W.7.6: Publishing Writing Online That Links to and Cites Its Sources
In plain English: W.7.6 is the Common Core grade 7 ELA standard that asks students to use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing that links to and cites its sources. Students also use technology to interact and collaborate with others, and they link to and cite sources in that exchange too, for example in comments on a class blog. It builds on W.6.6.
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy · Domain: Writing Standards · Cluster: Production and Distribution of Writing · Official standard
Students follow one short piece of online writing from a shared document to a published class blog post, and then through the comments and fixes that come after publishing. Theo, Keira and Jun, three invented seventh graders, answer the question "How did people keep food cold before refrigerators?" with two real books from the 1890s and 1900: Theron Hiles's The Ice Crop (1893) and Edward Byrn's The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century (1900), both free to read on Project Gutenberg. In their comment thread they catch a copied sentence, reject "click here" as link text and decide how to cite an e-book with no fixed page numbers. After they publish, a classmate suggests an addition and backs it with a quotation, a citation and a link, another makes a claim with no source, a parent reports a link that opens the wrong page, and the teacher spots a gap in the Works Cited list.
The grade 7 standard adds one thing to grade 6: writing published with technology must "link to and cite sources," and so must the interaction and collaboration that follow. The lesson treats linking and citing as two separate jobs. A link gets an online reader to the source in one tap. A citation still works when the link breaks or the page is printed. Students sort linked sentences, draft together in a shared document, role-play a comment thread, and for homework repair and cite a classmate's post about how mail reached farm families.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Use a shared document's comments and version history to produce a piece of writing with other writers
Publish writing on the Internet, check it before publishing, and correct it afterward with a record of each change
Link to sources with link text that names the source, and cite the same sources with MLA in-text citations and a Works Cited list
Interact and collaborate with readers online by answering comments, and link to and cite sources in comments and replies
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Using technology to produce and publish writing and to collaborate with others W.6.6
Quoting or paraphrasing sources and giving basic bibliographic information W.6.8
Revising a draft with help from peers and adults W.7.5
Typing and editing a short piece in a word processor or shared document W.6.6
"You read this on a website: 'In the 1800s, people shipped ice from Boston all the way to India.' What would make you believe it? What would you want to be able to click?"
Collect answers. Students usually want to know who says so and to see the original. Write two words on the board: link (a word or phrase in online writing that opens another page when you tap it) and citation (a short note that names the source of a fact or quotation, matched to a full entry in a list of sources). Tell students that W.7.6 asks for both.
Introduce the situation. Theo, Keira and Jun, three invented seventh graders in Ms. Adeyemi's class, are writing a post for their class blog. A blog is a website where posts are published one at a time and readers can leave comments. The team writes in a shared document, one online file that several writers can edit at once, where anyone can leave a comment (a note in the margin that does not change the text). The two books they use are real. Read Text 1 aloud and ask: what problem does Jun catch, and how does he point it out without changing Theo's words?
1Assignment from Ms. Adeyemi, posted in the class's shared folder: Write a post of 250-400 words for the Room 214 History Blog that answers one question about daily life before 1900. Draft it together in one shared document. Link to every source you use, and cite each one in MLA style, with a Works Cited list at the end. After you publish, answer readers' comments within two school days.
2Rosa: Our question is "How did people keep food cold before refrigerators?" I found a book from 1893 called The Ice Crop, by Theron Hiles, on Project Gutenberg, a free online library of older books. Chapter 1 tells how the ice business started. I'll put a link to it in our draft.
3Theo: I pasted a sentence from Chapter 1 into our draft: Two million tons is a liberal estimate of the amount of ice stored at this date, 1855, in the United States.
4Jun (a comment on Theo's sentence): Those are Hiles's exact words, but they have no quotation marks and no citation. Readers will think we wrote them. Can you put them in quotation marks with a citation, or say the idea in your own words and still cite it?
5Theo: Fixed. I rewrote it in my own words: By 1855, Americans may have stored as much as two million tons of ice (Hiles, ch. 1).
6Rosa: For the link, should I just write "click here"?
7Jun: No. The words of the link should tell readers where it goes, like "The Ice Crop, an 1893 book by Theron Hiles." And a link is not a citation by itself. If a link stops working, or someone prints our post, the Works Cited list still tells readers the author, the title and where to find the book.
8Theo: I found a second source: Edward Byrn's The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century, from 1900. It's on Project Gutenberg too, and Chapter 32 is about ice machines.
9Rosa: These e-books don't have page numbers that stay the same on every screen, so Ms. Adeyemi says to cite the chapter instead, like this: (Hiles, ch. 1).
10Jun: Before we publish, let's each read the whole post on a phone and click every link.
SVHS lesson authors, The team's planning thread in their shared document (Text 1; Theo, Keira, Jun, Ms. Adeyemi, the Room 214 History Blog and their school are invented; the books they name are real). Original passage written for this page.
