Reading Informational Texts

Finding and teaching high-quality nonfiction passages from history, science, and other sources can be a struggle, even for seasoned English language arts teachers. Not with Reading Informational Texts for grades 7–12! This series makes it easy to add challenging nonfiction passages to your curriculum.

Each level of Reading Informational Texts is packed with grade-appropriate reading selections drawn from multiple subject areas, including law, history, science, and politics.

With passages ranging in complexity levels, from average to high, you can choose the right ones to match your students’ reading abilities.

Annotations throughout each reading selection help both you and your students dive deeper into the text by revealing rhetorical techniques, explaining historical context, and clarifying logical arguments.

When they’re finished reading, students complete short-answer analysis questions tied to each requirement of the Common Core for reading informational texts.

The Teacher’s Edition includes detailed justifications of each passage’s selection, with notes on quantitative and qualitative measures of text difficulty.

Under the Common Core State Standards, nonfiction texts like biographies and autobiographies; historical documents; technical texts containing elements like graphs, maps, and charts; and books about history, social studies, science, and the arts all fall under informational texts.

Reading Informational Texts includes both technical texts, such as court opinions and scientific articles, and literary nonfiction texts, including memoirs and personal essays.

In the early grades, students read an even mix of fiction and nonfiction. As they get older, they read more nonfiction. The Common Core suggests that about 70% of what high school students read should be informational texts. This includes reading in other classes too, like science, social studies, and history.

By the time they graduate, students are expected to break down arguments, look at evidence, and understand more challenging texts. Reading informational texts undoubtedly helps students develop these skills.

In addition, research conducted by the Common Core suggests that the texts students read in school today are not as challenging as those from past decades. At the same time, the reading required for college and many jobs has become more difficult.

This means students who are good at reading informational texts will have an edge when applying to college or doing college-level work. Even students who go straight into the workforce after high school will benefit from stronger reading skills, as many workplace texts are written at a level above 12th grade.