Print Syllabus

ELA 9: Introduction to Literature—Semester B - Course Introduction

Shmoop's ELA 9 course has been granted a-g certification, which means it has met the rigorous iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Courses and will now be honored as part of the requirements for admission into the University of California system.

This course has also been certified by Quality Matters, a trusted quality assurance organization that provides course review services to certify the quality of online and blended courses.

You made it! Well, to be fair, you haven't really done anything yet, but even just showing up is worth something. Go bake yourself some cookies as a reward. (Or, better yet, buy yourself a book.) And then send us some cookies, because it was our idea to begin with.

That being said, here's what the next 36 weeks of your life are going to look like. We hope you have a sturdy Wifi connection and a library membership, because things are about to get literary. In each unit, you'll be:

  • Unit 1: Playing around with words and reading some iconic short stories
  • Unit 2: Closely reading some seriously twisted poetry
  • Unit 3: Taking baby steps with through To Kill a Mockingbird—maybe you've heard it?
  • Unit 4: Analyzing a book where Death is a main character, and comes off like a totally chill dude
  • Unit 5: Returning to short stories and breaking down their text structure, now that you're a pro at that sort of thing
  • Unit 6: Checking out some of the most influential pieces of theater ever, but not having to perform a musical theater standard even once
  • Unit 7: Calling out editorial writers and history's greatest speechmakers for their flagrant use of rhetoric
  • Unit 8: Tying it all together with a research project based on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, one of the most important bestsellers of the past decade

It might seem like a lot, but each lesson is accessible, has a dazzling array of activities, and is, best of all, Shmoopy.

So, are you ready to kick off Unit 1 and play around with words?

(Please say yes, or else this will be one awkward year.)

Objectives

By the end of this course, you should be able to

  • analyze literature and its themes on a personal and universal level.
  • identify major genres and text structures of fiction and nonfiction.
  • apply ninth grade-level language skills concerning reference materials, morphemes, word usage, and sentence structure.
  • use both general and domain-specific vocabulary, as well as context clue skills.
  • complete novel studies to determine iconic themes, symbols, and motifs in major works of twentieth-century literature.
  • analyze journalism, essays, memoirs, letters, diaries, and novel-length nonfiction for theme, point of view, rhetoric, and language.
  • analyze writing for bias and purpose.
  • read short stories, poetry, and plays to determine what makes their formats and styles unique.
  • compare authors, genres, perspectives, and styles.
  • create words, poetry, art, essays, and research papers in response to major works, as well as the unit's topics and real-world issues.