GRADE 9
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PCG's Paths to College and Career curriculum provides educators with lesson-by-lesson guidance to implement the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for grade 9 English Language Arts (ELA). The grade 9 curriculum modules offer 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.
The lessons within each of the modules are linked explicitly to the Common Core Learning Standards, and provide a rigorous and pedagogically sound approach for how the standards can come alive with thoughtful planning, adaption, and instruction. Module 9.1 establishes key routines and practices for close reading and collaborative discussion, which students will use and refine throughout the year. Module 9.2 provides continued opportunity for students to develop skills in text analysis, evidence-based discussion, and informative writing before being introduced to the research process in Module 9.3 and argument writing in Module 9.4. Download the grade 9 curriculum map for a detailed overview of the grade 9 curriculum:
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MODULE 9.1
“So you want a double life”
Reading Closely and Writing to Analyze
Reading Closely and Writing to Analyze
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Primary Texts:
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Number of Lessons:
52 lessons (including performance assessment) |
Module Description:
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. Students produce writing appropriate to task and support their claims with evidence from the text. By the module’s conclusion, students have begun to amass a foundation of critical reading, writing, thinking, and speaking habits which lay the foundation for college and career readiness.
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. Students produce writing appropriate to task and support their claims with evidence from the text. By the module’s conclusion, students have begun to amass a foundation of critical reading, writing, thinking, and speaking habits which lay the foundation for college and career readiness.
MODULE 9.2
Working with Evidence and Making Claims: How do Authors Structure Texts and Develop Ideas?
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Primary Texts:
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Number of Lessons:
51 lessons (including performance assessment) |
Module Description:
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 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 exercise and 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 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 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 exercise and 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 9.3
Building and Communicating Knowledge through Research: The Inquiry and Writing Processes
Module Description:
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.
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 9.4
Understanding and Evaluating Argument: Analyzing Text to Write Arguments
Module Description:
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 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.