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CURRICULUM PROGRAM: English Language Arts
COURSE TITLE: Language Arts 9
CALENDAR YEAR: 2012-2013
GRADE LEVEL: 9
CODE: LAE301
TYPE: GL
CREDITS:
COURSE LENGTH: 36 weeks
Major Concepts/Content: The language Arts 9 course is designed to strengthen students’ skills in listening, speaking, writing, literature, and language. The content includes, but is not limited to, preparing oral reports in various content areas; using appropriate pitch, stress, juncture and rate in formal and informal speech; using the dictionary and the thesaurus to develop an increasingly comprehensive and precise vocabulary in both speaking and writing; locating resources (magazines, reference sources, films, and microfiche) by using indexes, catalogs, and the Reader’s Guide; practicing the process of composition, including prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing; writing correspondence using appropriate forms (business, friendly); identifying with literary characters of the student’s own age, and under-standing how the characters’ actions and emotions reflect the student’s own actions and emotions; under-standing that literature is written at different levels for different purposes and for different audiences; and reading self-selected books to help students learn to view reading as a useful and pleasurable activity.
Major Instructional Activities: Instructional activities will be provided in a general classroom setting, in the media center, and in the school and community environment. Student activities will include, but will not be limited to, writing journals or learning logs; writing expository, persuasive, and descriptive paragraphs and essays; writing short stories; writing and mailing business letters; learning to respond to each other’s writing with helpful suggestions for revision; taking several pieces of group and/or individual writing through a process that includes prewriting activities, drafting, peer response, revision, proofreading for spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and usage, and publishing; practicing writing from different points of view for different purposes and audiences; developing speaking and listening skills by responding to literature and to each other’s writing, and by participating in small and large group discussions and in oral presentations, individual recitations, and dramatizations; studying appropriate major works of literature intensively in class; reading, viewing, and listening independently to examples of the various genres of literature and responding to the literature; presenting interpretations of literature orally; reading self-selected books and responding to them in journal entries, letters, group discussions, or oral or written book reports; and increasing vocabulary through the study of words encountered in reading and through work with the dictionary and the thesaurus.
Major Evaluative Techniques: Students will be evaluated for class participation; completion of reading assignments and book reporting requirements; comprehension of literature as measured by objective, essay, and/or oral examinations.’ and improvement in written compositions and oral presentations, with major emphasis on critical reasoning, content, organization, specificity and relevance of detail, evidence, and argument, and with secondary emphasis on skill growth in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and usage.
Course Objectives: Upon completion of the Language Arts 9 course, students should be able to: