Sample Performance Tasks for Informational Texts: History/Social Studies & Science, Mathematics, and Technical Subjects
• Students analyze the governmental structure of the United States and support their analysis by citing specific textual evidence from primary sources such as the Preamble and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well as secondary sources such as Linda R. Monk’s Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution. [RH.6–8.1]
• Students evaluate Jim Murphy’s The Great Fire to identify which aspects of the text (e.g., loaded language and the inclusion of particular facts) reveal his purpose; presenting Chicago as a city that was “ready to burn.” [RH.6–8.6]
• Students describe how Russell Freedman in his book Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott integrates and presents information both sequentially and causally to explain how the civil rights movement began. [RH.6–8.5]
• Students integrate the quantitative or technical information expressed in the text of David Macaulay’s Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction with the information conveyed by the diagrams and models Macaulay provides, developing a deeper understanding of Gothic architecture. [RST.6–8.7]
• Students construct a holistic picture of the history of Manhattan by comparing and contrasting the information gained from Donald Mackay’s The Building of Manhattan with the multimedia sources available on the “Manhattan on the Web” portal hosted by the New York Public Library (http://legacy.www.nypl.org/branch/manhattan/index2.cfm?Trg=1&d1=865). [RST.6–8.9]
• Students learn about fractal geometry by reading Ivars Peterson and Nancy Henderson’s Math Trek: Adventures in the Math Zone and then generate their own fractal geometric structure by following the multistep procedure for creating a Koch’s curve. [RST.6–8.3]