Grade 9
Introduction
In 2014, the Shelby County Schools Board of Education adopted a set of ambitious, yet attainable goals for school and student performance. The District is committed to these goals, as further described in our strategic plan, Destination 2025. By 2025,
▪80% of our students will graduate from high school college or career ready
▪90% of students will graduate on time
▪100% of our students who graduate college or career ready will enroll in a post-secondary opportunity.
In order to achieve these ambitious goals, we must collectively work to provide our students with high-quality, College and Career Ready standards-aligned instruction. Acknowledging the need to develop competence in literacy and language as the foundations for all learning, Shelby County Schools developed the Comprehensive Literacy Improvement Plan (CLIP). The CLIP ensures a quality balanced literacy approach to instruction that results in high levels of literacy learning for all students, across content areas. Destination 2025 and the CLIP establish common goals and expectations for student learning across schools and are the underpinning for the development of the English/Language Arts curriculum maps.
Designed with the teacher in mind, the English/Language Arts (ELA) curriculum maps focus on literacy teaching and learning, which include instruction in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language. This map presents a framework for organizing instruction around the TN State Standards (CCRS) so that every student meets or exceeds requirements for college and career readiness. The standards define what to teach at specific grade levels, and this map provides guidelines and research-based approaches for implementing instruction to ensure students achieve their highest potential.
A standards-based curriculum, performance-based learning and assessments, and high quality instruction are at the heart of the ELA Curriculum guides. Educators will use this guide and the standards as a road map for curriculum and instruction. Carefully crafted curricular sequences and quality instructional resources enable teachers to devote more time and energy in delivering instruction and assessing the effectiveness of instruction for all learners in their classrooms, including those with special learning needs.
How to Use the Literacy Curriculum Maps
Our collective goal is to ensure our students graduate ready for college and career. This will require a comprehensive, integrated approach to literacy instruction that ensures that students become college and career ready readers, writers, and communicators. To achieve this, students must receive literacy instruction aligned to each of the elements of effective literacy program seen in the figure to the right.
This curriculum map is designed to help teachers make effective decisions about what literacy content to teach and how to teach it so that, ultimately, our students can reach Destination 2025. To reach our collective student achievement goals, we know that teachers must change their instructional practice in alignment the with the three College and Career Ready shifts in instruction for ELA/Literacy. We should see these three shifts in all SCS literacy classrooms:
(1) Regular practice with complex text and its academic language.
(2)Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational.
(3)Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction.
Throughout this curriculum map, you will see high-quality texts that students should be reading, as well as some resources and tasks to support you in ensuring that students are able to reach the demands of the standards in your classroom. In addition to the resources embedded in the map, there are some high-leverage resources around each of the three shifts that teachers should consistently access:
Throughout this curriculum map, you will see high-quality texts that students should be reading, as well as some resources and tasks to support you in ensuring that students are able to reach the demands of the standards in your classroom. In addition to the resources embedded in the map, there are some high-leverage resources around each of the three shifts that teachers should consistently access:
The TNCore Literacy StandardsThe TNCore Literacy Standards (also known as the College and Career Ready Literacy Standards):
/ Teachers can access the TNCore standards, which are featured throughout this curriculum map and represent college and career ready student learning at each respective grade level.
Shift 1: Regular Practice with Complex Text and its Academic Language
Student Achievement Partners Text Complexity Collection: / Teachers can learn more about how to select complex texts (using quantitative, qualitative, and reader/task measures) using the resources in this collection.
Student Achievement Partners Academic Work Finder:
Links to Support Vocabulary Instruction & Development
/ Teachers can copy and paste a text into this tool, which then generates the most significant Tier 2 academic vocabulary contained within the text.
Shift 2: Reading, Writing and Speaking Grounded in Evidence from the Text
Student Achievement Partners Text-Dependent Questions Resources: / Teachers can use the resources in this set of resources to craft their own text-dependent questions based on their qualitative and reader/task measures text complexity analysis.