Direct Instruction20 minutes
Break W.7.6 into its parts, using the team's work:
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce writing. The team drafts in a shared document. Comments let a writer point to a problem, and the document's version history (a list of saved versions, with who changed what and when) shows how the writing changed.
Publish writing. The post goes on the class blog, where families and classmates can read it. Publishing online means readers can also answer back.
Link to and cite sources. Every source gets a link with link text that says where it goes, and a citation. This lesson uses MLA style (9th edition): an in-text citation in parentheses, such as (Hiles, ch. 1), and a Works Cited list, the list of sources at the end, in alphabetical order.
Interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources. Comments and replies are writing too. A comment that makes a claim should link to and cite its source, just like the post.
Read Text 2, the opening of the real book Keira found, and Text 3, the post as the team published it. Then work through the examples below.
1Prior to 1805, there was no regularly conducted traffic in ice, in this country. In the winter of 1805–6, a supply was secured at Boston, Mass., and the following summer a cargo was despatched to the West Indies, where yellow fever was then raging.
2DOMESTIC AND EXPORT TRADE were both of very slow growth, and, in 1825, the ice consumed in the United States and exported to foreign ports was probably less than fifty thousand tons. During the thirty years following, the consumption of ice increased more rapidly, and the enterprise of the shippers carried the fame of Boston ice all around the world. Cargoes were consigned to London, to the East Indies, and the West Indies, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, China, Japan, and Australia.
3THE EXPORT TRADE reached its height about this time. Frederick Tudor, of Boston, Mass., who shipped the first cargo to the West Indies in 1806, and whose enterprise had carried his ships to all the ports mentioned, was titled the “Ice King.” Not many years after this, ice and refrigerator machines began to supply the demand for ice in tropical climes, and the importations of the natural product soon ceased. Two million tons is a liberal estimate of the amount of ice stored at this date, 1855, in the United States, with six or seven million dollars of invested capital.
Theron L. Hiles, The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice, Chapter I, "An Historical Sketch" (Text 2: the first three paragraphs of the chapter) (1893). Public domain (published 1893). Source text.
1[Post title] Before the Fridge: How Americans Kept Food Cold with Winter Ice
2[Byline] By Theo, Keira and Jun, Room 214. Published October 6, 2026.
3Today we open a refrigerator without thinking about it. Before home refrigerators, many Americans kept food cold with ice cut from frozen ponds and rivers in winter and stored until summer. Workers cut the ice into blocks and moved them into huge ice houses, buildings made to keep ice frozen for months (Hiles, ch. 1).
4The ice business in the United States started small. According to [link: The Ice Crop, an 1893 book by Theron Hiles], "Prior to 1805, there was no regularly conducted traffic in ice, in this country" (ch. 1). By 1855, Americans may have stored as much as two million tons of ice (Hiles, ch. 1). By the time Hiles was writing, the ice trade employed "about ninety thousand persons and twenty-five thousand horses" (Hiles, ch. 1).
5Ice could also be made by machines. Some people would not buy this artificial ice because they thought they could taste chemicals in it. But [link: Edward Byrn's 1900 history of inventions] explains that "no chemicals ever come in contact with either the water or the ice" (ch. 32). Inventors kept working on the problem, and Byrn reports that more than 600 United States patents had been granted for ice machines (ch. 32).
6Farm families could store their own ice, too. Hiles wrote that ice "can be readily secured in nearly all communities within the frost belt," so "very few farmers should be without it" (ch. 6).
7So the next time you grab a cold drink from the refrigerator, think about the workers and horses who once cut the cold out of a frozen lake.
8Works Cited
9Byrn, Edward W. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. Munn, 1900. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41538.
10Hiles, Theron L. The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice. 1893. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65269.
11[Where the links went in Version 1: the Hiles link opened the book's page on Project Gutenberg. The Byrn link opened a Project Gutenberg page of search results for "Byrn."]
SVHS lesson authors, Before the Fridge, the team's blog post as published, Version 1 (Text 3; the post was written for this page, and its quotations are from Hiles and Byrn). Original passage written for this page.
Producing together: a comment instead of an edit
Theo pastes a sentence from Chapter 1 into the draft (Text 1, paragraph 3). Jun leaves a comment on the sentence instead of rewriting it (paragraph 4).
Result: A comment sits beside the words it is about without changing them. It can name a problem and offer choices, and the writer decides what to do. The whole team can read the comment and the answer, and the version history keeps the wording from before and after.
Linking: link text that names the source
Keira asks whether the link can say "click here" (Text 1, paragraph 6).
Result: Link text should tell readers where the link goes before they tap it. In Text 3, paragraph 4, the link text is "The Ice Crop, an 1893 book by Theron Hiles." A reader who skims only the links still learns the title, the date and the author.
Linking and citing are two jobs
Text 3, paragraph 4, links to Hiles's book and also cites it with (ch. 1), and the post ends with a Works Cited list.
