CPALMS Logo Generated on 9/17/2025 at 10:47 PM
The webpage this document was printed/exported from can be found at the following URL:
https://www.cpalms.org/PreviewIdea/Preview/1727
Standard 1 : Text Types and PurposesArchived
Cluster Standards

This cluster includes the following benchmarks.

Visit the specific benchmark webpage to find related instructional resources.

  • LAFS.8.W.1.1 : Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
    1. Introduce claim(s), acknowledge and distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
    2. Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
    3. Use words, phrases, and clauses to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
    4. Establish and maintain a formal style.
    5. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.2 : Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
    1. Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
    2. Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
    3. Use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts.
    4. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
    5. Establish and maintain a formal style.
    6. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.3 : Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
    1. Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
    2. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
    3. Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show the relationships among experiences and events.
    4. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
    5. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.
Cluster Information
Number:
LAFS.8.W.1
Title:
Text Types and Purposes
Type:
Cluster
Subject:
English Language Arts - Archived
Grade:
8
Strand
Writing Standards
Cluster Access Points

This cluster includes the following Access Points.

  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1a : Provide an introduction that introduces the writer’s claims and distinguishes it from alternate or opposing claims.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1b : Create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writer’s claim.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1c : Write arguments to support claims with logical reasoning and relevant evidence from credible sources.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1d : Use words, phrases and clauses to link opinions and reasons and clarify relationship of ideas.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1e : Maintain a consistent style and voice throughout writing.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.1f : Provide a concluding statement or section that supports and summarizes the argument presented.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2a : Create an organizational structure for writing that groups information logically (e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast, descriptions and examples) to support paragraph focus.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2b : Provide a clear introduction, previewing information to follow and summarizing stated focus.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2c : Develop the topic (e.g., add additional information related to the topic) with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations or other information and examples.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2d : Use transitional words, phrases and clauses that connect ideas and create cohesion within writing.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2e : Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2f : Maintain a consistent style and voice throughout writing (e.g., third person for formal style, accurate and efficient word choice, sentence fluency, voice should be active versus passive).
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2g : Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a coherent manner with relevant evidence.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2h : Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.2i : Report on a topic with a logical sequence of ideas, appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details that support the main ideas.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3a : Orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters .
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3b : Organize ideas and events so that they unfold naturally.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3c : When appropriate, use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3d : Use a variety of transition words, phrases and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another and show the relationships among experiences and events.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3e : Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3f : Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.
  • LAFS.8.W.1.AP.3g : Use literacy devices (e.g., similes, metaphors, hyperbole, personification, imagery) in narrative writing.
Cluster Resources

Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.

Original Student Tutorial
  • Surviving Extreme Conditions: In this tutorial, you will practice identifying relevant evidence within a text as you read excerpts from Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire." Then, you'll practice your writing skills as you draft a short response using examples of relevant evidence from the story.

Lesson Plans
  • Gr. 8 Lesson 1-Sponging Off the Everglades: Students will be able to: 

    • Describe how social and economic needs for water affects the water in the Everglades ecosystem
    • Explain 3 ways that the Everglades are necessary for our daily lives
    • List 3 ways to conserve water
    • Quantify the percentages of water usage by different South Florida user groups
    • Create a mathematical model using a pie chart to illustrate water usage by user group in South Florida
    • Create an informational brochure about the importance of water to the Everglades and the need for water conservation
  • Gr. 8 Lesson 3-Everglades Dilemmas: Students will be able to:

    • Describe how different social and economic decisions impact the Everglades
    • Analyze and select actions related to water dilemmas associated with the Everglades
    • Write an explanatory essay about how decisions made on a daily basis have the potential to impact the Everglades
  • Where Should We Move? STEM Lesson Plan: Students will collect data to identify planet composition, average temperature, and the distance of some planets within the Milky Way Galaxy from the Sun. Students will complete two-way tables to make comparisons. Students will then analyze and interpret their data. Students will make inferences and justify their reasoning.

