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7th-Grade ELA Assignment

This assignment is partially aligned to the standards.

Overview

Seventh-grade students read "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, then fill out a chart that describes the salient traits of the main characters. The assignment exposes students to a worthwhile text, but the accompanying task does not reflect the depth of the seventh-grade standards. Students do not have opportunity to write substantively. Instead, they jot a series of descriptive words and phrases about multiple characters. There is no expectation that they include specific details from the text to support their descriptions.

About the Text

Title and Author

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

What is the Lexile Level of this text?

870

Based on Lexile, which grades is this text intended for?

4-5

Is the text qualitatively complex enough for the grade?

Yes

Is this text fiction or non-fiction?

Fiction

Is this text authentic or was it written for educational purposes?

Authentic

Does the text provide sufficient detail to build knowledge of a worthwhile topic and/or is it worth reading closely and re-reading?

Yes

Related Standards

We looked at how well the assignment aligned to the following standards:

RL.7.1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Why is this assignment weakly aligned to this standard?

Students make inferences about the characters’ qualities based on their behaviors in the story, but the task does not capture the more critical part of this standard, which is citing “several pieces of textual evidence” to support analysis.

RL.7.3: Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).

Why is this assignment weakly aligned to this standard?

The task focuses students on the characters , but it does not address the interaction of characters with other story elements, such as setting and plot, as this standard suggests.

RL.7.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

Why is this assignment partially aligned?

This assignment is partially aligned because the text is strong, but the writing prompt is not:

It allows students to engage with a noteworthy, grade-appropriate text. The text exhibits exceptional literary craft and builds students’ knowledge about the history of the Jim Crow era, racial segregation, and de facto discrimination toward African Americans by the criminal justice system.

The accompanying task does not require grade-level analysis. Students fill out a graphic organizer but have no opportunity to write more substantively about the text. The task does not build to a more rigorous analysis.

Students have no opportunity to use evidence to substantiate their ideas. Students’ descriptions of the characters are surface-level, and do not delve into the language and details of the text itself.

Additional ELA Resources

Common Core ELA Standards
Read the standards and find out what they require of students.
Instructional Shifts in Literacy
Understand the key instructional shifts the ELA standards call for.
Student Work Review Tool – ELA
Use this tool to understand if an assignment is worthwhile for students.