Grade 9 English Language Arts
14 units matched to the Prince Edward Island Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- Speaking and Listening. Students will be expected to speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
- Speaking and Listening. Students will be expected to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and to respond personally and critically.
- Speaking and Listening. Students will be expected to interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.
- Reading and Viewing. Students will be expected to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
- Reading and Viewing. Students will be expected to interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
- Reading and Viewing. Students will be expected to respond personally to a range of texts.
- Reading and Viewing. Students will be expected to respond critically to a range of texts, applying their understanding of language, form, and genre.
- Writing and Other Ways of Representing. Students will be expected to use writing and other forms of representation to explore, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learnings; and to use their imaginations.
- Writing and Other Ways of Representing. Students will be expected to create texts collaboratively and independently, using a wide variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Writing and Other Ways of Representing. Students will be expected to use a range of strategies to develop effective writing and other ways of representing and to enhance their clarity, precision, and effectiveness.
Units
Unit 1
Reading with a Purpose
Practises setting a purpose for reading, using prior knowledge and making connections, monitoring understanding, fluency and reflecting on new learning.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 4; GCO 6 · setting a purpose, using what you know and checking understanding while reading
Unit 2
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 4; GCO 6 · inference, theme, structure and the author's craft
Unit 3
Summarizing Texts
Practises summarizing: grouping related ideas, separating important from less important information, paraphrasing and keeping the author's message.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 4; GCO 5 · finding main ideas and summarizing in your own words
Unit 4
Literary Elements
Recognizing devices such as irony, symbolism, motif, allusion and foils in short excerpts, and describing tone and mood.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 7 · irony, symbolism, motif, allusion, tone and mood
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 7 · allusion, analogy, juxtaposition and flashback
Unit 6
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 4; GCO 7 · text forms, text patterns and features such as indexes and captions
Unit 7
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 7; GCO 10 · connotation, register and rhetorical devices
Unit 8
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 7 · ethos, pathos, logos, fallacies and credible sources
Unit 9
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 5 · checking sources, spotting misinformation and protecting privacy
Unit 10
Form & Composing
Practises choosing a form for purpose and audience, tone, organization, transitions, text features and design choices when composing and publishing.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 9 · choosing a form for an audience and composing a clear text
Unit 11
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 4; GCO 10 · prefixes, suffixes, Latin and Greek bases and context
Unit 12
Vocabulary & Spelling
Practises specialized vocabulary, Greek and Latin word parts, context clues and commonly misspelled words, using Canadian spelling.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 10 · subject words, word parts and tricky spellings
Unit 13
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 10 · punctuation, agreement, pronoun case and register
Unit 14
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.
Curriculum outcome: GCO 10 · making writing concise, clear and correct
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