Result: The link takes an online reader to the source in one tap. The citation gives credit inside the sentence, and the Works Cited entry gives the full details of the source. Jun explains why the team keeps both in Text 1, paragraph 7.
Citing an e-book by chapter
In Text 3, paragraph 5, the sentence already names Edward Byrn, and the citation is (ch. 32). In paragraph 4, the second sentence does not name Hiles, and its citation is (Hiles, ch. 1).
Result: MLA puts the author's last name in the citation only when the sentence does not already name the author. Project Gutenberg e-books have no page numbers that stay the same on every screen, so the team cites the chapter: ch. 32.
Building a Works Cited entry for a book read online
Byrn's book was printed by Munn & Co. in 1900, and the team read it on Project Gutenberg, at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41538.
Result: MLA order: author (last name first), title in italics, publisher, year, then the website in italics and the web address. Business words such as "& Co." are left out of the publisher's name, and https:// is left off the address. Entries are listed in alphabetical order by their first word, usually the author's last name.
Guided Practice15 minutes
Publishing is not the end of the writing. Pairs read Text 4, the comments readers left on the post and the team's version history. Diagram 2 places each comment and each version on a timeline. Pairs fill in the comment tracker below, one row per comment. In the last column, they write what the team should do next or what it did.
1Comment from Mateo, October 7: Did ice really get to hot places? Chapter 1 of The Ice Crop says Boston ice was shipped to "London, to the East Indies, and the West Indies, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, China, Japan, and Australia" (Hiles, ch. 1). [link: The Ice Crop, Chapter 1, on Project Gutenberg] Maybe you could add that to your second paragraph?
2Reply from Keira, October 7: Great find, thank you! We'll add it and cite it.
3Comment from Ava, October 8: Machine-made ice was bad for you because of the chemicals. Everybody knew that.
4Reply from Jun, October 8: Some people in the 1800s believed that, but Byrn says the chemicals never touch the water: "no chemicals ever come in contact with either the water or the ice" (Byrn, ch. 32). [link: Byrn, Chapter 32, "Ice Machines"] Do you have a source that says something different? We would like to read it.
5Comment from Mr. Bramwell, a parent, October 8: The link to Byrn's book opens a page of search results, not the book.
6Comment from Ms. Adeyemi, October 9: Nice work, team. Check your Works Cited entry for Hiles: one of the pieces MLA asks for is missing.
7Version history, with the team's notes:
8Version 1, October 6: Published on the Room 214 History Blog. (Theo, Keira and Jun)
9Version 2, October 8: Changed the Byrn link so it opens the book's own page. Tested every link on a phone and on a laptop. (Theo)
10Version 3, October 9: Added Mateo's list of places Boston ice was shipped, in quotation marks with a citation. Fixed the Hiles entry in the Works Cited list, as Ms. Adeyemi asked. (Keira and Jun)
SVHS lesson authors, Readers' comments on the post and its version history (Text 4; Mateo, Ava, Mr. Bramwell and the dates are invented; the quotations are from Hiles and Byrn). Original passage written for this page.
Comment tracker (pairs fill in the blank cells)
Comment
What does it ask, claim or report?
Does it link to and cite a source?
What should the team do?
Mateo, October 7
Ava, October 8
Mr. Bramwell, October 8
Ms. Adeyemi, October 9
Discuss: (1) Which comments could only have happened because the post was published online? (2) Keira and Jun both reply to comments. Compare the two replies: which one needed a source, and why?
Independent Practice15 minutes
Students act as a fourth member of the team and make Version 4. (1) Rewrite paragraph 4 of Text 3 so it includes Mateo's list of places Boston ice was shipped, in quotation marks with a correct MLA citation. (2) Mateo's link goes to Chapter 1 of the same book the post already cites. Decide whether Version 4 needs a new Works Cited entry for it, and explain in one sentence. (3) Write one new comment on the post, as a reader, that asks a question or adds a fact. If it adds a fact, it must link to and cite a source from Texts 2-4.
Students with devices do this in a shared document and leave one comment on a partner's Version 4 before the end of the phase. The quiz uses Texts 1-4 (Warm-Up, Direct Instruction and Guided Practice). Point students back to them when they take it.
Closure5 minutes
Exit ticket: (1) In one sentence, explain why a post needs a Works Cited list even when every source is linked. (2) Write one piece of link text for a source you have used this year.
Hand out the homework texts below: Nia and Sam's draft post about how mail reached farm families (Text 5) and their sources and readers' comments (Text 6). Nia, Sam, their sources and the commenters are invented, but the dates the sources give are real. The web addresses use example.org, a domain reserved for examples, so they do not open real pages.
Teacher notes: Hiles spells the ice shipper's name "Frederick Tudor" (Text 2, paragraph 3); most historians spell it Frederic. Hiles's phrase "the war of the Rebellion," a name used in the North for the Civil War, appears in the chapter just after the excerpt. Before students publish anything, follow your school's rules for student work online, for example posting first names only.
