Week 14: Week 14 — Using and Citing Evidence from Sources in Writing
Week of Mon, Feb 15 · week closes Sun, Feb 21
This week's items
Exact due times are in Canvas. Each week opens on its Monday and stays open. Practice is never late — but the MCAP window opens April 5, 2027, so keep pace.
Know these cold
- On both MCAP ELA 10 performance tasks, your constructed response must use evidence from the passages. How well you choose, introduce, and explain that evidence shapes your Written Expression score.
- Relevant evidence matches the exact point you are making. Interesting details that sit near your topic but do not prove your point only take up space.
- Sufficient evidence means you have enough support to convince a reader. One quotation rarely carries a whole paragraph; a fact plus an example is usually stronger.
- Quote when the author's exact words are powerful or precise. Paraphrase when you only need the idea, and always put the idea fully into your own words and sentence structure.
- Introduce every piece of evidence with a signal phrase that names the source, such as "According to Passage 2" or "The author of the science article explains."
- Blend quotations into your own sentences so they read smoothly, and punctuate them correctly. Square brackets can clarify a word inside a quotation, and an ellipsis shows that you left words out.
- After the evidence, explain it. Tell the reader what the detail shows and how it connects to your controlling idea or claim.
- Using an author's exact words without quotation marks, even a short phrase, is plagiarism. On the test it also hides your own thinking from the scorer.
Meerk's quiz — open the Week 14 gate
10 questions, no time limit. One counted try: 85% opens the gate. Miss it and Meerk's Study Path opens: it teaches every miss back to you, then a mastery check — and it cannot finish before 25 minutes of real study. Then your second try opens. Work alone; the point is to know it, not to have seen it.
Stuck?
Raise your hand. Mr. James gets a message right away and can help you remotely. Nothing else is stored — just your last name, grade, and where you're stuck.
My Progress
Dinner Table Question
Ask at home: When you tell someone a fact you heard, how do you let them know where it came from, and does knowing the source change whether you believe it?
En español: Cuando le cuentas a alguien un dato que escuchaste, ¿cómo le dejas saber de dónde vino, y saber la fuente cambia si lo crees o no?