Reading—Grades 9–10

In ninth and tenth grades, reading is purposeful and automatic. Readers are aware of comprehension and vocabulary strategies being employed especially when encountering difficult text and/or reading for a specific purpose. They continue to increase their content and academic vocabulary. Oral and written responses analyze and/or synthesize information from multiple sources to deepen understanding of the content .Readers have greater ability to make connections and adjust understandings as they gain knowledge. They challenge texts, drawing on evidence from their own experience and wide reading. Students continue to read for pleasure.

EALR 1: The student understands and uses different skills and strategies to read.

Note: Each grade-level expectation assumes the student is reading grade-level text. Since reading is a process, some grade-level indicators and evidences of learning apply to multiple grade-levels. What changes is the text complexity as students move through the grade-levels.

Component 1.2 Use vocabulary (word meaning) strategies to comprehend text.

1.2.2 Apply strategies to comprehend words and ideas.

• Use vocabulary strategies to understand new words and concepts in informational/expository text and literary/narrative text.
• Use graphic features to clarify and extend meaning.

Component 1.3 Build vocabulary through wide reading.

1.3.2 Understand and apply content/academic vocabulary critical to the meaning of the text, including vocabularies relevant to different contexts, cultures, and communities. W

• Integrate new vocabulary from informational/expository text and literary/narrative text, including text from a variety of cultures and communities (e.g., salon as a historical reference to political gatherings as opposed to a beauty salon), into written and oral communication.
• Explain the meaning of content-specific vocabulary words (e.g., regeneration, isolationism, emancipation, polarized).
• Select, from multiple choices, the meaning of a word identified in the text.
• Transfer knowledge of vocabulary learned in content areas to comprehend other grade-level informational/expository text and literary/narrative text (e.g., the concept of parallel in mathematics to understand parallelism).

EALR 2: The student understands the meaning of what is read.

Component 2.1 Demonstrate evidence of reading comprehension.

2.1.3 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies during and after reading: determine importance using theme, main idea, and supporting details in grade-level informational/expository text and/or literary/narrative text. W

• State both literal and/or inferred main ideas and provide supporting text-based details.
• State the theme/message and supporting details in culturally relevant literary/narrative text.
• Choose, from multiple choices, a title that best fits the selection and provide details from the text to support the choice.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that best states the theme or main idea of a story, poem, or selection.
• Organize theme, main idea and supporting details into a self-created graphic organizer to enhance text comprehension.

2.1.4 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies for informational and technical materials, complex narratives, and expositions: use prior knowledge.

• Use previous experience, knowledge of current issues, information previously learned to make connections, draw conclusions, and generalize about what is read (e.g., transfer knowledge of the concept of tragedy from one text to another).

2.1.5 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies for informational and technical materials, complex narratives, and expositions: synthesize ideas from selections to make predictions and inferences. W

• Make inferences based on implicit and explicit information drawn from prior knowledge and text; provide justification for inferences.
• Make predictions and inferences about an author’s beliefs and cite text-based evidence to support prediction/inference (e.g., find text passages that support an inference that the author advocates economic change).
• Read several accounts of the same event and make inferences about the impact each would have on the reader (e.g., discuss the emotional impact of a journal entry by a soldier’s parent, a letter from a Union or Confederate soldier, and a newspaper article describing a Civil War battle).
• Select, from multiple choices, a prediction, inference, or assumption that could be made from the text.
• Organize information to support a prediction or inference in a self-created graphic organizer.

2.1.6 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies for informational and technical materials, complex narratives, and expositions: monitor for meaning, create mental images, and generate and answer questions.

• Monitor for meaning and use comprehension-repair strategies to regain meaning independently.
• Develop questions before, during, and after reading and use knowledge of questioning strategies to locate answers.
• Use mental imagery while reading.
• Organize images and information into a self-created graphic organizer to enhance text comprehension.

2.1.7 Apply comprehension monitoring strategies for informational and technical materials, complex narratives, and expositions: determine importance and summarize the text. W

• Create an informational summary that includes an introductory statement, main ideas, and supporting text-based details; make connections among the key ideas from the entire text; use own words in an objective voice; is accurate to the original text; and avoid interpretation or judgment; use an organizational pattern that supports the author’s intent.
• Create a literary summary that includes an introduction stating the theme and/or author’s message supported by text-based evidence; use own words in an objective voice; is accurate to the original text.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that best summarizes the text.
• Organize summary information for informational/expository text, technical materials, and complex narratives into a self-created graphic organizer to enhance text comprehension.