1[Post title] Special Delivery: How Mail Reached Farm Families
2Today a mail carrier brings letters right to the door. That was not always true. Cities got free home delivery in 1863, but for many years after that, farm families had to travel to a post office to pick up their mail, sometimes from miles away.
3Rural Free Delivery changed that. "Rural Free Delivery began on October 1, 1896, when carriers started routes in West Virginia." To learn more, [link: click here].
4In 1913 the Post Office started parcel post, which carried packages. Farm families could now order things from catalogs and get them by mail. See [link: this website] for more.
5[Nia and Sam have not written a Works Cited list yet. Where the links go: "click here" opens Source 1. "This website" opens the home page of Back Then Online, not Source 3.]
SVHS lesson authors, Special Delivery, Nia and Sam's draft blog post (Text 5, homework; Nia and Sam are invented). Original passage written for this page.
1Source 1: "Mail Comes to the Farm," an article on the website of the Cedar Valley History Museum, posted 12 March 2025, no author named. Web address: www.example.org/cedar-valley-museum/mail-comes-to-the-farm. It says: "Rural Free Delivery began on October 1, 1896, when carriers started routes in West Virginia. Before that, many farm families rode or walked miles to the nearest post office."
2Source 2: Clara Vance, Letters Across America: A History of the U.S. Mail for Young Readers, a printed book published by Brightpath Books in 2019. Nia read it in the school library. Page 42 says: "Free home delivery began in 49 cities on July 1, 1863."
3Source 3: Daniel Hoyt, "When Packages Went Parcel Post," an article on the website Back Then Online, posted 3 February 2024. Web address: www.example.org/back-then/parcel-post. It says: "Parcel post service began on January 1, 1913. Farm families could now order goods from mail-order catalogs and have them delivered."
4Comments after the post was published:
5Comment 1, from Tobias: My great-grandma told me that when she was little, the mail came to her farm in a wagon pulled by a horse.
6Comment 2, from Hana: I don't think parcel post started until 1920.
7Comment 3, from Mr. Ruiz: The link in your paragraph about parcel post opens a website's home page, and I couldn't find the article.
SVHS lesson authors, Nia and Sam's sources and their readers' comments (Text 6, homework; the three sources, their authors, publishers and web addresses and the commenters are invented, but the dates they give are real). Original passage written for this page.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a link-text frame, "[title of the source], a [year] [kind of source] by [author]," and an in-text citation card: (Author, ch. #), or (ch. #) when the sentence names the author
Fill in the Mateo row of the comment tracker together before pairs start
Provide the Works Cited pattern with blanks: Author. Title. Publisher, Year. Website, address.
For Advanced Students
Find one more real source on the ice trade in a library catalog or database, and add a linked, cited sentence and its Works Cited entry to Version 4
Write a short "How we cite" note for the class blog that explains to readers why each post has both links and a Works Cited list
Write a publishing checklist for the whole class blog and test it on Text 3
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Look for link text that names the source instead of "click here" or a bare web address, links that open the exact page cited, and in-text citations that match a Works Cited entry. Check that quoted words are in quotation marks and that paraphrases are cited too. In the shared document and the comments, look for comments that point to a specific sentence and suggest a fix, replies that answer the question asked, and claims in comments that link to and cite a source. Strong students can explain why a post needs both links and citations, and they record each change in the version history.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Ready to Publish? Link and Citation Card Sort
15 minPairs
Pairs sort eight sentences from an invented class blog post about the history of Lakeview Middle School, an invented school. Each card shows a sentence with its link and, in brackets, the page the link opens. The sort practices the two jobs in W.7.6: linking well and citing every source.
The Four Categories
Ready to publish
Fix the link text
Fix where the link goes
Add a citation
The Eight Cards (all invented for practice)
Card 1: A 1976 article in the [link: Lakeview Ledger's online archive] reports that the school opened that September with 412 students (Moreno A1). [The link opens the article.]
Card 2: The first principal planted the oak tree by the gym. [link: Click here] to read more (Park). [The link opens Park's article.]
Card 3: The mascot changed from the Rams to the Otters in 1994, as [link: the district's history page] explains. [The link opens that page. The post has no citation for it and no Works Cited entry.]
Card 4: Students voted on the new mascot, as described in [link: the 1994 student newspaper] (Chen 2). [The link opens the district's home page.]
Card 5: Retired teacher Ms. Ruiz remembers that the library was added in 2003 (Ruiz). [No link: the source is an interview the writer did in person.]
Card 6: [link: www.example.org/lakeview/archive/1976/photos/p3] shows the first class photo (Lakeview Photo Archive). [The link opens the photo.]
Card 7: According to [link: a 2016 news story on the school's 40th birthday], "Lakeview has grown from 412 students to more than 900." [The link opens the story. The quotation has no citation.]
