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Grade 10 ELA Banner

Grade 9 ELA

Grade 9 English Language Arts includes a wide range of quality texts that span the canonical to the contemporary. The grade 9 curriculum balances classic works by William Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Emily Dickinson with contemporary writing by authors such as Temple Grandin, Karen Russell, and Marc Aronson. Through the study of a variety of text types and media, students build knowledge, analyze ideas, delineate arguments, and develop writing, collaboration, and communication skills.

Unit 1

1 - Who I Am

Diverse Concepts of Identity and Beauty

In Module 9.1, students dive into complex text with a contemporary short story by acclaimed author Karen Russell. Through collaborative discussion and multiple encounters with the text, students access the richness of Russell’s language, description, and meaning, particularly around the ideas of identity and beauty, which students consider over the course of the module in relation to excerpts from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In their study of Romeo and Juliet, students have the opportunity to consider representations of the text across artistic mediums, including contemporary film excerpts and fine art. Module 9.1 is comprised of three units:

  • Unit 1: “I'm Home”

    • Text: “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell

  • Unit 2: “[T]he jewel beyond all price”

    • Text: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
    • Text: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

  • Unit 3: “A pair of star-crossed lovers”

  • Text: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Module 2

2 - Crimes and Madness

“How do Authors Structure Texts and Develop Ideas?”

Module 9.2 continues to explore identity through texts that examine human motivations, actions, and consequences. Students build on work from Module 9.1 as they track character development in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and the tragedy of Oedipus the King. In these texts as well as in a poem by Emily Dickinson, students analyze the effects of an author’s structural choices on the development of central ideas. Students also engage with informational texts about guilt and human fascination with crime, as they continue to develop their ability to identify and make claims. Students strengthen their writing by revising and editing, and refine their speaking and listening skills through discussion-based assessments Module 9.2 is comprised of three units:

  • Unit 1: “Reason, broke, And I dropped down”

    • Text: “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
    • Text: “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson

  • Unit 2: “a husband from a husband, children from a child”

    • Text:Oedipus the Kingby Sophocles

  • Unit 3: “Everybody is guilty of Something”

    • Text: “True Crime: The roots of an American obsession” by Walter Mosley
    • Text: “How Bernard Madoff Did It” by Liaquat Ahamed
    • Text: The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana Henriques
Unit 3

3 - The Inquiry and Writing Process

Building and Communicating Knowledge through Research

In a digital world, students have access to an unprecedented amount of information; in Module 9.3, students cultivate an ability to sort through information to determine its validity and relevance. This module engages students in an inquiry-based research process using a rich extended text, Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, to surface potential topics that lead to a process of individually driven inquiry, research, and writing. This process begins collaboratively and guides students through forming effective questions for inquiry, gathering research about a topic of interest, assessing the validity of that information, generating an evidence-based perspective, and writing an informative/explanatory research paper that synthesizes and articulates their findings. Module 9.3 is comprised of three units:

  • Unit 1: Using Seed Texts as Springboards to Research

    • Text: Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior, Chapter 1 by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson

  • Unit 2: Engaging in an Inquiry-Based, Iterative Research Process

    • Text: “The Brains of the Animal Kingdom” by Frans de Waal
    • Text: “Minds of their Own: Animals are smarter than you think” by Virginia Morell
    • Text: “Think You’re Smarter Than Animals? Maybe Not” by Alexandra Horowitz and Ammon Shea
    • Text: “Monkeys Can Perform Mental Addition” by Duke University Medical Center
    • Text: “Animal Intelligence: How We Discover How Smart Animals Really Are” by Edward Wasserman and Leyre Castro

  • Unit 3: Synthesizing Research through the Writing Process


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4 - Global Arguments

Analyzing Text to Write Arguments

Module 9.4 shows where an inquiry process can lead, with Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, a nonfiction text derived from inquiry and the collaboration of its authors. This one-unit module provides students with the opportunity to learn new information about the past that informs the choices they make today. This module also invites students to consider the ethics and consequences of their decisions. Students move through Sugar Changed the World with a critical eye, building an understanding of how history helps shape the people, culture, and belief systems of our modern day world. Students apply this lens as they read additional contemporary argument texts related to Sugar Changed the World, considering the structure, development, and efficacy of these authors’ arguments. The module concludes with a culminating argument paper in which students synthesize their understanding of content and the components that interact to create an effective argument. Module 9.4 is comprised of three units:

  • Unit 1: Globalization

    • Text: Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
    • Supplementary Text: “Globalization” featured in National Geographic
    • Supplementary Text: “How Your Addiction to Fast Fashion Kills” by Amy Odell
    • Supplementary Text: “Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Who Really Pays for Our Cheap Clothes?” by Anna McMullen
    • Supplementary Text: “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream” by Nicholas Kristof

  • Unit 2: Localization

    • Video: “Why Eat Local?” video featuring Michael Pollan, Nourishlife.org
    • Text: “Why Buy Locally Grown?” featured on dosomething.org
Writing Lab

Online Writing Lab

This page contains resources for writing a research paper and other academic writing, including comprehensive details about MLA, APA and Chicago Manual of Style citation and format styles. This page also contains sample papers, slide presentations, and posters.

ELA Resources

ELA Resources

Additional resouices for the study of English Language Arts include:

  • CCSS Appendix A - Research Supporting Key Elements of the ELA Standards

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