This is an 8th grade informational reading text about the Articles of Confederation, which pre-dated the US Constitution. While reading, students should cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Students should also determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text, and determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts. Lastly, students should analyze in detail the structure of a specific paragraph in a text, including the role of particular sentences in developing and refining a key concept (License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)