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6th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 15 of 17

Judge and Compare Texts

Criteria for quality, and how culture, place and era shape a text.

What your child practices

Your child uses clear criteria to judge texts, tells a summary from an evaluation, and compares texts across genres, cultures and eras, including how an author's place or background shapes their perspective.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 6R9; 6R6 · judging texts with criteria and comparing them across genres, cultures, eras and perspectives

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Judge texts with clear criteria, like accurate facts and good sources.
  2. A summary tells what a text says. An evaluation judges how good it is.
  3. An author’s culture, place and era shape their perspective. Similar stories appear in many cultures.

Example: To judge whether an article is good, which criterion is most useful: “Is it long?” or “Are the facts accurate and supported?” Length doesn’t make an article good. Accuracy and support do. Answer: Are the facts accurate and supported by sources?

Judge and Compare Texts in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 15 of 17 in 6th grade English Language Arts, after Media, Bias & Diversity and before Read Closely: Evidence, Theme and Change.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What is a cultural perspective?

    • A way of seeing the world shaped by a group's beliefs, customs and history
    • The title of a book
    • A kind of punctuation
    • A list of facts in a table

  2. Question 2

    When you compare a novel to the movie made from it, which question helps most?

    • Which one costs more?
    • Which one has a better poster?
    • Which one is longer?
    • What did the movie change, add or leave out, and why?

  3. Question 3

    Which criterion best helps you judge a short story?

    • Does it list sources?
    • Do the characters and events feel believable within the story?
    • Does it have an index?
    • Is every sentence the same length?

  4. Question 4

    A writer who grew up on a farm describes rain as "a blessing." A writer from a flooded city calls it "a threat." What explains the difference?

    • Each author's place and experience shapes their perspective
    • They are describing different weather words
    • One of them is lying
    • Rain is always good

  5. Question 5

    Which criterion best helps you judge a persuasive essay?

    • Does it rhyme?
    • Is it written in the past tense?
    • Are the claims backed by relevant evidence?
    • Does it have stage directions?

  6. Question 6

    A review says, "This book is great because I liked it." What is wrong with this judgment?

    • It gives no criteria or evidence from the text
    • It mentions the reader
    • It uses the word "book"
    • It is too long

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