Card 8: The gym roof was replaced in 2011, according to [link: the district's 2011 budget report] (Lakeview Unified 14). [The link opens the budget report for a different school year.]
Procedure
Sort each card into one category, and write one sentence explaining why
Rewrite every card that is not ready to publish, so it is
Trade with another pair and check each other's rewrites
Sort Key (for the teacher)
Ready to publish: Cards 1 and 5. Card 5 has no link, and that is fine: an in-person interview has no page to link to, but it is still cited. Fix the link text: Cards 2 and 6 ("click here" and a bare web address). Fix where the link goes: Cards 4 and 8. Add a citation: Cards 3 and 7. Each category has two cards.
Discussion Questions
Card 5 has no link. Why is it still ready to publish?
Card 3 has a good link. What is still missing, and who would notice if the link broke?
How would you test for the problem on Cards 4 and 8 before publishing?
2
Shared Document Workshop: How Did the Ice Last Until Summer?
20 minGroups of 3
Groups add one new paragraph to the team's post in a shared document, using three quotation cards from Hiles's The Ice Crop. Each writer drafts, comments and checks citations in turn, so the paragraph is produced by the whole group and every change shows in the version history.
The Three Quotation Cards (from Hiles, The Ice Crop, 1893)
Card A, Chapter 3: "When the room has been filled to the level of the wall plate, the ice is covered with dry planing-mill shavings or sawdust, ten or twelve inches deep." (The wall plate is the top beam of the wall. Planing-mill shavings are thin curls of wood left over when boards are smoothed.)
Card B, Chapter 3: "The entrance opening is closed, and filled in with sawdust, or other packing."
Card C, Chapter 5: "As the ice is taken from the house, the covering of sawdust should be kept in place over the ice as far as possible."
Roles (rotate after each round)
Writer: drafts two sentences that use one card, in quotation marks or in their own words
Commenter: leaves one comment on the new sentences that names a specific problem or strength
Citation checker: checks that every quotation has quotation marks, every borrowed idea has an in-text citation with the right chapter, and the link text names the source
Procedure
Round 1, 2 and 3: each student is the writer once, using a different card
The writer answers every comment by changing the text or replying, then resolves it
At the end, the group reads the paragraph aloud, fixes the order of the sentences and opens the version history to see who wrote what
Discussion Questions
Which comment in your group changed the paragraph the most?
All three cards come from one book. Does the paragraph need one Works Cited entry or three? Why?
Card A uses words from 1893. When did your group quote, and when did you put the idea in your own words?
Modification for Classrooms Without Devices
Groups write on one sheet of chart paper with a different color pen for each writer. Comments go on sticky notes placed next to the sentence. The group numbers each change in the margin as its version history.
3
Comment Thread Role-Play
20 minGroups of 4
Groups hold a comment thread on a printed copy of Text 3, the post as first published. Each student has a role card. The role-play practices the last part of the standard: interacting and collaborating with others, including linking to and citing sources.
The Four Role Cards
Asker: writes a comment with one real question a reader might have about the post
Challenger: writes a comment that disagrees with or adds to one sentence, and backs it with a quotation or fact, a citation and a link to a source from Texts 2-4 or the Activity 2 cards
Writer: replies to each comment for the team, answers the question, and adds a source when the reply states a fact
Moderator: before a comment is "posted," checks that it is respectful, stays on the topic and cites any fact it gives
Procedure
Write comments on sticky notes and place them below the post, in order
Hold three rounds, rotating roles, so every student writes at least one comment and one reply
End by writing one version history line for a change the thread would lead to
Discussion Questions
Which comments needed a source, and which did not? What is the difference?
How did the writer disagree politely? Quote a phrase that worked.
What would you do if a comment made a claim with no source, like Ava's in Text 4?
Modification for Distance Learning
Post Text 3 on the class discussion board or learning platform. Students post comments and replies in their roles over one school day, with the moderator role taken by the teacher.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: A Linked, Cited Sentence and Where Each Part Leads
One sentence from Text 3, paragraph 5, after the team's Version 2 fix. The link text names the source and opens the book's own page. The in-text citation, (ch. 32), points readers to the matching Works Cited entry, which follows the MLA pattern for a book read online: author, title in italics, publisher, year, then the website in italics and its address.
Diagram 2: The Post Before and After Publishing, October 5-9
The team drafted in a shared document, published Version 1 on the class blog on October 6, and then collaborated with readers in the comments. Two of the comments led to new versions of the post.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
W.7.6 Homework: Repair, Cite and Answer Comments on Nia and Sam's Post
Directions: Use Texts 5 and 6 in the Closure section of the lesson plan. Nia and Sam are in Ms. Adeyemi's class, and their post is about how mail reached farm families. Mark links as [link: link text] and cite in MLA style. Use only the facts given in Text 6. The web addresses use example.org, a domain reserved for examples, so they do not open real pages.
