Anchor Standards
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Viewing
The Viewing Standards offer a focus for instruction each year and help ensure students gain adequate exposure to a range of texts and tasks. Rigor is infused through the requirement that students view increasingly complex texts through the grades. Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades. For instruction each year to help ensure students gain adequate mastery of a range of skills and applications, students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Key Ideas and Details
Students will be able to:
- View closely to determine what the signer says explicitly and make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when signing to support conclusions drawn from the text.
- Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize key supporting details and ideas.
- Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
Students will be able to:
- Interpret signs, depiction, and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific sign choices shape meaning or tone.
- Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., section, chapter, scene, stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
- Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Students will be able to:
- Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in signs.
- Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
- Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
Range of Viewing and Level of Text Complexity
Students will be able to:
- View and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Published Signing
The Published Signing Standards offer a focus for instruction to help ensure students gain mastery of a range of skills and applications in developing published ASL, including students’ understanding and working knowledge on text types and purposes (e.g., argumentative, informative, explanatory, narrative), production of published signing (e.g., organization, appropriate to task, purpose, audience; drafting process; and use of technology to publish, interact with, and collaborate with others), and research to build and present knowledge.
Students should demonstrate increasing sophistication in all aspects of linguistic expression, from vocabulary and syntax to the development and organization of ideas, and they should address increasingly demanding content and sources. Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades. The expected growth in students’ published signing ability is reflected both in the standards themselves and in the collection of annotated student-published signed samples. For instruction each year to help ensure students gain adequate mastery of a range of skills and applications, students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Text Types and Purposes
Students will be able to:
- Sign arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
- Sign informative and explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
- Sign narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Production and Distribution of Signing
Students will be able to:
1. Produce clear and coherent signing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
2. Develop and strengthen signing as needed by planning, revising, editing, re-signing, or trying a new approach.
3. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish signing and to interact and collaborate with others.
Research to Build and Present Knowledge
Students will be able to:
- Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
- Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
- Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Range of Signing
Students will be able to:
- Sign routinely over extended time frames (e.g., time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (e.g., a single sitting, a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Discourse and Presentation
The Discourse and Presentation Standards focus on fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge to prepare and present knowledge and ideas effectively through findings and supporting evidence appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. These standards promote strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data, develop appropriate linguistic register for both presenting and to analyze other presenters’ points of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric. It also includes preparation and participation in the range of conversations and collaborations with different audiences. For instruction each year to help ensure students gain adequate mastery of a range of skills and applications, students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Comprehension and Collaboration
Students will be able to:
- Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
- Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and signing.
- Evaluate a signer’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
Students will be able to:
- Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that viewers can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
- Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
- Adapt sign to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks, demonstrating command of formal ASL when indicated or appropriate.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
The Language Standards offer a focus for instruction each year on fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge of structures of ASL, knowledge of language, and vocabulary acquisition and use. These standards are designed to foster student knowledge of standard ASL grammar, usage, and mechanics, and, to facilitate their learning different ways to use language. For instruction each year to help ensure students gain adequate mastery of a range of skills and applications, students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Structures of Standard ASL
Students will be able to:
- Demonstrate command of the structures of standard ASL grammar and usage when signing.
- Demonstrate command of the structures of standard ASL parameters and grammar.
Knowledge of Language
Students will be able to:
- Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when signing or viewing.
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
Students will be able to:
- Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning signs and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful sign parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.
- Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, sign relationships, and nuances in sign meanings.
- Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific signs, depiction, and phrases sufficient for viewing and signing at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown sign important to comprehension or expression.
College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Fingerspelling and Fingerreading
The Fingerspelling and Fingerreading Standards offer a focus for instruction each year to foster students’ understanding and knowledge of fingerspelling, including initialized and lexicalized forms of fingerspelling and fingerreading, vocabulary acquisition, and use. These standards are designed for students to develop an understanding of fingerspelling and fingerreading, including usage of fingerspelling in isolation and in context. For instruction each year to help ensure students gain adequate mastery of a range of skills and applications, students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-level standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.
Key Ideas
Students will be able to:
- Demonstrate understanding of ways fingerspelled signs are formed and their uses.
Initialized and Lexicalized Forms
Students will be able to:
- Demonstrate understanding of initialized and lexicalized forms of fingerspelled words.
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
Students will be able to:
- Know and apply grade-level parameters and sign analysis skills in decoding signs both in isolation and in context.
K-12 ASL Content Standards
Download a complete set of the K-12 ASL Content Standards, including the introduction, the Anchor Standards and grade-level standards, the glossary, and the references.