The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 partially meet the criteria that most questions, tasks, and assignments are text dependent/specific, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text).

The materials provide a consistent format for students to engage with text-dependent questions and/or tasks. However, text-dependent/specific questions, tasks and assignments do not consistently support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year. Many questions have students recall key details within texts and do not build to questions that ask students to analyze or infer based on what they have read. Questions do not grow in complexity across the course of the year.

In Units 1-5, questions, tasks, and assignments can be found via the Close Reading Model: Before, During, and After Reading. The Before Reading section includes four subsections with questions embedded within the margins of the textbook: Build Background, Analyze Literature, Set Purpose, and Use Reading Skills. The During Reading section includes three subsections: Use Reading Strategies, Analyze Literature, and Make Connections. The After Reading section includes four subsections: Refer to Text, Reason with Text, Analyze Literature, and Extend the Text. The curriculum also includes Differentiated Instruction, Common Core Assessment Practice, Meeting the Standards, and Exceeding the Standards guides that also provide text-dependent questions. Each unit provides a variety of supports to text-dependent and text-specific questioning. Many questions that ask for student opinion require students to engage with the text directly as inferences are made, and students are required to provide support from the text in most of the work they complete within the unit.

In Unit 1, students read the short story, “Thank you, Ma’am,” by Langston Hughes. While reading, students respond to the following question: “What kind of person is Luella Bates Washington Jones?” To answer this question, students are asked to find the lines that suggest things about her character. During reading, the students are asked to make an inference regarding the persona of Luella Bates Washington Jones using explicit evidence. After reading, the students answer questions, such as, “What does Roger hope to steal from Mrs. Jones? Analyze why Roger might have made this choice when he and the opportunity to escape.” These questions require students to draw on textual evidence to support their answers.

In Unit 2, students read the personal essay, “Us and Them,” by David Sedaris and are asked to answer recall text-dependent questions in the Refer to Text and Reason With Text section, such as:

• “Compare and contrast how a character feels in the beginning, and how his feelings change when he finds out an important fact about them.”

• “List things the narrator thought the Tomkeys did not know because they did not have television.”

• “Summarize the narrator’s idea about television.”

In Unit 3, students read the lyric poem, “Sympathy,” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and “Caged Bird,” a lyric poem by Maya Angelou. After students read both poems, they respond to Refer to Text and Reason with Text questions, such as: "Identify what the two birds in 'Sympathy' and 'Caged Bird' long for and dream about. Judge which poem--'Sympathy' or 'Caged Bird'--does a better job of depicting what it is like not to be free. Support your opinion."

In the After Reading Assessment, students then complete questions, such as: "In ‘Caged Bird,’ the caged bird sings because…. Does the caged bird in either poem have any hope for freedom?” Both examples above require students to revisit the text for explicit evidence; the open response questions push students to draw on textual evidence to support valid inferences from both poems.

In Unit 4, students read the poem, “Purgatory,” by Maxine Kuman and make a text-to-text connection with the play, Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Students consider if Shakespeare had allowed Romeo and Juliet to survive their ordeal, might he have considered an ending similar to “Purgatory?”

In Unit 5, students read selections from The Odyssey, the epic poem by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Within this section, students are asked to answer questions in the Refer to Text and Reason With Text section, such as:

• Identify the goddess who serves as Odysseus’ protector.

• Analyze why Homer selects that specific goddess as his hero’s protector.

• As the mariners leave the land of the Cyclopes, what and to whom does Polyphemus call out?

• Explain how Homer’s listeners might have responded to this incident. How might modern readers respond?

In Unit 6, students read a selection from Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars, a memoir by Lauralee Summer. After reading, they answer text-dependent questions in the Refer to Text and Reason With Text section, such as: "Identify the places Summer and her mother stay in this excerpt noting how long they stay in each one. Describe who do you think would have a harder time adjusting to the sort of life described in this excerpt, an adult or child?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 partially meet the criteria for materials containing sets of sequences of text-dependent/text-specific questions with activities that build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding.

After every text selection in the After Reading, Refer to Text, Reason with Text section, there are text-dependent questions, and throughout each reading, there are strategies and activities that build students’ skills to complete the end of unit activities. Each unit includes three types of culminating activities: Speaking and Listening Workshop, Writing Workshop, and Test Practice Workshop. The performance tasks that the students are asked to complete in these culminating activities correspond to the questions, discussions, and writing prompts that students have completed throughout the unit as they read the various selections. The lessons are detailed, follow a step-by-step process, have checklists to support students, and the Language Arts Handbook and the Exceeding the Standards Speaking and Listening Resource Guides support students by providing additional lessons on the skills necessary to complete each task. However, skills are often not integrated. Students complete each workshop independently of one another. Some tasks are loosely connected to unit texts, while others are not connected to texts. Students are often demonstrating mastery of the unit skills rather than demonstrating understanding or knowledge.

