STAAR Grade 8 Reading Language Arts Assessment Eligible TEKS Detailed Study Guide

Assessment Overview and Genres Assessed

• Grade Level: Grade $8$

• Subject: Reading Language Arts

• Assessment Entity: Texas Education Agency (TEA) Student Assessment Division

• Version Date: Summer $2022$

• Document Context: Eligible Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

• Standard Classifications:

  • Readiness Standards: Essential for success in the current grade and preparation for the next; assessed in depth.
  • Supporting Standards: Support readiness standards or are introductory skills; assessed less frequently.

• Reading Genres Assessed:

  • Fiction
  • Informational
  • Literary Nonfiction
  • Argumentative
  • Poetry
  • Persuasive
  • Drama

• Revising and Editing Genres Assessed:

  • Fiction
  • Informational
  • Literary Nonfiction
  • Argumentative
  • Correspondence
  • Persuasive

Reporting Category $1$: Reading

• Core Objective: The student will understand and analyze a variety of texts from various genres.

• (2) Developing and Sustaining Foundational Language Skills (Vocabulary):

  • The focus is on listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking in relation to vocabulary. The student uses newly acquired vocabulary expressively.
  • (A) Resources: Use print or digital resources to determine the meaning, syllabication, pronunciation, word origin, and part of speech (Supporting Standard).
  • (B) Context Clues: Use context within or beyond a paragraph to clarify the meaning of unfamiliar or ambiguous words (Readiness Standard).
  • (C) Academic English Roots: Determine the meaning and usage of grade-level academic English words derived from Greek and Latin roots such as $ast$, $qui$, $path$, $mand/mend$, and $duc$ (Supporting Standard).

• (5) Comprehension Skills:

  • The focus is on using metacognitive skills to develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts through multiple modes (listening, speaking, reading, writing, thinking).
  • (C) Predictions: Make and correct or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures (Supporting Standard).
  • (E) Connections: Make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society (Readiness Standard).
  • (F) Inferences: Make inferences and use evidence to support understanding (Readiness Standard).
  • (G) Evaluation: Evaluate details read to determine key ideas (Readiness Standard).
  • (H) Synthesis: Synthesize information to create new understanding (Readiness Standard).

• (6) Response Skills:

  • The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources read, heard, or viewed.
  • (C) Evidence: Use text evidence to support an appropriate response (Readiness Standard).
  • (D) Paraphrasing and Summarizing: Paraphrase and summarize texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order (Readiness Standard).

Literary Elements and Genre Analysis

• (7) Literary Elements (Multiple Genres):

  • Focuses on analyzing elements within traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts.
  • (A) Themes: Analyze how themes are developed through the interaction of characters and events (Supporting Standard).
  • (B) Characterization: Analyze how characters' motivations and behaviors influence events and the resolution of the conflict (Readiness Standard).
  • (C) Plot Development: Analyze non-linear plot development, including flashbacks, foreshadowing, subplots, and parallel plot structures; compare these to linear plot development (Readiness Standard).
  • (D) Setting: Explain how the setting influences the values and beliefs of characters (Supporting Standard).

• (8) Genre-Specific Characteristics (Multiple Genres):

  • (A) Literary Genres Knowledge: Demonstrate knowledge of realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, humor, fantasy, science fiction, and short stories (Supporting Standard).
  • (B) Poetry: Analyze the effect of graphical elements, including punctuation and line length, across forms such as epic, lyric, and humorous poetry (Supporting Standard).
  • (C) Drama: Analyze how playwrights develop dramatic action through the use of acts and scenes (Supporting Standard).
  • (D) Informational Text Analysis:
    • (i) Identify the controlling idea or thesis with supporting evidence (Readiness Standard).
    • (ii) Identify features such as footnotes, endnotes, and citations (Supporting Standard).
    • (iii) Analyze multiple organizational patterns within a text to develop the thesis (Supporting Standard).
  • (E) Argumentative Text Analysis:
    • (i) Identifying the claim and analyzing the argument (Readiness Standard).
    • (ii) Identifying and explaining the counterargument (Readiness Standard).
    • (iii) Identifying the intended audience or reader (Supporting Standard).

Author's Purpose and Craft

• (9) Critical Inquiry:
  • Analyzing authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning.
  • (A) Purpose and Message: Explain the author's purpose and message within a text (Readiness Standard).
  • (B) Text Structure: Analyze how the use of text structure contributes to the author's purpose (Supporting Standard).
  • (C) Print and Graphic Features: Analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes (Supporting Standard).
  • (D) Figurative Language: Describe how the author's use of figurative language, such as extended metaphor, achieves specific purposes (Supporting Standard).
  • (E) Literary Devices: Identify and analyze the use of literary devices, including multiple points of view and irony (Supporting Standard).
  • (F) Language Contribution: Analyze how the author's use of language contributes to mood, voice, and tone (Supporting Standard).
  • (G) Rhetorical Devices and Fallacies: Explain the purpose of rhetorical devices such as analogy and juxtaposition, and identify logical fallacies such as bandwagon appeals and circular reasoning (Supporting Standard).

Reporting Category $2$: Writing (Revising and Editing)

• Core Objective: The student will revise and edit a variety of texts from various genres.

• (10) Composition (Writing Process):

  • The focus is on a recursive process to compose legible texts with appropriate conventions.
  • (B) Draft Development: Develop drafts into focused, structured, and coherent writing by:
    • (i) Organizing with purposeful structure, including an introduction, transitions, coherence within and across paragraphs, and a conclusion (Readiness Standard).
    • (ii) Developing an engaging idea reflecting depth of thought with specific facts, details, and examples (Readiness Standard).
  • (C) Revision: Revise drafts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety (Readiness Standard).
  • (D) Editing Using Standard English Conventions:
    • (i) Complete complex sentences with subject-verb agreement and avoidance of splices, run-ons, and fragments (Readiness Standard).
    • (ii) Consistent, appropriate use of verb tenses and active and passive voice (Readiness Standard).
    • (iii) Prepositions and prepositional phrases and their influence on subject-verb agreement (Supporting Standard).
    • (iv) Pronoun-antecedent agreement (Supporting Standard).
    • (v) Correct capitalization (Supporting Standard).
    • (vi) Punctuation, including commas in nonrestrictive phrases and clauses, semicolons, colons, and parentheses (Supporting Standard).
    • (vii) Correct spelling, specifically focusing on commonly confused terms: $its/it's$, $affect/effect$, $there/their/they're$, and $to/two/too$ (Readiness Standard).

Extended Constructed Response and Composition Genres

• Composition Requirements:

  • Texts must have a clear central idea or claim.
  • Coherent organization.
  • Sufficient development.
  • Supporting evidence.
  • Effective use of language and conventions.

• (6) Response Skills (Writing Integration):

  • (B) Textual Understanding: Write responses that demonstrate understanding of texts, including comparing sources within and across genres (Readiness Standard).

• (11) Composition (Genre-Specific):

  • (B) Informational Texts: Compose multi-paragraph essays that convey information about a topic using a clear controlling idea or thesis statement and genre characteristics and craft (Readiness Standard).
  • (C) Argumentative Texts: Compose multi-paragraph argumentative texts using genre characteristics and craft (Readiness Standard).
  • (D) Correspondence: Compose correspondence that reflects an opinion, registers a complaint, or requests information in a business or friendly structure (Supporting Standard).