Component 2.2 Understand and apply knowledge of text components to comprehend text.

2.2.2 Apply understanding of complex organizational features of printed text and electronic sources. W

• Use text features to verify, support, or clarify meaning.
• Use the features of electronic information to communicate, gain information, or research a topic.

2.2.3 Analyze story elements. W

• Interpret the interdependence and interaction of characters, theme, setting, conflict, and resolution (e.g., in a short story, novel, epic poem).
• Compare/contrast how recurring themes are treated by diverse authors or in different genres.
• Select, from multiple choices, a word or sentence that best describes a specific story element (e.g., character, conflict, resolution).

2.2.4 Apply understanding of text organizational structures.

• Recognize and use previously taught organizational structures (description, comparison and contrast, sequential order, chronological order, cause and effect, order of importance, process/procedural, concept/definition, problem/solution, episodic, and generalization/principle) to aid comprehension.
• Independently apply understanding of text structure to the acquisition, organization, and application of information.

Component 2.3 Expand comprehension by analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing information and ideas in literary and informational text.

2.3.1 Analyze informational/expository text and literary/narrative text for similarities and differences and cause and effect relationships. W

• Compare conclusions drawn from multiple sources to determine similarities and differences.
• Integrate information from multiple sources to draw conclusions that go beyond those found in individual sources.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that describes how a character’s feelings compare to those of the author/poet about the same subject.
• Use literary themes within and across texts to interpret current issues, events, and/or how they relate to self.
• Examine how an action leads to long-lasting effects (e.g., environmental, economic, and/or political impact of off-shore drilling or strip mining; socioeconomic and psychological makeup of African-American individuals, families, and communities as a result of slavery).

2.3.2 Evaluate informational materials, including electronic sources, for effectiveness.

• Judge the usefulness of information based on relevance to purpose, source, objectivity, copyright date, cultural and world perspective (e.g., editorials), and support the decision.

2.3.3 Evaluate the use of literary devices to enhance comprehension. W

• Judge the effectiveness of the author’s use of literary devices and explain how they are used to convey meaning.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence from the story/poem/selection that is an example of a specific literary device.

2.3.4 Synthesize information from a variety of sources.

• Integrate information from different sources to research and complete a project.
• Integrate information from different sources to form conclusions about author’s assumptions, biases, credibility, cultural and social perspectives, or world views.

Component 2.4 Think critically and analyze author’s use of language, style, purpose, and perspective in literary and informational text.

2.4.1 Analyze informational/expository text and literary/narrative text to draw conclusions and develop insights. W

• Draw conclusions from grade-level text (e.g., the most important idea the author is trying to make in the story/poem/selection, what inspiration might be drawn from the story/poem/selection, who might benefit from reading the story/poem/selection).
• Select, from multiple choices, a statement that best represents the most important conclusion that may be drawn from the selection.

2.4.2 Analyze author’s purpose and evaluate an author’s style of writing to influence different audiences. W

• Compare and contrast selected author’s styles of writing to achieve a similar purpose.
• Draw conclusions about style, tone, mood, meaning of prose, poetry, and/or drama based on the author’s word choice and use of figurative language.
• Explain why an author uses particular language to create an intended effect (e.g., foreign words, dialect, connotative words, irony, rhetorical devices, simile, and metaphor), citing text-based evidence.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that explains why an author includes a specific technique.
• Examine the author’s use of language registry (e.g., frozen, formal, consultative, casual, intimate) and how this influences meaning and different audiences.
• Judge the effectiveness of the author’s use of language to create an intended effect.

2.4.3 Analyze and evaluate text for validity and accuracy. W

• Compare and contrast the logic ( assumptions and beliefs) and use of evidence (existing and missing information; primary sources and secondary sources) used by two authors presenting similar or opposing arguments (e.g., articles by two political columnists that address the same issue).
• Judge the accuracy of the information in a text, citing text-based evidence, author’s use of expert authority, author’s credibility to defend the evaluation.

2.4.4 Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the author’s use of persuasive devices to influence an audience. W

• Identify the intended effects of persuasive vocabulary (e.g., loaded words, exaggeration, emotional words, euphemisms) that the author uses to influence readers’ opinions or actions.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that explains why an author uses a specific persuasive device.
• Identify the intended effects of persuasive strategies the author uses to influence readers’ perspectives (e.g., peer pressure, bandwagon, repetition, testimonial, transfer).

