YEAR 9 ENGLISH

The Year 9 English course aims to consolidate and build on the literacy skills students have developed in Year 8.

More specifically, it is designed to build students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating.

By engagement with a range of text types (fiction, non-fiction, print, visual and multi-modal) students will have opportunities to refine their capacity to read and interpret texts in increasingly in-depth and sophisticated ways. As part of this process, they not only work to comprehend meanings in a text but to also appreciate how the deliberate construction and use of generic conventions within a text is a response to context, intended audience and purpose.

In the Year 9 course students will begin to interrogate how texts may offer representations of societal groups, places and events while also opening windows into the historical and cultural contexts to which they are linked.

One standout focus will be an opportunity to explore the life and times of William Shakespeare through the study of at least one of his dramas. Where possible this will be complimented by a performance by the Bell Shakespeare theatre company.

Students will through modelling and active learning strategies be given support to create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that raise issues, report events and advance opinions. To enhance the quality of their work they will continue to build confidence and control in using deliberate language and textual choices, including the leveraging of digital technologies to achieve their purpose.

Assessments are strategically devised to ensure students may draw on both critical (analytical) and creative thinking strategies to enjoy suitable growth and success.

Text types include:

• Literature (novels, short stories, poetry, plays)

• Informative/interpretative (documentaries, TV news)

• Persuasive (argument, opinion pieces, editorials)

• Media (TV news, documentary)