  • It's a Lovely Home, But...Using Multiple Texts to Aid in Decision Making: In this lesson, students will learn about a subject as they read and analyze multiple text types before writing a business letter explaining a decision they will be asked to make. This lesson incorporates poetry, authentic non-fiction, photography, and writing.

  • Exploring the Future of NASA:

    In this lesson, students will read and analyze two nonfiction articles about future work at NASA. Students will track the development of central ideas throughout each text. At the end of the lesson, students will synthesize a written response comparing and contrasting how the two authors establish their purpose.

  • Rain in Summer: What a Bummer, Or Is It?: In this lesson, students will analyze the symbols and imagery present in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Rain in Summer" to determine its meaning. Formative assessment checks are included as student handouts with text-based questions and charts. Students will also write a short essay as a summative assessment in which they will develop a claim about the poem's meaning, providing text-based examples as support.

  • One for All? Or Not. Letter XII: Distresses of a Frontier Man: This lesson is based on Letter XII: Distresses of a Frontier Man by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. This "letter" is one of a collection of essays in an epistolary format from the collection, Letters from an American Farmer (1782). In this lesson, students will read and analyze the two central ideas in the text. Students will fill out a graphic organizer on the central ideas and participate in a class debate.

  • Be Careful What You Wish For: "The Monkey's Paw": Students will read the short story "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs, answer text-dependent questions, and examine a theme of the story, "Be careful what you wish for." In the summative assessment students will write their own narrative that shares the same theme.

  • What does it mean to be dense?: Students will use card stock patterns to create two mini-boxes that they can fill with three different substances. The density of each substance will be compared when contained in both the smaller and larger boxes. Students will use their observations to develop an argument describing how the change in volume of the box affected the density of the substance.

    SC.8.P.8.4 will not be completely covered; only the physical property of density will be addressed.
  • How Fast Can You Go: Students will apply skills (making a scatter plot, finding Line of Best Fit, finding an equation and predicting the y-value of a point on the line given its x-coordinate) to a fuel efficiency problem and then consider other factors such as color, style, and horsepower when designing a new coupe vehicle.

    Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

  • Remembering D-Day: This is a lesson based on President Obama’s remarks on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in Normandy. His speech focuses on the anniversary of D-Day and the effect it had on soldiers and civilians who experienced the attack. This lesson provides an opportunity for vocabulary acquisition and an analysis of the meaning of President Obama’s speech.

  • Pygmalion: A Mythological Inspiration: Students will read Thomas Bulfinch's Pygmalion to answer text-dependent questions, work with vocabulary from the text, and compare the characterization of the two renditions of the myth. Students will also read an abridged excerpt from Act II of George Bernard Shaw's award-winning play, Pygmalion. Students will compare and contrast key characters and their traits from both texts. As a culminating activity, students will create their own narrative version of the Pygmalion myth.

  • Close Reading of Echo and Narcissus: In this lesson, students will conduct three close readings of the highly entertaining myth "Echo and Narcissus" as retold by Thomas Bulfinch. Through these readings, students will answer text-dependent questions about the myth, work to determine the meanings of selected vocabulary and sort them into different categories, analyze character motivation, and determine the settings used in the story. For the end of lesson assessment, students will determine a theme for the myth and write about that theme in an extended response paragraph.

  • A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative: This two-day lesson, "A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words: From Image to Detailed Narrative," by Traci Gardner, is provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, with support from the Verizon Foundation.

    In the lesson, students view an image that tells a story and brainstorm the possible event or situation the image illustrates. Each student then writes a narrative from the point of view of one of the characters, revealing the character's thoughts/feelings and the events that led up to the image or the events that will follow.

  • Close Reading Exemplar: Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution: The goal of this one to two day exemplar from Student Achievement Partner web resources is to give students the opportunity to observe the dynamic nature of the Constitution through the practice of close reading and writing habits. By reading and re-reading the passage closely, and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussion about the text, students will explore the questions Monk raises and perhaps even pursue additional avenues of inquiry. When combined with writing about the passage, not only will students form a deeper appreciation of Monk’s argument and the value of struggling with complex text, but of the Preamble of the Constitution itself.

