English and ELL/ESL

English and ELL/ESL

 

From the Ministry curriculum document:  The grade nine Academic English course is designed to develop the oral communication, reading, writing, and media literacy skills that students need for success in their secondary school academic programs and in their daily lives. Students will analyse literary texts from contemporary and historical periods, interpret informational and graphic texts, and create oral, written, and media texts in a variety of forms. An important focus will be on the use of strategies that contribute to effective communication. The course is intended to prepare students for the Grade 10 academic English course, which leads to university or college preparation courses in Grades 11 and 12.  

A defining feature of our grade 9 Academic program is individual choice of reading material.  This approach is used to increase the amount our students are reading.  Simply put, if a student is able to choose their own reading material, they are more likely to engage in and enjoy the reading process, and will be more interested in picking up a "next" book.  We find this approach leads to students reading more than previously, which thereby leads to an improvement in reading levels.  This also allows for differentiation of reading material where students can choose works at their reading level, and that speak to their individual lived experience.  Because the students will be reading different novels at any one time, a skills-based focus is used in class, rather than an emphasis on content.  Shorter common texts are studied as a class, such as poems, stories, articles, and graphic texts.

In our pre-Baccalaureate grade 9 program, the emphasis is on content that will help students to eventually be successful with English at the Diploma Program level.  This means emphasizing skills, content and ideas that students will encounter in the IB curriculum.  An emphasis is put on studying literature in a greater breadth and depth, and beginning the practice of stylistic analysis that is a feature of English throughout the I.B. and Pre-Bac level.  Possible sample texts at the grade 9 level include: world myths and an introduction to "The Hero's Journey", Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, The Marrow Thieves by Cheri Dimaline, and Shakespeare studies (either Romeo and Juliet or A Midsummer Night's Dream)

The ACL of English and Languages is Ms. Rebecca Ryoji 

English Department
R. Ryoji (ACL)
M. Ackerman
T. Ajao
K. Bell
L. Clayton
N. Dylan
E. Mitten
S. Steen
M. Palka
M. Farrugia
ELL/ESL Department
B. Ghuman
A. Chung
M. Farrugia