Part 1: Produce Together (Problems 1-2)
You are Nia and Sam's teammate in their shared document. Write three comments on Text 5. Each must name the paragraph, quote the words it is about, and suggest a fix. At least one must be about a quotation or fact with no citation, and one about link text.
Rewrite paragraphs 2-4 of Text 5 as they should be published. Use link text that names each source, put quoted words in quotation marks, and add an MLA in-text citation for every fact from a source.
Part 2: Link and Cite (Problems 3-4)
Write the Works Cited list for Nia and Sam's post in MLA style, in the correct order. Include all three sources in Text 6.
Source 2 is a printed book with no web page of its own. Explain how the post can still cite it, and whether it should have a link. Then write the sentence from the post that uses Source 2, with its citation.
Part 3: Publish and Respond (Problems 5-6)
Write a publishing checklist of at least four steps for Nia and Sam to follow before they publish. Say which step would have caught the problem Mr. Ruiz reports in Comment 3, and how.
Write a reply to Comment 1 and a reply to Comment 2 in Text 6. The reply to Comment 2 must be polite, correct the date, and link to and cite a source.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Collaborating in the draft
Three specific comments, each quoting the words and suggesting a fix
Comments are general, or one is missing a fix
No comments, or comments that only praise
Links
Every link text names its source; the checklist tests every link
Most links are clear, but one uses vague text or the checklist skips testing
"Click here" or bare web addresses remain
Citations
Every quotation and fact is cited; the Works Cited list follows MLA and is in alphabetical order
Minor errors in punctuation, italics or order
Citations or the Works Cited list missing
Answering comments
Both replies are polite and answer the comment; the correction links to and cites Source 3
Replies are polite but one gives no source
Replies missing, rude or off the topic
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
The questions use Texts 1-4 in the lesson plan: the team's planning thread (Warm-Up), the opening of Hiles's book and the published post (Direct Instruction), and the readers' comments and version history (Guided Practice). Paragraph numbers match the numbers beside each text. Questions 2, 6, 11-16 and 19 use new situations. Your score updates as you answer, and Reset quiz clears everything so you or your students can try again.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Text 1, paragraph 4, what problem does Jun point out in the sentence Theo pasted into the draft?
Answer: B
Jun writes that "Those are Hiles's exact words, but they have no quotation marks and no citation." A and C name problems Jun never mentions. D is wrong: the team uses the 1893 book throughout, and Jun objects only to the missing quotation marks and citation, not to the source.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A student links to a museum's web page about old iceboxes. Which link text follows the advice in this lesson?
Answer: C
Link text should tell readers where the link goes before they tap it, and C names the source and its topic. A and B say nothing about the destination, which is a problem for skimmers and for people using screen readers, who can jump from link to link. D is a bare web address, which is hard to read and names neither the museum nor the topic.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A reader prints Text 3 and reads it on paper, where the links cannot be tapped. Which part of the post tells her the title, publisher and web address of Byrn's book?
Answer: A
The Works Cited entry gives "Byrn, Edward W. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. Munn, 1900," the website and the address. B names the book in general words but gives no publisher or address, and on paper it cannot be tapped. C only points to the entry and gives the chapter. D names the post's writers, not the source.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Text 1, paragraph 10, Jun asks everyone to read the whole post on a phone and click every link before publishing. Which problem in Text 4 would that step have caught?
Answer: D
Mr. Bramwell reports that "The link to Byrn's book opens a page of search results, not the book," and clicking every link would have shown that before publishing. A and C are readers' ideas, not errors in the post. B is a citation error, which clicking links would not reveal.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Text 1, Jun leaves a comment on Theo's sentence (paragraph 4) instead of changing it himself. What does Theo's answer in paragraph 5 show about how the comment worked?
Answer: C
Theo replies "Fixed. I rewrote it in my own words" and adds (Hiles, ch. 1). The comment let the writer see the problem and choose the fix. A is wrong: Ms. Adeyemi is not part of the thread. B is wrong: Theo replaced the sentence. D is wrong: the original had no quotation marks, which was the problem.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A student writes: Hiles explains that Boston ice was shipped as far as Calcutta. The idea comes from Chapter 1 of Hiles's e-book, which has no fixed page numbers. Which in-text citation should end the sentence in MLA style?
Answer: B
The sentence already names Hiles, so the citation gives only the location: (ch. 1). A repeats the author's name, which MLA leaves out when the sentence names the author. C looks like a page number, but the e-book has none, and the idea is not on page 1. D uses the title and spells out the chapter, which is not MLA's form.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Ms. Adeyemi says one piece MLA asks for is missing from the Hiles entry in Text 3. Compare it with the Byrn entry. What is missing?
Answer: A
The Byrn entry has "Munn, 1900"; the Hiles entry goes straight from the title to "1893." The publisher is missing. B is wrong: the entry has "Hiles, Theron L." C and D are wrong: the entry has Project Gutenberg and www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65269. (For a book published before 1900, MLA also accepts the city of publication in place of the publisher, but the Hiles entry gives neither.)
