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Utah Standards

Utah Grades 7–8 ELA Standards

All 18 Utah English language arts standards for grades 7–8, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Utah State Board of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

18 standards

Speaking and Listening

3 standards
7–8.SL.1
Take part in democratic group discussions, taking on roles, asking and answering questions, weighing a range of views, and judging when more research is needed.
7–8.SL.2
Judge how credible several sources are, whether print, video, or online, before using them to make informed decisions.
7–8.SL.3
Adapt language, organization, and delivery to the purpose and audience, presenting a clear view with cited evidence so listeners can follow the reasoning.

Reading

11 standards
7–8.R.4
Read texts at the seventh- and eighth-grade level accurately and fluently enough to understand them well.
7–8.R.5
Back up an analysis of a text with cited evidence for both what it states directly and what it implies.
7–8.R.6
Find a theme or main idea in texts from many cultures, trace how characters, plot, or supporting ideas develop it, and write an unbiased summary with evidence.
7–8.R.7
Analyze how character and plot development shape a story, and how people, ideas, or events interact and change across a complex informational text.
7–8.R.8
Work out figurative, emotional, and technical word meanings, and analyze how an author's word choices, like a double meaning, set a text's meaning, tone, and mood.
7–8.R.9
Clarify unknown and multiple-meaning words with flexible strategies, choosing the right print or online reference for pronunciation, exact meaning, or part of speech.
7–8.R.10
Analyze how an author organizes a text, like a flashback or problem and solution, and how that structure adds to its meaning.
7–8.R.11
Analyze how contrasting narrator or character viewpoints create humor or suspense, and find an author's purpose and how they answer opposing evidence or views.
7–8.R.12
Compare a text with a version in another medium on the same topic, like a novel and its film, and judge how the differences affect the audience.
7–8.R.13
Evaluate an argument in a text by checking whether the evidence behind each key claim is relevant and strong enough to support it.
7–8.R.14
Compare fiction with shared themes using event patterns or character types, and compare how texts on one topic use different evidence and where they disagree.

Writing

4 standards
7–8.W.1
Write arguments that separate a claim from opposing claims, organize logical reasons and credible evidence, connect ideas smoothly, and close with a supporting conclusion.
7–8.W.2
Write to explain a topic by previewing it, sorting ideas into categories, using facts, quotations, graphics, varied transitions, and precise terms, and concluding.
7–8.W.3
Write a real or imagined story that opens with a problem or situation, builds characters and events with dialogue and description, sets a mood, and resolves logically.
7–8.W.4
Do short research projects to argue, answer a question, or analyze, judging credible sources, citing them in a standard format, and working with others.

The official Utah documents

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