MS Curriculum Frameworks 2006 (Revised)
NINTH GRADE
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Grade 9; one-year course
While competencies for grades 9-12 remain identical, objectives require an extension of knowledge and broader, deeper application of skills. A critical component at each grade level is appropriate text complexity. This complexity is indicated by such elements as sophistication of language, content, and syntax. As students move from grade 9 to grade 12, texts should require a greater cognitive involvement for the student to appreciate and comprehend the literal aspects, along with figurative subtleties and nuances.
The student will read accurately instructional level materials (texts in which no more than approximately 1 in 10 words are difficult to the reader) with an appropriate reading rate. (The high school student should read minimally 250 words per minute).
Reading rates below 150 minutes might include either oral reading or silent reading. Because ordinary speech does not typically exceed 150 words per minute, rates above 150 minutes should be considered silent reading rates.
Competencies and Objectives
Each competency and objective assumes the student has mastered the competencies and objectives in grades K – 8.
With a high-stakes graduation exit exam required of grade 10 students, the Mississippi Language Arts high school framework committee purposefully has designed similar objectives in grades 9 and 10.
Items on the English II (grade 10) Multiple-choice Subject Area Test will assess student mastery of objectives from both grades 9 and 10.
1. The student will develop and apply expansive knowledge of words and word meanings to communicate.
b. The student will analyze figurative language (e.g., metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, oxymoron, idiom, etc.) in multiple texts to evaluate the effect on setting, tone, theme, and mood. (DOK 3)
c. The student will analyze word choice and diction, including formal and informal language, to determine the author’s purpose. (DOK 3)
2. The student will comprehend, respond to, interpret, or evaluate a variety of texts of increasing length, difficulty, and complexity.
b. The student will recognize text structures (e.g., description, comparison and contrast, sequential order, cause and effect, order of importance, spatial order, process/procedural, problem/solution) and analyze their effect on theme, author’s purpose, etc. (DOK 3)
c. The student will make inferences based on textual evidence of details, organization, and language to predict, draw conclusions, or determine author’s purpose. (DOK 3)
d. The student will analyze or evaluate texts to synthesize responses for summary, précis, explication, etc. (DOK 3)
e. The student will analyze (e.g., interpret, compare, contrast, evaluate, etc.) literary elements in multiple texts from a variety of genres and media for their effect on meaning. (DOK 3)
1) Literary Text and Literary Non-fiction
--Poetry (e.g., structure, language, theme, setting, persona, conflict, dramatic irony, symbolism, allusion, figurative language, stylistic devices, imagery, language/word choice, etc.) -Drama (e.g., character, structure, techniques [e.g., soliloquy], mood, tone, conflict, imagery, allusion, figurative language, stylistic devices, dramatic irony, language/word choice, foreshadowing, etc.)
NOTE: Figurative language includes simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, symbolism, imagery, irony, oxymoron, paradox, etc. Stylistic devices include alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm, repetition, etc. Both are to be used with appropriate (or specific) mode/audience.
2) Informational Texts
-
1) TV ads
2) Billboards
3) Essays
4) Literary non-fiction
5) TV commentary
3. The student will produce, analyze, and evaluate effective communication.
1) Planning:
• Determine purpose
• Generate ideas
• Address prompt/topic
• Organize ideas
• Compose a clearly stated thesis
2) Drafting:
• Create paragraphs (minimally five paragraphs)
• Use various sentence structures
• Use paraphrasing for reports and documented text
3) Revising:
• Add and delete information and details (for audience, for purpose, for unity, etc.)
• Use precise language (appropriate vocabulary, concise wording, action verbs, sensory details, colorful modifiers, etc.)
• Use available resources (reference materials, technology, etc.)
4) Editing:
• Apply tools to judge quality (rubric, checklist, feedback, etc.)
5) Publishing:
• Proofread final text
c. The student will compose responses to literature, position papers, and expository essays in the informative mode clearly expressing a main idea thoroughly developed by relevant supporting details, which are well elaborated and sufficient in number. (DOK 3)
d. The student will compose persuasive texts for different audiences using facts and opinions. (DOK 3)
1) Newspaper ads
2) Commercials
3) Billboards
4) Catalog descriptions
5) Editorials
4. The student will use Standard English grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure to communicate.
1) Verb tenses [including purpose] (present perfect, past perfect, future perfect; emphatic [present and past])
2) Active and passive voice
3) Pronoun-antecedent agreement
4) Objective complements
5) Subject-verb agreement (in sentences containing collective nouns, indefinite pronouns, compound subjects, and prepositional phrases separating subject and verb.)
1) Capitalize regions of countries
2) Semicolons to separate items in a series when items include commas
3) Commas to avoid misreading
4) Coordinate adjectives
5) Single quotation marks to identify quotes-within-quotes.
1) Parallel structure of sentences
i) Using participial and infinitive phrases and adverb and adjective clauses as modifiers; noun clauses as subjects, direct and indirect objects, predicate nominatives, or objects of the preposition;
ii) Presenting items in compound subjects and verbs, items in a series, and items juxtaposed for emphasis.
2) Avoiding misplaced modifiers to ensure clarity
3) Using subordination to express the relationship between two unequal ideas within a single sentence.