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
What makes Mateo's comment in Text 4, paragraph 1, a strong example of collaborating online?
Answer: D
Mateo quotes Hiles, cites (Hiles, ch. 1), links to the chapter and suggests where the fact could go. That is interacting and collaborating while linking to and citing a source. A is wrong: he finds no mistake. B is wrong: he adds something new. C is wrong: his comment is posted on the blog where everyone can read it.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
How does Jun's reply to Ava in Text 4, paragraph 4, handle her claim that machine-made ice was bad for you?
Answer: B
Jun quotes Byrn, "no chemicals ever come in contact with either the water or the ice," cites (Byrn, ch. 32), links to the chapter and asks, "Do you have a source that says something different?" A and D describe actions the team never takes. C reverses his reply: he says only that some people believed it.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
What does the version history in Text 4 show about publishing writing online?
Answer: C
Versions 2 and 3 fix the Byrn link, add Mateo's quotation and fix the Hiles entry, and each line records the date, the change and who made it. A is contradicted by Versions 2 and 3. B is wrong: Theo, Keira and Jun make the changes. D is wrong: the same post is updated.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Theo wants to add a photo of an old icebox that he found on a museum's website. What should he do before publishing it in the post?
Answer: A
A photo is a source like any other: the post should link to the page it came from and cite it, and the museum's rules may limit reuse. B and C both assume that copying makes a source free to use without credit. D invents a rule; images need credit whether or not they contain words.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A Works Cited list has three entries, one each for books by Harry Maule, Edward Byrn and Theron Hiles. In what order should they appear in MLA style?
Answer: D
MLA lists entries alphabetically by the first word of each entry, here the authors' last names: B, H, M. A and B are not alphabetical at all. C puts Maule before Hiles, but H comes before M.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which plan uses technology, including the Internet, to publish a class's writing?
Answer: C
Posting on the class blog puts the writing on the Internet for real readers, who can answer in the comments. A and D use technology, but only the teacher sees the writing, so nothing is published online. B publishes the writing in print, not with the Internet.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A classmate comments on a post about ice harvesting: "Cutting ice was dangerous work." The comment gives no source. What is the best reply?
Answer: B
A good reply is polite, answers the reader and keeps the post accurate by asking for a source or finding one, then linking to and citing it. A assumes that a claim with no source must be false; it may be true but unchecked. C puts an unchecked claim into the post. D ignores a reader, which is not collaboration.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
A new comment on Text 3 says: "Nobody could use ice in hot countries, because it would melt on the way there." Write a polite reply for the team of 2-4 sentences. The reply must include a quotation, an MLA citation and link text for its source.
Model answer: Thanks for the question! Ice did make long trips. Hiles writes that Boston ice was shipped to "London, to the East Indies, and the West Indies, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, China, Japan, and Australia" (Hiles, ch. 1). [link: The Ice Crop, Chapter 1, on Project Gutenberg] The quotation is from Text 2, paragraph 2. Rubric line: 2 points for a polite reply with an exact quotation, a correct citation and link text that names the source; 1 point if one of the three is missing or wrong; 0 for a reply with no source or a rude reply.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Write an MLA Works Cited entry for this book, which you read on Project Gutenberg: Harry E. Maule, The Boy's Book of New Inventions, published by Doubleday, Page & Company in 1912, at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46232. Then write the in-text citation for a sentence that quotes Chapter 2 and does not name Maule.
Model answer: Maule, Harry E. The Boy's Book of New Inventions. Doubleday, Page, 1912. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46232. In-text citation: (Maule, ch. 2). The publisher drops "& Company," the title and the website are in italics, and the chapter replaces a page number because the e-book has none. Rubric line: 2 points for all elements in order with correct punctuation, italics and citation; 1 point for one error; 0 if the entry is missing several elements.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Name two features of the shared document or the blog that Theo, Keira and Jun used to work together (Texts 1 and 4). For each, explain in one sentence what it let them do.
Model answer: Comments: Jun left "a comment on Theo's sentence" (Text 1, paragraph 4), so he could point out the copied words without changing them, and Theo fixed the problem himself. Version history: it records each change with the date and who made it, such as "Changed the Byrn link so it opens the book's own page" (Text 4, paragraph 9). Blog comments are also acceptable, since readers' comments led to Versions 2 and 3. Rubric line: 2 points for two features, each explained with an example from the texts; 1 point for one; 0 for none.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
Write a publishing checklist of four steps for a class blog post like Text 3. Then explain which step matters most for readers who tap the links, and why.
