South Carolina Standards
South Carolina English 3 ELA Standards
All 33 South Carolina English language arts standards for English 3, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in South Carolina Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.
33 standards
Overarching Expectations
6 standardsELA.E3.OE.1
Read and write for academic and personal goals over sustained periods, like reading a full American novel and keeping a dialectical journal on it.
ELA.E3.OE.2
Gain, refine, and share knowledge through varied media, like analyzing a documentary, a political cartoon, and a digital archive for one research topic.
ELA.E3.OE.3
Draw inferences to grasp what a text implies, like reading the unspoken criticism in a satirical essay or the subtext of a dialogue.
ELA.E3.OE.4
Collaborate in groups and practice active listening, like summarizing opposing views fairly before you respond in a class debate.
ELA.E3.OE.5
Cite precise evidence to explain and defend your reasoning, like pairing a quotation with commentary on its word choice in a literary analysis.
ELA.E3.OE.6
Produce finished work that meets an accepted format, like a research paper with in-text citations and a correctly formatted bibliography.
Applications of Reading
14 standardsELA.E3.AOR.1.1
Evaluate how several viewpoints, the surrounding context, and key elements combine to enrich meaning or style in and across texts, like a novel with rotating narrators.
ELA.E3.AOR.1.2
Judge how effectively an author's figurative language works in one text and across several, like comparing extended metaphors in two poems.
ELA.E3.AOR.2.1
Evaluate how universal themes develop across literature from different eras, places, or cultures, like the American Dream in a 1920s novel and a modern memoir.
ELA.E3.AOR.2.2
Analyze how similar central ideas develop in historical speeches or essays from different eras, places, or cultures, like the idea of liberty across two centuries.
ELA.E3.AOR.3.1
Analyze a literary text for the gap between what is said and what is meant, like satire, sarcasm, or irony, to understand its perspective.
ELA.E3.AOR.4.1
Evaluate two texts on one topic by authors with different viewpoints and judge how effective each author's rhetoric is, like two essays on immigration.
ELA.E3.AOR.5.1
Analyze how an author's word choice, sentence structure, and organization create effects like tension or surprise and add to a literary text's overall meaning.
ELA.E3.AOR.5.2
Evaluate an informational text's structure and features, and analyze how the author could make it more effective, like turning dense data into a chart.
ELA.E3.AOR.5.3
Compare several arguments on one topic, judging each author's reasoning, rhetoric, claims, and use of information, like three editorials on a ballot measure.
ELA.E3.AOR.6.1
Summarize or paraphrase grade-level texts to strengthen comprehension, like restating a dense passage from a founding document in plain language.
ELA.E3.AOR.7.1
Pin down the meaning of known, new, or multiple-meaning words using context, background knowledge, or references for precise meaning, pronunciation, and word history.
ELA.E3.AOR.8.1
Read figurative, connotative, and technical language closely, like the effect of an understatement, the feel of near-synonyms, and how a memo sounds unlike a news story.
ELA.E3.AOR.9.1
Use etymology to work out or confirm meanings of unfamiliar words and phrases, like tracing a borrowed word such as rendezvous back to French.
ELA.E3.AOR.10.1
Evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of presenting a topic in different formats, like judging whether a documentary or a printed essay argues a point better.
Research
5 standardsELA.E3.R.1.1
Research questions or problems in short and extended projects, answering questions you pose with varied sources and fitting the focus to your purpose and audience.
ELA.E3.R.1.2
Analyze each source's credibility and relevance and rely only on trustworthy, on-topic ones, like weighing a government report against a partisan website.
ELA.E3.R.1.3
Analyze research findings to decide which are relevant to your topics and the purpose of your inquiry, like cutting data that is accurate but beside the point.
ELA.E3.R.1.4
Combine findings from several sources and organize them logically for your purpose and audience, like merging notes into themed sections of a research paper.
ELA.E3.R.1.5
Cite sources correctly with a standard academic style guide, like MLA or Chicago, to give credit and avoid plagiarism in a research paper.
Written and Oral Communications
8 standardsELA.E3.C.1.1
Argue about topics or texts with informed claims and why they matter, weighing claims and counterclaims with sound evidence and linking ideas with varied syntax.
ELA.E3.C.2.1
Write informative essays that analyze complex texts, using facts, quotations, and statistics, varied transitions, precise words, a formal objective tone, and an ending.
ELA.E3.C.3.1
Use narrative within other writing to introduce an issue or support a claim, with purposeful details, a setup showing why it matters, dialogue, pacing, and a clear end.
ELA.E3.C.4.1
Apply capitalization and punctuation rules on purpose in varied sentences, fix fragments, run-ons, shifts, and faulty parallelism, and edit with print and online tools.
ELA.E3.C.5.1
Polish writing through planning, editing, and peer and teacher feedback, then revise for clarity and a style suited to the reader, like tightening a college essay draft.
ELA.E3.C.7.1
Present findings and evidence with effective organization and style for the audience, using eye contact and pacing, valid reasoning, visuals, and published multimedia.
ELA.E3.C.8.1
Discuss respectfully in structured groups, building on peers' points, disagreeing civilly, and weighing diverse views to qualify your own, like in a novel seminar.
ELA.E3.C.9.1
Evaluate a live or recorded presentation for its message, media, and audience, the validity of its evidence, and any logical fallacies or biases the speaker shows.
The official South Carolina documents
- 2024 South Carolina College- and Career-Ready English Language Arts Standards · adopted January 2023 · since 2024-25
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of South Carolina's standards, not the official wording, which South Carolina Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.