Common Core Standards
Grade 8
Reading RI.8.8
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidence is introduced.
Whereas sixth grade asked students to find claims that had no evidence behind them and seventh grade asked students students to find claims that didn't have enough evidence behind them, eighth grade asks students to find claims that have irrelevant evidence behind them. There are tons of types of irrelevant evidence out there, such as quotes from unrelated authority figures or attempts to appeal to a reader's emotions or fears over the actual facts. However, students do not have to describe which logical fallacy is behind irrelevant evidence; that's for ninth graders to do.
Aligned Resources
- Social Studies Online: Digital Literacy Connections to Civics and History: To Speak or Not to Speak… Freely
- Teaching American Born Chinese: Are You There, God? It's Me, Monkey King
- Teaching Maniac Magee: City Divided
- Teaching Maniac Magee: Exploring Homelessness
- Teaching The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963: Let's Do the Time Warp
- Teaching Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Integration In Our Nation
- Teaching The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Modern-Day Toms and Hucks
- Teaching The View from Saturday: Create Your Own Knowledge Bowl
- Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird: A Dream Deferred
- Teaching When You Reach Me: Mysteries of Science
- Teaching Flowers for Algernon: The Great Debate
- Teaching Hatchet: Biology 101
- Teaching A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Nickeled & Dimed
- Teaching A Wrinkle in Time: Right Brain Versus Left Brain
- Teaching Animal Farm: Corruption Makes the World Go Round
- How To Evaluate a Website: Fact or Fiction: How to Decide What Sites Keep It Real
- Teaching The View from Saturday: Getting To Know a Turtle (Almost)
- Using and Citing Online Sources: Chicken or the Egg: Primary and Secondary Sources
- Teaching A Little Princess: What Happens to Them?
- How To Evaluate a Website: Fact or Opinion: How to a Judge Website's Biases
- Teaching Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: The Rules of Flag Flying (You Read That Right)
- Teaching A Wrinkle in Time: The Quotable Mrs. Who