  • What is Normal? Exploring Connotations and Denotations: The goal of this lesson is to give students the opportunity to explore the connotations and denotations of the word "normal" and its various meanings. Through the use of "Us and Them," a personal essay by David Sedaris, students will explore the various beliefs and points of view of "normal" based on the picture painted by Sedaris. Students will need to consider the emotional context of words and how diction reveals an author's tone and message, as well as how the use of irony can impact the tone of a piece. Students will also read and analyze a Time article, "An In-Depth View of America by the Numbers," by Nancy Gibbs. For the summative assessment, students will write an explanatory essay (several prompts are provided) about normality using evidence from the texts studied in the lesson for support.

  • To the Heart of Human Expression: Form and Theme in Poetry (Part 2): This is part two in a two-part series using Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 71." In this lesson, students will to identify and explain theme in poetry and write a short response.

  • Bike Club Trip: In this activity the students will rank different locations for a bike club's next destination. In order to do so, the students must use Pythagorean Theorem and well as analyze data of the quantitative and qualitative type.

    Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

  • Agree to Argue: The Art of Argumentation: This focus of this lesson is to provide students with an opportunity to write arguments to support a claim, including evidence, research, and a counterclaim(s). Students will draft an argumentative essay, peer edit each others" text, and then revise their own product. Graphic organizers, argumentative techniques, and a rubric are included in this lesson.

  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier-An Intro to Analysis & Argumentation Part I of III: This is part one in a three part series that covers Ismael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. In this lesson, students will review chapters 1-7 of by discussing notable quotes, analyzing the development of the central idea, and determining the argument Beah introduces and supports through the telling of his memoir.

  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - An Intro to Analysis & Argumentation Part II of III: This is part two in a three part series that covers Ismael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. In this lesson students will have independently read, outside of class, chapters 8-14. In class, students will create position statements as they read several informational articles and speeches about a variety of topics. Students will participate in a whole class discussion to assist them with their creation of position statements.

  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier- An Intro to Analysis & Argumentation Part III of III: This is lesson three in a three part series that covers Ismael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Students will have read chapters 15-21 before this lesson. In this lesson, students will use all evidence gleaned from their reading of the memoir, the graphic organizer and student handout information from the first two lessons, and conduct additional research to create a multimedia presentation.

  • Superhero Debate: In this lesson, students will gather research and engage in a series of debates to determine the "Supreme Superhero." As students debate and the class progresses to a "final four" and then a National Championship, several debate methods will be used: Socratic Seminar, Philosophical Chairs, and a Fishbowl activity. After the "Supreme Superhero" is chosen, students will individually write an essay arguing why the hero deserved to win and include counter arguments for an additional hero.

Tutorials
  • Fact and Opinion: Parents, Teens, and Texting: In this tutorial from PBS, students will watch videos by and about teens for whom texting is a part of their daily life. Then they will evaluate statistics about texting and use those facts to form an opinion about texting, such as whether parents are justified in reading their teens' texts. They will be able to evaluate and interpret facts to form an opinion. During this process, they will also read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and interactive activities.

  • Character Change: The Diary of Anne Frank: In this tutorial from PBS, students will explore what Anne Frank's writing and a video dramatization of her diary reveal about her character and how it changed while she was in hiding. They will develop their literacy skills as they explore how her character changes. During this process, they will also read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and interactive activities.

Unit/Lesson Sequence
  • Freak the Mighty: Heroes Come in All Sizes: Freak the Mighty is the story of a friendship between Max, who is big for his age and has learning disabilities, and Kevin, who is a genius, but is short and unable to walk on his own. In this unit, students explore how expectations for students with disabilities are influenced by appearances, behaviors, and stereotypes as they cite textual evidence that supports an analysis of what the text says, determine/analyze the text's theme, and engage effectively in collaborative small-group discussions.