Subscribe

9th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 14 of 14

Arguments, Stories and Evidence

Claims and counterclaims, narrative technique, creative responses and text evidence.

What your child practices

Your child chooses precise claims, fair counterclaims, valid reasoning and sufficient evidence; narrative techniques such as multiple perspectives, time shifts and reflective endings; creative responses that use an original's techniques; and evidence for analysis and research.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 9-10W1; 9-10W3; 9-10W4; 9-10W5 · arguments with valid reasoning and sufficient evidence, narrative technique, creative responses and drawing evidence from texts

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Make a precise claim, answer counterclaims fairly and use valid reasoning.
  2. Build tension by controlling what readers know, like delaying a key reveal.
  3. Choose details that reveal character, and end by reflecting on the experience.

Example: Which detail reveals character: “Sami walked in.” or “Even in the rush, Sami stopped to straighten the crooked picture frame.”? A good detail shows what someone is like. Stopping in a rush shows Sami cares about order. Answer: Even in the rush, Sami stopped to straighten the crooked picture frame.

Arguments, Stories and Evidence in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 14 of 14 in 9th grade English Language Arts, after Evaluating Arguments and Texts.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which creative response best demonstrates knowledge of a poem's techniques?

    • a list of the poem's line numbers
    • a summary of the poet's birthplace
    • a new poem that uses the same extended metaphor to explore a different subject
    • the poem copied in a new font

  2. Question 2

    Which technique gives a story a well-structured sequence even when it jumps in time?

    • clear time signals and a consistent return to the present-day frame
    • removing all transitions
    • putting events in alphabetical order
    • random jumps with no signals

  3. Question 3

    You rewrite a famous tragedy as a modern short story. What shows strong understanding of technique and genre?

    • keeping the tragic structure while explaining how the new setting changes the meaning
    • copying the original exactly
    • removing the conflict
    • changing only the character names

  4. Question 4

    Which analysis uses evidence from both literary and informational texts?

    • The article has charts.
    • I read two texts.
    • The memoir's description of hunger matches the article's data on food shortages in that decade.
    • The memoir is sad.

  5. Question 5

    Which sentence best introduces and analyzes a quotation?

    • “A machine that forgot its makers.” That's the quote.
    • The city is mentioned in the book.
    • Here is a quote about a city.
    • When the narrator calls the city “a machine that forgot its makers,” the metaphor exposes the cost of progress.

  6. Question 6

    A response changes the original story's ending from tragic to hopeful. What makes the change effective?

    • keeping the change secret
    • explaining how the new ending reframes the original's theme
    • changing the title only
    • not mentioning the original at all

More 9th grade