9th grade English Language Arts
14 units matched to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Focus areas
- English I vocabulary: discipline words, connotation, and foreign words and phrases used in English
- Comprehension, response and genres: theme, character, drama, argument and media
- Author's purpose and craft, and composition: diction, irony, rhetoric, fallacies and editing
- Inquiry and research: research questions, credibility, bias and citing sources
Units
Unit 1
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.
TEKS student expectation: E1.4(F); E1.6(A) · inference, theme and the author's craft
Unit 2
Literary Elements
Recognizing devices such as irony, symbolism, motif, allusion and foils in short excerpts, and describing tone and mood.
TEKS student expectation: E1.8(E); E1.8(F) · irony, motif, tone and mood
Unit 3
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.
TEKS student expectation: E1.9(D) · punctuation, agreement and register
Unit 4
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.
TEKS student expectation: E1.2(A) · roots, prefixes and meaning in context
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.
TEKS student expectation: E1.6(C); E1.8(D) · allusion, analogy, juxtaposition and flashback
Unit 6
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.
TEKS student expectation: E1.7(F); E1.11(G) · credible sources, technology-made content and privacy
Unit 7
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, color and design shape meaning.
TEKS student expectation: E1.7(D); E1.8(C) · text patterns, visuals and media features
Unit 8
Summarizing Texts
Practices summarizing: grouping related ideas, separating important from less important information, paraphrasing and keeping the author's message.
TEKS student expectation: E1.5(D) · finding central ideas and summarizing in your own words
Unit 9
Form & Composing
Practices choosing a form for purpose and audience, tone, organization, transitions, text features and design choices when composing and publishing.
TEKS student expectation: E1.9(A); E1.5(H) · choosing a form and tone for the audience
Unit 10
Research & Credibility
Students practice effective research questions, peer review, conflicting sources, sampling, lateral reading, checking AI output for invented sources, and citing and synthesizing evidence honestly.
TEKS student expectation: E1.11(A); E1.11(G); E1.11(H) · research questions, conflicting sources, credibility and citing
Unit 11
Proofreading
Students practice proofreading in US spelling: commonly misspelled words and confusing pairs such as affect and effect, accept and except, principle and principal.
TEKS student expectation: E1.9(D) · editing writing for correct spelling and word choice
Unit 12
Media Analysis
Students analyze the purposes and techniques of media messages (rhetorical appeals, framing, propaganda, sponsored content, deepfakes) and how beliefs and algorithms shape interpretation.
TEKS student expectation: E1.7(F); E1.8(A) · analyzing how media messages use appeals, framing and other techniques
Unit 13
Borrowed Words & Connotation
Your teen works out foreign words and phrases often used in English (bona fide, caveat, quid pro quo) and tells a word's dictionary meaning from its connotation.
TEKS student expectation: E1.2(C); E1.2(B) · foreign words and phrases used in English, and denotation and connotation
Unit 14
Drama, Satire & Fallacies
Your teen identifies dramatic conventions (asides, soliloquies, dramatic irony, satire) and the purpose of understatement and overstatement, and spots straw man and red herring arguments.
TEKS student expectation: E1.7(C); E1.8(G) · dramatic conventions, understatement and overstatement, and straw man and red herring fallacies
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