English 9 Course Outline

Welcome to English 9. This course continues with the skill development to which students were introduced in grade eight. As with all English courses, English 9 combines the study of both language and literature and develops skills associated with the Language Arts: reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Students should expect to study the following genres of literature:
 

  • Short Stories (Inside Stories I)
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  • Poetry (Poetry and Language)
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  • Novels (Key Novel: The Pearl)
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  • Media (Film and other sources/types)
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  • Non-Fiction (articles, essays, etc...)
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    The following elements of grammar will be studied:

    Sentence Building:
     

  • recognizing clauses and phrases (introductory phase)
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  • recognizing basic sentence errors 
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  • complete and incomplete sentences (fragments)
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  • parts of speech 
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  • sentence patterns (review and maintain) 
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  • simple, compound, complex sentences 
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  • building noun phrases 
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  • appositives 
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  • participles 
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  • review subject/predicate 
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  • sentence joining--coordinating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, semi-colon
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    Usage:
     
    subject-verb agreement 
    contractions 
    possessives 
    basic parallelism 
    pronouns: subject/object usage 
    good/well, lay/lie

    Mechanics:
     
    review capital letters 
    review punctuation--emphasis on quotation marks 
    identifying major titles within a greater work

    Paragraph Building:
     
     

  • making the main idea clear: avoids distracting detail, varies topic sentence 
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  • narrative paragraphs 
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  • descriptive paragraphs 
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  • expository paragraphs 
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  • persuasive paragraphs 
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  • transitions 
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  • multi-paragraph composition (opening, body, closing, and transition) 
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  • combining time order and place order 
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  • order of importance 
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  • classification 
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  • comparing//contrasting 
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  • cause and effect 
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  • letters: business style, letter of complaint, note of thanks, congratulations 
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  • audience consideration 
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  • using examples/exemplars to demonstrate points 
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    NB: Teachers will place significant emphasis on the WRITING PROCESS

    Vocabulary:
     

      Dictionary   encyclopedia       thesaurus    (intro and orient)      Synonyms
      Antonyms   Homonyms   Spelling: ONGOING. Basic rules    Descriptives
      Prefixes    Roots   Suffixes connotation/denotation

    Reading:

    At Dover Bay, continuous emphasis will be made on the following reading strategies:

    Ongoing development of these reading strategies will be made through the study of literature and skill lessons designed to make students accomplished readers.

    Writing:

    The KEY writing assignments which students will be required to demonstrate proficiency will be the multi-paragraph composition, paragraphs of the various types, journals, personal letters.

    The general writing formats of grade 9 are as follows:

    Letters, memoirs, diaries, feature stories (reporting) personality interviews, stories, dialogues, scripts. Teachers may, at their discretion, assign larger assignments like book reports, library assignments and the like.

    Oral reports/emphasis on organization and presentation (small group format). Possibilities--book talks, dramatic readings, debating, group discussion. Emphasis will be placed on voice and audience consideration.

    Literature:

    Students will study various forms of literature which range from prose (both fiction and non-fiction) to poetry. Students will learn the following literary terms:

    Prose:

    Elements of Fiction:

    (Stories/Novels)
     

     antagonist   anthology  characters--round, flat, stereotype   climax  conclusion 
      Conflict (3 types)     Symbol (introduce)                Plot    Stereotype character: static/dynamic
       flashback  Protagonist         Theme denouement point of view; 1st 
    person and Omniscient
     foreshadowing   inciting  incident    introduction  narrator    parody 
      resolution   satire (introduce)   setting: time, place, mood  situational irony (introduce) suspense 

    Poetry/Drama:
     
     

    alliteration anthology ballad cinquain
    concrete poetry couplet diamante free verse
    haiku hyperbole imagery limerick
    metaphor onomatopoeia personification quatrain
    refrain repetition rhyme rhythm
    simile sonnet stanza tanka

    Media:

    Evaluation:
     
    Term One 40%
    Term Two 40%
    Final (Comp) 10%
    Final (Exam) 10%

    As part of the ongoing and authentic assessment, Performance Standards from the Ministry of Education(Writing), (Reading), will be employed along with other strategies and methods of evaluation.