8th Grade Reading: Informational Text

For eighth graders, this Common Core area helps students gain mastery of the deeper tasks involved in reading a non-fiction text. The standards require students to increase the complexity in the texts they read and deepen their understanding of the connections within and between texts. Among the complete standards for this grade, eighth graders will be asked to: support a textual analysis with direct textual evidence and explicit inferences, determine the theme of a text and how it develops within the text, be able to give an objective summary of a text, begin to evaluate the strength of argument, reasoning and supporting evidence within a text, be able to assess the appropriate use of various media to convey the meaning of information being conveyed, read text appropriate to grade level while increasing in the level of text complexity throughout the year.

Main Idea Organizer

Teach your students how to organize their writing with this helpful Main Idea Organizer. Students will be asked to complete the worksheet by writing their own main idea, three details, and a summary. This will help your students better understand how to organize their ideas for writing in the future, especially when writing an essay!

Charles Dickens Visits America

In 1842 Charles Dickens was probably the most famous English language author in the world. In this year he visited America. Students read about the trip and answer the questions.

Draw a Conclusion: Visual Details

Your student will use visual clues to make inferences about a group of pictures in this worksheet.

Evaluating Text: My Life

In this worksheet, your student will assess a premise in Helen Keller’s autobiography, My Life.

Inference Practice 2: Where Am I?

Here’s some inference practice for your middle school student.

Main Idea Graphic Organizer

Staying organized can be difficult, especially when you are trying to keep your writing and ideas well organized. With this printable Main Idea Graphic Organizer, students can keep their thoughts and ideas organized and separated based on their order of importance.

Organize the Main Idea

Help your students learn how to better organize their ideas with this Main Idea Organizer. Students will be asked to come up with a title, write a main idea, and support the main idea with three written details. In order to excel at writing, it is important to learn how to construct paragraphs in a way that is easy for the reader to understand the argument.

Susan B. Anthony and the Right to Vote

Susan B. Anthony was very important in women’s right to vote. Here is a exercise for students to read and then answer related questions.

Slavery in the Constitution

Your student can compare different parts of the Constitution that relate to slavery.