2.4.5 Analyze text to generalize, express insight, or respond by connecting to other texts or situations. W

• Generalize about universal themes, human nature, cultural or historical perspectives, etc., from reading multiple texts.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that represents a generalization that can be made from the story/poem/selection.
• Provide a response to text that expresses an insight (e.g., author’s perspective, the nature of conflict) or use text-based information to solve a problem not identified in the text (e.g., use information from a variety of sources to write an editorial or make a presentation about world health issues).

2.4.6 Analyze and evaluate the presentation and development of ideas and concepts within, among, and beyond multiple texts. W

• Differentiate how a concept is presented and/or developed in and beyond texts (e.g., the role fear plays in war, prejudice, relationships, personal safety).
• Compare the development of an idea or concept in multiple texts; decide which is best presented and developed and support the decision with text-based evidence.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that describes the most important idea, concept, or conclusion that can be drawn from the selection.

2.4.7 Analyze and evaluate the reasoning and ideas underlying author’s beliefs and assumptions within multiple texts. W

• Analyze literary/narrative text and informational/expository text to show how they reflect the heritage, traditions, and beliefs of the author.
• Compare and contrast readings on the same topics by explaining how the authors reach the same or different conclusions based on differences and similarities in evidence, reasoning, assumptions, purposes, beliefs, and biases.
• Select, from multiple choices, a sentence that describes the reasoning of a character or an author, both faulty and logical.
• Make judgments about how effectively an author has supported his/her belief and/or assumptions, citing text-based evidence.

EALR 3: The student reads different materials for a variety of purposes.

Component 3.1 Read to learn new information.

3.1.1 Analyze web-based and other resource materials (including primary sources and secondary sources) for relevance in answering research questions.

• Examine materials to determine appropriate primary sources and secondary sources to use for investigating a question, topic, or issue (e.g., encyclopedia and other reference materials, pamphlets, book excerpts, newspaper and magazine articles, letters to an editor, oral records, research summaries, scientific and trade journals).

Component 3.2 Read to perform a task.

3.2.2 Apply understanding of complex information, including functional documents, to perform a task.

• Read instructions, credit card or job applications, legal documents such as contracts, policies, and timetables, to perform everyday life functions (e.g., find employment, research colleges or trade schools, purchase goods and services, take vacations, locate people and places).

Component 3.3 Read for career applications.

3.3.1 Apply appropriate reading strategies for interpreting technical and non-technical documents used in job-related settings.

• Select, use, monitor, and adjust appropriate strategies for different reading purposes (e.g., skim/scan for big ideas, close reading for details, inferring information from graphs and charts).
• Read professional-level materials, including electronic information, that match career or academic interests and demonstrate understanding of the content.
• Select and use appropriate skills for reading a variety of documents (e.g., tables, blueprints, electronic technology manuals, bills of lading, medical charts, mechanical manuals).

Component 3.4 Read for literary experience in a variety of genres.

3.4.2 Evaluate traditional and contemporary literature written in a variety of genres.

• Critique author’s choice of literary genres to convey a message.
• Explain how meaning is enhanced through various features of poetry, including sound (rhythm, repetition, alliteration), structure (meter, rhyme scheme), and graphic elements (line length, punctuation, word placement).

3.4.3 Analyze recurring themes in literature.

• Compare motivations and reactions of literary characters from different historical/cultural backgrounds when confronting similar conflicts.
• Characterize the presentation of a similar theme or topic across genres and explain how the selection of genre shapes the theme or topic.

3.4.4 Analyze and evaluate the great literary works from a variety of cultures to determine their contribution to the understanding of self, others, and the world.

• Examine the ways in which works of literature are related to the issues and themes of their historical periods (e.g., the Gold Rush, civil rights movement, post-World War II Europe).
• Critique the contribution to society made by traditional, classic, and/or contemporary works of literature that deal with similar topics and problems (e.g., individual needs vs. needs of society, community maintenance, civil disobedience, humanity’s relationship with nature).

EALR 4: The student sets goals and evaluates progress to improve reading.

Component 4.1 Assess reading strengths and need for improvement.

4.1.2 Evaluate reading progress and apply goal setting strategies and monitor progress toward meeting reading goals.

• Set goals for reading and develop a reading improvement plan.
• Track reading progress through the use of such tools as portfolios, reflection journals, self-scoring rubrics.

Component 4.2 Develop interests and share reading experiences.

4.2.1 Evaluate books and authors to share reading experiences with others.

• Discuss responses to literary experiences and/or ideas gleaned from informational/expository text with others.