Shift 3: Building Knowledge through Content-Rich Non-fiction
Student Achievement Partners Text Set Projects Sequenced: / Teachers can use this resource to learn about how to sequence texts into “expert packs” to build student knowledge of the world.
Using the Curriculum Maps
- Begin by examining the text(s) selected for each quarter. Read the selections becoming familiar with both the text(s) and the “big idea.”
- Locate the TDOE Standards in the left column. Analyze the language of the standards, and match each standard to an evidence statement in the center column.
- Consult your Pearson Literature Teachers’ Edition (TE) and other cited references to map out your week(s) of instruction.
- Plan your weekly and daily objectives, using the evidence statements to help.
- Study the suggested writing prompts/performance tasks and match them to your objectives.
- Plan the questions you will ask each day using the Fisher/ Frye Pyramid. Be sure that the questions you ask will lead students to success on your selected performance assessments.
- Examine the other standards and skills you will need to address—writing, vocabulary, language, and speaking and listening skills.
- Using your Pearson TE and other resources cited in the curriculum map, plan your week using the SCS lesson plan template. Remember to include differentiated activities for teacher-led small group instruction and literacy stations.
Using the WIDA MPIs
WIDA English Language Development (ELD) standards and example Model Performance Indicator (MPI) strands appear within this document to provide teachers with appropriate scaffolding examples for ELLs and struggling readers. Strands of MPIs related to the domain of Reading are provided and linked to the corresponding set of CCR standards.By referencing the provided MPIs and those MPIs within the given links, teachers can craft "I can" statements that are appropriately leveled for ELLs (and struggling readers) in their classrooms. Additionally, MPIs can be referenced for designing new and/or modifying existing assessments.
Tennessee State Standards / Evidence Standards / ContentWeeks 1-3
- Keep Memory Alive by Elie Wiesel, pg 542
- -from Nobel Lecture by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, pg 548
- Nightby Elie Wiesel - Lexile 590
Performance Task:
Determine two central ideas of the text, Night, and write an essay that analyzes and summarizes how the author develops these ideas over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another. Be sure to cite evidence from the text to support your analysis. Follow the conventions of standard written English.
Week 1
Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction
and
Reading Complex Texts / RL.9.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RL.9.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
RL.9.3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
RL.9.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
RL.9.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
RL.9.6 Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
RL.9.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts" and Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).
RL.9.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
RL.9.10 By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grade 9 text complexity band independently and proficiently. / Evidence Statements
Provides strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly and/or inferences drawn from the text. RL.9.1
Provides a statement of a central idea/theme of a text. RL.9.2
Provides an analysis of how a central idea/theme emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details over the course of the text. RL.9.2
Provides an objective summary of a text. RL.9.2
Provides an analysis of how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ides or events, including the order in which points are made, how they are introduces and developed, and connections that are drawn between them. RL.9.3
Provides a detailed analysis of how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of the text. RL.9.5
Provides an analysis of how the author uses rhetoric to advance his or her point of view or purpose. RL.9.6
Provides a delineation of the argument and specific claims in a text. RL.9.8
Provides an analysis of seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance.RL.9.9 / Reading Selections
Informational Text
- Analyze Nonfiction Text
- Analyze Authors Opinions and Arguments
- Analyze rhetorical devices used in texts.