Model answer: (1) Read the whole post aloud and fix unclear sentences. (2) Check that every quotation has quotation marks and every borrowed fact has a citation. (3) Check that each citation matches a Works Cited entry, in alphabetical order. (4) Open the post on a phone and tap every link to make sure it opens the exact page cited. Step 4 matters most for readers who tap links, because a link that opens the wrong page, like the Byrn link in Version 1, sends them away from the source. Rubric line: 2 points for four sensible steps, including link testing and citation checking, with a clear reason; 1 point for three steps or a missing reason; 0 for fewer.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Rewrite this sentence from a draft so it is ready to publish: Horses hauled snow off the ice at an ice harvest. Click here to see where we found this. The fact comes from Chapter 1 of Hiles's The Ice Crop, which describes "teams and horses drawing huge loads of snow to the distant shores." Use link text and an MLA citation.
Model answer: In his description of an ice harvest, [link: Theron Hiles's 1893 book The Ice Crop] shows "teams and horses drawing huge loads of snow to the distant shores" (ch. 1). Or, as a paraphrase: At an ice harvest, horses pulled loads of snow off the ice to the shore (Hiles, ch. 1). "Click here" is gone, the link text names the book, and the citation names Hiles only when the sentence does not. Rubric line: 2 points for clear link text, quotation marks around exact words and a correct citation; 1 point if one is missing; 0 if the sentence still says "click here" with no citation.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Use two comments from Text 4 to explain how publishing on the Internet let the team collaborate with readers in ways a printed poster in the hallway could not.
Model answer: Online, readers could answer the post and the team could answer back and fix it within days. Mateo's comment added a quotation, a citation and a link to Hiles, and the team put it into Version 3. Mr. Bramwell reported that "The link to Byrn's book opens a page of search results," and Theo fixed it the same day in Version 2. A printed poster cannot hold a link, collect comments or be updated for every reader at once. Rubric line: 2 points for two comments used accurately, with a clear contrast with print; 1 point for one comment or no contrast; 0 if the texts are not used.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does W.7.6 mean?
W.7.6 means that seventh graders use technology, including the Internet, to write and publish their work, to link to and cite their sources, and to work with other people online, citing sources there too.
In practice, a student might draft in a shared document with classmates, publish on a class blog, link each source with clear link text, list it in a Works Cited list, and answer readers' comments with sources.
How is W.7.6 different from W.6.6?
Grade 7 adds linking to and citing sources, both in the published writing and in the interaction around it.
W.6.6 asks sixth graders to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others, and it adds a keyboarding goal: typing at least three pages in one sitting. W.7.6 drops the keyboarding sentence and adds "link to and cite sources," which it names twice.
Does W.7.6 require a specific app or website?
No. The standard names technology and the Internet, not any product.
Any tools that let students write together, publish to readers, link, and comment will work: a shared document with comments and version history, a class blog or website, or a discussion board on the school's learning platform. Schools should use the tools their policies allow.
Is a link the same as a citation?
No. A link takes an online reader to the source; a citation names the source and gives credit.
W.7.6 asks for both. Links break, pages move and posts get printed, and a citation with a matching Works Cited entry still tells readers who wrote the source and where to find it. A good post uses link text that names the source and a citation for every quotation or borrowed fact.
How do students cite an e-book or web page that has no page numbers in MLA?
They give the author's name and, when the source has them, a chapter or section number instead of a page number.
For a Project Gutenberg book, whose page breaks change with the screen, a citation such as (Hiles, ch. 3) works. If the sentence already names the author, the chapter alone is enough. If there is no chapter, the author's name alone is enough.
What does "interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources" look like?
It looks like comments and replies that back up their claims the way the writing does.
A classmate who suggests a new fact in a comment includes a quotation or paraphrase, a citation and a link. A writer who answers a doubtful claim replies politely with a source. Comments in a shared document, such as "This sentence needs quotation marks," are collaboration too.
How can teachers keep students safe when they publish online for W.7.6?
By following the school's rules for student work online and publishing where the school can manage who sees and comments.
Common choices are class blogs on the school's learning platform, first names only, teacher approval of comments before they appear, and no personal details such as addresses or photos of students. The skills in W.7.6 work the same on a closed class site as on the open web.
How can students meet W.7.6 without devices at home?
They can do the thinking on paper and the technology steps at school.
Drafts can be written on paper with sticky-note comments, link text can be marked in brackets, and citations can be written by hand. Publishing, testing links and answering comments can happen during class or library time.
How is W.7.6 assessed?
Usually through the writing itself and the record of how it was made.
Teachers can look at the published post, the Works Cited list, the comment thread in the shared document, the version history and students' replies to readers. A rubric can score link text, citations, collaboration and replies, as the homework rubric on this page does.
What comes after W.7.6?
W.8.6 asks eighth graders to use technology to present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently, and W.9-10.6 adds updating writing and using technology's power to link and display information flexibly.
The citation skills in W.7.6 also support W.7.8, which asks students to gather sources, judge them and follow a standard citation format.
07
Related Standards
5 standards
These standards connect to W.7.6: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
W.6.6Prerequisite
Use technology to produce, publish, interact and collaborate; type three pages in a sitting
