Grade 9 English Language Arts
11 units matched to the Nova Scotia Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- Speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
- Communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and respond personally and critically.
- Interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.
- Select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
- Interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
- Respond personally to a range of texts.
- Respond critically to a range of texts, applying understanding of language, form, and genre.
- Use writing and other ways of representing to explore, clarify, and reflect on thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learnings, and to use imagination.
- Create texts collaboratively and independently, using a variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Use a range of strategies to develop effective writing and other ways of representing and to enhance clarity, precision, and effectiveness.
Units
Unit 1
Word Detective
Using prefixes, suffixes and Latin and Greek bases to work out new words, choosing a meaning from the sentence around a word, and subject words like product, mass and scale.
Learning outcome: 2.4 · using word parts to work out meaning
Unit 2
Forms & Features
Knowing what each text form does, how features such as an index, footnote or caption help readers, how signal words show a text's pattern, and how images, colour and design shape meaning.
Learning outcome: 2.1 · text forms and features
Unit 3
Close Reading
Reading original short passages and answering questions about theme, tone, word choice, structure and the author's purpose, using evidence from the text.
Learning outcome: 4.4, 6.1 · reading closely and responding to texts
Unit 4
Literary Elements
Recognizing devices such as irony, symbolism, motif, allusion and foils in short excerpts, and describing tone and mood.
Learning outcome: 4.2, 6.2 · literary elements and how they work
Unit 5
Literary Devices
Spotting allusion (a reference to something well known), analogy, juxtaposition (contrasts side by side) and flashback in short original excerpts, and explaining why a writer chooses them.
Learning outcome: 4.5 · sound, image and figurative devices
Unit 6
Voices & Perspectives
How point of view and background shape a text, why oral traditions and the protocols around them matter, and asking whose voices are present or missing. This unit introduces ideas only; teachers and local First Peoples communities lead deeper learning.
Learning outcome: 4.2, 7.3 · voices and perspectives in texts
Unit 7
Argument & Rhetoric
Spotting ethos, pathos and logos, common fallacies such as straw man and false dilemma, loaded language and bias, and judging whether a source or media message can be trusted.
Learning outcome: 1.3, 7.1 · argument and rhetorical techniques
Unit 8
Digital Smarts
Telling misinformation from disinformation, checking sources before trusting them, managing passwords and privacy, spotting phishing, and citing and using other people's work respectfully.
Learning outcome: 5.1 · digital and media texts
Unit 9
Language & Style
How word choice shapes feeling (connotation and denotation), how English changes and borrows words, formal and informal register, concise and varied sentences, and devices such as anaphora and rhetorical questions.
Learning outcome: 8.3 · language and style
Unit 10
Grammar & Style
Semicolons, colons, dashes, commas and apostrophes, subject-verb agreement, pronoun case, misplaced modifiers, run-ons and fragments, and choosing a formal or informal register.
Learning outcome: 8.1, 8.2 · grammar and conventions in writing
Unit 11
Revise & Edit
Making sentences more concise, choosing transitions, fixing unclear pronouns and tense shifts, catching errors a spell-checker misses, and Canadian spelling such as colour, centre, practise and licence.
Learning outcome: 9.2, 9.3 · revising and editing writing
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