Grade 9 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 9 english language arts in the Nunavut Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Uqausiliriniq: communication and language, creative and artistic expression, and reflective and critical thinking.
- Comprehension: listen, view and read to understand a range of texts.
- Production: speak, write and represent ideas clearly for different audiences and purposes.
Easy ways to practise english language arts at home
- Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it.
- Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text.
- Have them write real messages: a thank-you note, a short review, a note to a relative.
- Read their writing aloud to them; they often spot their own mistakes by ear.
What each unit covers
Reading with a Purpose
Practises setting a purpose for reading, using prior knowledge and making connections, monitoring understanding, fluency and reflecting on new learning.
Summarizing Texts
Practises summarizing: grouping related ideas, separating important from less important information, paraphrasing and keeping the author's message.
Literary Elements
Recognizing devices such as irony, symbolism, motif, allusion and foils in short excerpts, and describing tone and mood.
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.
Form & Composing
Practises choosing a form for purpose and audience, tone, organization, transitions, text features and design choices when composing and publishing.
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.
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.
Vocabulary & Spelling
Practises specialized vocabulary, Greek and Latin word parts, context clues and commonly misspelled words, using Canadian spelling.
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.
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.
Feedback & Goals
Practises applying descriptive feedback, using criteria, setting clear learning goals and tracking progress with evidence.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Beginning
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Exceeding
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Nunavut report card guide.
Common questions
Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it. Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
The Nunavut Curriculum Grade 9 english language arts units include reading with a purpose, summarizing texts, literary elements, argument & rhetoric, form & composing, forms & features.
Free printable Grade 9 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.