Course Overview
Course Title
English 9
Course description
Using close reading and annotation strategies, students will analyze, synthesize, and evaluate a variety of
texts with attention toward rhetorical strategies, claim and counterclaim, and author’s purpose. Students
will also be able to write for different audiences and purposes. Students will be active readers, writers,
and listeners.
Major units of study/major topics
Unit 1: The Influence of Literature
Level One Option: Rocket Boys
Level Two Option: Tuesdays with Morrie
Supplemental short stories, poetry, and non-fiction texts
Unit 2: Context and Attitude
The Happiness Project
Supplemental short stories, poetry, and non-fiction texts
Unit 3: Hope and Remembrance During Times of Tragedy
Night by Ellie Wiesel
Level One and Level Two Option: Survival in Auschwitz
Supplemental short stories, poetry, and non-fiction texts
Research Paper and Presentation to address Learner Expectation #4
Unit 4: Conflict, Choice, and Consequences
Romeo and Juliet
Supplemental short stories, poetry, and non-fiction texts
Newsela.com research report and panel presentation
Overarching Understandings
 Analyze, synthesize, evaluate a variety of texts
 Identify rhetorical strategies in informational text
 Apply close reading and annotation strategies
 Develop claims and counterclaims supported by details and evidence
 Write for a variety of audiences and purposes
 Create a thesis statement and topic sentence
 Choose topics and complete research
 Use rhetorical strategies (author’s tone, purpose) in writing
 Identify and incorporate literary devices into student writing
 Publish and collaborate using technology tools
 Introduce, cite, explain quotations using appropriate format
 Identify simple, compound and complex sentences and how to punctuate
 Targeted convention, grammar interventions

Use parallel structure
NHS only: Learner Expectations addressed in this course
Learner Expectation #4
Major resource (program, anchor text, etc.) if applicable
Unit 1:
Rocket Boys
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Gettysburg Address
Superman and Me Sherman Alexie
Reading Books is Fundamental Charles M. Blow
Unit 2:
The Happiness Project
“The Most Dangerous Game”
“The Sniper”
“Thank You Ma’am”
“Helen on 86th Street”
“The Lady and the Tiger”
“The Gift of the Magi”
“An Uncomfortable Bed”
“The Waltz”
Act iii, Scene 1 from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor”
“Charles”
“The Ransom of Red Chief”
J.K. Rowling speech “The Importance of Imagination”
“The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way To Activate Our Brains”
“Video Games and the Future of Storytelling”
“How Laughter Works”
“How to Build a Joke”
“What Makes Us Laugh—And Why?”
“Prefatory” and “Chapter 42” from Roughing It
“Leffingwell Elementary School” from Funny in Farsi
“Who’s on First?”
“On Creativity: Serious vs. Solemn”
Unit 3:
Night
Survival in Auschwitz
“Hope, Despair, and Memory:
“Loving Your Enemies”
“Antigone Today”
“In Warsaw”
“Internment”
Unit 4:
Romeo and Juliet
“A Poison Tree”
“The Raven”
“The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe”
“The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction”
“Teenage Brains are Malleable and Vulnerable, Researchers Say”
“On Revenge”
“Teenage Brains”
Where’s Romeo?
The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets Over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet
“Understanding the Mysterious Teenage Brain”
Selected readings from Newsela.com