updating it as feedback, new arguments or new information come in, on your own or with a group.
W.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.12.8
Gather evidence from authoritative sources with smart searches, judge each one's fit for the task, and work it in selectively with standard citations and no plagiarism.
W.12.9
Use evidence from stories and informational texts in writing, like details that show a character in depth or the reasons an author gives for a point.
W.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
6 standardsSL.12.1
Start and run discussions on senior-level texts with prepared evidence, keep decisions civil, welcome creative views, resolve contradictions, and spot what research remains.
SL.12.2
Weigh information from charts, data and spoken sources together to make sound decisions and solve problems, checking each source's accuracy and any conflicting data.
SL.12.3
Judge a speaker's stance, premises, evidence and rhetoric, from how the ideas link up to word choice, emphasis and tone.
SL.12.4
Present findings with a clear and distinct perspective, address opposing views, and fit the organization, substance and style to formal and informal occasions alike.
SL.12.5
Choose digital media for a presentation strategically, like a chart for data or a short audio clip, where each one makes the reasoning clearer or adds interest.
SL.12.6
Tailor speech to varied audiences and tasks, using polished formal English where it fits, like in a scholarship interview or a senior project defense.
Language
6 standardsL.12.1
Print many letters, use everyday nouns, verbs and little words like in and on, make plurals like dogs and wishes, ask with who and where, and speak in full sentences.
L.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.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.12.4
Work out unfamiliar and multiple-meaning words in twelfth grade texts with context clues, word family patterns, print and digital references for usage, and checking guesses.
L.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.12.6
Build and use the academic and subject-specific vocabulary needed for college and career reading and writing, looking up on your own any word that matters to an idea.
The official Mississippi documents
- 2025 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for English Language Arts · adopted 2025 · required since 2025-26
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Mississippi's standards, not the official wording, which Mississippi Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.