The Big Question
What kind of knowledge changes our lives? (pg. 540)
- writing about the Big Question – (pg 540)
“Keep Memory Alive” (pg 542)
Analyzing a Speech
Background for the Speech – The Holocaust (pg 540-545)
Literary Analysis – Persuasive Writing, pg 543
Text Dependent Questions
- On whose behalf does Wiesel accept the Nobel Prize? (General Knowledge)
- Why does he believe the award belongs to those people? (Key Understandings)
- Why does he say that receiving the award both “frightens and pleases” him? (Text Structure)
- What does the boy Wiesel ask the adult Wiesel?(Key Understandings)
- What do his questions imply about Wiesel’s adult responsibilities? (Inferences)
- Why does Wiesel believe we have a moral duty to remember? (Author’s Purpose)
- What lessons learned in a concentration camp have guided Weisel’s actions as an adult? (Opinions, Arguments, Intertextuality)
Analyzing a Speech
-Development of Ideas
-Persuasive Writing and Rhetorical Devices (p 553)
Text Dependent Questions
- According to Solzhenitsyn, what is a key difference between world literature today and in the past?(General Understanding)
- Why does he call world literature “one great heart”?(Key Details)
- According to Solzhenitsyn, what were two ways in which European writers showed support for him?(Key Details)
- How does this support confirm his view of world literature?(Author’s Purpose)
- What role does Solzhenitsyn believe artists have in the struggle against injustice? (Author’s Purpose)
- Solzhenitsyn wants writers to write about “the truth.” What issues would he think are most in need of this truthful examination? (Inferences)
Night by Elie Wiesel (Chapters 1-3)
Text Dependent Questions for Close Reading Selection
- How does Wiesel create a mood of foreboding and impending disaster early in the text?(Vocab and Text Structure)
- What clues does Wiesel give the reader to foreshadow the disaster that is about to occur?(Key Details)
- How does Wiesel detail the cruelty the Jews experience when they are deported?(Key Details)
- 4. What is Eliezer’s relationship with his father? How is the relationship established?(Key Details)
- 5. How does the first chapter foreshadow Eliezer’s later struggle to maintain his faith in God? (Author’s Purpose)
- How does Eliezer’s point of view (his limited knowledge of what is happening around him) create a more terrifying tale?(Author’s Purpose)
- How does the author convey Eliezer’s loss of faith? (Key Details)
- How is the theme of “fear of silence” established in this chapter? (Key Details / Vocabulary and Text Structure)
- What is a novel? What is a memoir? How does this text use traditional conventions from both literary forms? Cite evidence from the text. (General Understanding)
Regular practice with complex text and its academic language / Language
L.9.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9-10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
L.9.4.A Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
L.9.4.B Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., analyze, analysis, analytical; advocate, advocacy).
L.9.4.C Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, or its etymology.
L.9.4.D Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).
L.9.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
L.9.5.A Interpret figures of speech (e.g., euphemism, oxymoron) in context and analyze their role in the text.
L.9.5.B Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations.
L.9.6 Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. / Evidence Statements
Use context clues to determine the meaning of a word L4
Use Greek or Latin roots to determine the meaning of a word L4
Use prefixes and suffixes to change meaning or part of speech L4
Use print reference materials L4
Use electronic reference materials L4
Find relationships between words to better understand them L.9.5
Use grade-appropriate vocabulary L9.6 / Vocabulary
Word Study
The Latin root –scend- means “climb.”
In this speech, the author talks about receiving an honor that transcends, or climbs and goes beyond, him as just one person.
Have students think of other –scend- words.
Condescend
Descend
Ascend
Have students consult a dictionary if necessary.
(Keep Memory Alive – see TE at
)
The Latin root –jur- means “law” or “right”.
In this speech, the author asserts that a nation’s government should not have jurisdiction, or the right to make laws, over the literature produced there.
Have students thin of other –jur- words.
Abjure
Injury
Jurisprudence
(-from Nobel Lecture – see TE at )
Tier 2 Vocabulary
Transcends
Presumptuous
Accomplices
Aggregate
Reciprocity
Jurisdiction
Condemn
Inexorably
Oratory
compatriots
edict
expound
firmament
hermetically
pestilential
phylacteries
pillage
premonition
truncheon
Writing
to Texts / Writing
W.9.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
W.9.2.A Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
W.9.2.B Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience's knowledge of the topic.
Review
RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. / Evidence Statement
Write an informative/ explanatory text W.2
Introduce a topic and organize new elements to create a unified whole W.2
Select most significant facts to develop a topic W.2
Use transitions and syntax to link sections, create cohesion, and clarify complex ideas W.2
Use precise language, vocabulary, figurative language W.2
Use formal style and objective tone while following standard conventions W.2