Content-Rich Informational Text

The standards address reading and writing across-the-curriculum that complement the content the standards in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects, thus offering new grounding in informational text and placing a premium on students building knowledge from that reading. In K-5, fulfilling the standards requires a 50-50 balance between informational and literary reading. The K-5 standards also strongly recommend that students build coherent general knowledge both within each year and across years. In 6-12, ELA classes place much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional.

Part of the motivation behind the interdisciplinary approach to literacy in the standards is the established need that most required reading in college and workforce training programs is informational in structure and challenging in content.