The following standards have been taken from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) standards.

Students will:

• Complex elements of plot development (e.g., cause-and-effect relationships; use of subplots, parallel episodes, and climax; development of conflict and resolution).
• The use of specific literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashback, progressive and digressive time, suspense).
• Inferred and recurring themes in literary works (e.g., bravery; loyalty; friendship; good vs. evil; historical, cultural, and social themes).
• Relationships between literature and its historical period, culture, and society (e.g., influence of historical context on form, style, and point of view; influence of literature on political events; social influences on author's description of characters, plot, and setting; ways writers represent and reveal their cultures and traditions).
• Make connections between the motives of characters or the causes for complex events in texts and those in their own lives.
• Use a variety of pre-writing strategies (e.g., make outlines, use published pieces as writing models, construct critical standards, brainstorm, build background knowledge).
• Understand how slavery shaped economic and social elements of southern society (e.g., how slavery hindered the emergence of capitalist institutions and values, the influence of slavery on the development of the middle class, the influence of slave revolts on the lives of slaves and freed slaves).