Grade 9 - Communicate Ideas and Information (Knowledge of Language)

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

It is expected that students will:

• use grammatically correct language when writing and speaking
• demonstrate a willingness to experiment with an increasing array of sophisticated figures of speech and genres, including satire, parody, and irony
• use an increasing repertoire of specialized terminology and subject-specific words with accuracy and precision

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Communicate Ideas and Information (Knowledge of Language) in other grades click on an icon below.

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Review with students how pauses, stops, and inflection in spoken language parallel punctuation in written language. Have students practise reading aloud using the punctuation marks as signals to pause, change tone, or stop. Use the following as examples:
  • I love you? I love you! I love you.
  • I don't believe you? I don't believe you! I don't believe you.
  Have students also practise changing word stress to emphasize different words.
• To show the necessity of consistent spelling, have students spell the following words the way they sound: laugh, criticize, fish, luscious, women.  Show them Bernard Shaw's spelling of the word fish: ghot  (gh  for f  as in cough ; o  for i  as in women ; and t  for sh  as in nation ). Revisit commonly misspelled words such as: your, you're; their, there, they're; its, it's. 
• Have students explore the derivations, original meanings, changing meanings, and possible future meanings of words (e.g., the Roman comedian Juvenus, juvenile, juvenile delinquent ). Ask students to use their dictionaries to determine the etymology of words that have interesting origins (e.g., disaster, tawdry, mob, assassin ). Students should also include new "technovocabulary."
• Invite students to read "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Marlowe and "The Nymph's Reply" by Raleigh and write parodies of the two poems.

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

• After students have studied a unit on the English language, check on their knowledge by asking them, in turn, to offer one piece of related information. The information need not be complex (e.g., English uses a lot of foreign words, Silent letters used to be pronounced, Juvenile  comes from the name of a Roman comedian, Slang excludes people who don't belong to a particular community or group). Continue until no one can think of any new information. Encourage students to listen carefully so that they can challenge the accuracy or uniqueness of others' responses. (This activity can be done as an English bee or relay in which all students stand up and sit down only when they can't contribute a new piece of information in their turn.)
• Have students work with partners or groups to present short lessons appropriate to this level - common spelling problems, usage issues, internal punctuation rules (e.g., use of the comma, semicolon), and rules for documenting source material. Collaborate with students to generate assessment criteria that focus on the extent to which presenters are able to:
  • clearly identify and describe a specific language problem or convention
  • provide illustrative examples
  • offer relevant and practical suggestions or strategies
  • include appropriate practice or monitoring activities
  • respond to questions with relevant, clear information

RECOMMENDED LEARNING RESOURCES

• The 21st Century Dictionary of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• The 21st Century Dictionary of Quotations
• The 21st Century Grammar Handbook
• The 21st Century Guide to Pronunciation
• The 21st Century Synonyms and Antonyms Finder
• Desktop Publishing
• The Little, Brown Handbook
• Roget's Twenty-First Century Thesaurus
• The Scholastic Rhyming Dictionary
• Stories from Asia
• Storytelling Games
• Writing for Results
• You Be The Reporter

• MultiSource
• Word Attack 3

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