The Washington K-12 Learning Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) are built upon the foundation of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. ELA standards are split into five Domains that group the literacy skills together.
Students read, comprehend, interpret, analyze, evaluate, and appreciate multimodal texts, including those of historical and literary significance, from a broad range of genres, cultures, and mediums in the context of grade-level content to understand themselves, others, and the world. Genres include fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and a variety of genres beyond these categories.
Students compose multimodal texts in a variety of genres for a range of communicative situations in the context of grade-level content, in which the development, organization, and language use are appropriate to genre, task, purpose, and audience.
Students engage in and learn from collaborative discussions, presentations, and public speaking for a range of communicative situations in the context of grade-level content.
Students demonstrate command of the English language to speak and write clearly, and to comprehend more fully when reading, listening, or viewing.
Students develop a variety of questions, seek answers by appropriately using relevant tools and techniques, adjust their inquiry methods as needed, and use their learning. Students think critically about reactions to media messages, purposes, accuracy, logic, and fairness of media messages, and credibility of those responsible for media messages.