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8th-Grade ELA Assignment

This assignment is partially aligned to the standards.

Overview

Eighth-grade students read “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman, then respond to a series of multiple-choice questions. While the text is grade-appropriate and worthwhile, the questions only ask students to recall straightforward content from the text (e.g., “How old was the athlete when he died?”) or to identify discrete examples of literary devices (e.g., “’Eyes the shady night has shut’ is an example of _______”). The questions do not build deep understanding of the text, and there is no expectation that students draw on specific details and language to support their responses.

About the Text

Title and Author

“To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman

What is the Lexile Level of this text?

As a “non-prose” (NP) text, the poem does not have a Lexile level.

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

N/A

Is the text qualitatively complex enough for the grade?

Yes

Is this text fiction or non-fiction?

N/A (poetry)

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.8.1: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Why is this assignment weakly aligned to this standard?

Some questions require students to make inferences about the character and the basic narrative of the poem, but the task does not capture the more critical part of this standard, which is citing textual evidence to support these inferences.

RL.8.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

Why is this assignment weakly aligned to this standard?

The final question asks students to choose a theme statement from among several provided choices. Students do not have opportunity to analyze the development of this theme over the course of the text, or to articulate its relationship to the characters, setting, plot, etc.

RL.8.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

Why is this assignment weakly aligned to this standard?

Several questions call attention to specific words and phrases within the text. The first question, for example, asks students to identify the literary device exemplified by the lines “fleet foot” and “townsman of a stiller town” (alliteration). These questions mostly represent isolated practice with identifying a literary device or deciphering a specific phrase, so they do not work to build students’ understanding of meaning and tone in the poem.

RL.8.10: 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 questions are not:

The assignment allows students to engage with a worthwhile, complex poem. The text exhibits exceptional literary craft, using imagery, metaphor, and irony to develop a theme about the fleeting nature of fame and glory.

The accompanying task does not require students to analyze the poem deeply. Students respond to multiple-choice questions that ask them to recall the basic narrative of the poem or identify literary devices. Students do not have to assess how the poem uses imagery and metaphor to develop a complex theme.

Students have no opportunity to use evidence to substantiate their ideas. Students are not asked to write about the poem or demonstrate understanding of its tone or meaning.

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.