At the end of Unit 2: Nonfiction, there are three culminating tasks for the unit. For the Speaking and Listening Workshop, students deliver a persuasive speech where they convince others to adopt their opinion. The preparation for this speech includes being sincere and enthusiastic; maintaining good, but relaxed posture; speaking slowly; maintaining genuine eye contact; speaking in a genuine, relaxed, conversational tone; and communicating with the audience. Activities throughout the unit that build to this culminating task include:

• Debating the pesticide issue after reading an excerpt from Silent Spring: “DDT is now banned in all major countries. However, there is increasing debate about allowing pesticides to be used in developing nations struggling with malaria and West Nile virus. With a partner or in a small group, research how developing nations might benefit from the immediate effects of a pesticide. Be sure to document your sources. Develop an argument that either supports or opposes the use of DDT in these nations and debate a team with an opposing view.”

• Delivering a persuasive speech after reading “I Have a Dream”: “Write a three-to-five-minute speech that persuades an audience of your peers to participate in your vision for a better world.”

This task requires students to demonstrate the skill of persuasion, but does not build to integrate skills that demonstrate understanding.

In the Unit 2 Writing Workshop, students write an argument essay where they try to persuade readers to consider their point of view on a topic they believe in and care about. Students select their topic; gather information about their topic; organize their ideas into a pro and con chart; write their thesis statement; draft their introduction, body, and conclusion; evaluate their drafts; revise their drafts for content, organization, and style; proofread for errors; publish and present their work; and reflect on their work. Activities throughout the unit that build to this culminating task include:

• Researching the use of propaganda after reading “The Teacher Who Changed My Life.”

• Composing an argument writing after reading ‘Becoming a Composer.” “If an author was preparing your biography, he or she would spend a great deal of time researching your life. The biographer would certainly interview people who interact with you or know you well enough to provide insight into your life. Write a brief argumentative essay of four to five paragraphs convincing your biographer who should be interviewed, why those people should be chosen, and what questions should be posed.”

• Writing “an argument essay that either supports or opposes the future growth of media” after reading “Us and Them.”

• Analyzing an excerpt from Silent Spring. “Summarize the main points about pollution that Carson makes. Then list the types of evidence she provides in support of her opinions. Finally, write a short critique of the essay, in which you take a stand or express your own opinion on the issue.”

• Locating and analyzing a great speech after reading “Glory and Hope.”

This task requires students to demonstrate the skill a written argument, but does not build to integrate skills that demonstrate understanding.

In the Test Practice Workshop in Unit 2, the first section asks students to practice the reading skill of identifying the author’s purpose through reading Sojourner Truth’s Speech to the Convention of the Equal Rights Association; answering reading comprehension questions on the text; responding to a constructed response prompt on the text: “Name at least three techniques Sojourner Truth uses to achieve her purpose and provide a specific example to support each one,” and completing an extended writing prompt on an issue presented in this prompt: “Some parents feel that their teenage children are given too many material things and don’t value property because they haven’t had to work for it. Other parents want to give their teenage children advantages that they can’t afford and don’t see any harmful effects in doing this. In your opinion, should parents buy everything for their teenage children without making them work to earn it? Write an essay in which you take a position on this topic. You may choose to support one of the two points of view given, or you may write about a third perspective on the topic. Support your position with specific reasons and examples.” For the second section, students practice revising and editing by reading a paragraph; identifying errors in the writing, and suggesting ways of improving the errors. Activities throughout the unit that build to this culminating task include:

• Analyzing author’s purpose while reading an excerpt from Swimming to Antarctica: “Cox begins her autobiography with a swim she attempted as an adult but goes on to describe her early experiences as a swimmer. Why do you think she structured, or arranged, the opening of her book in this way?”

• Analyzing the effect of the words in “Glory and Hope.” “Most of Mandela’s speech is written using formal language. Near the end, however, Mandela uses the phrase ‘skunk of the world’ to describe South Africa’s historical poison. What might have been the effect of this informal phrase on the listeners? How would this expression assist Mandela’s persuasive speech?

• Practicing aspects of grammar and style such as prepositional, infinitive, and participial phrases; comma usage; possessive nouns and pronouns.

• Practicing aspects of vocabulary and spelling such as figurative language.

The Writing Workshop for Unit 5 focuses on Narrative Writing, specifically Oral History. Within the Writing Workshop, the objective indicates that “Studying this workshop will enable students to write an oral history that does the following: “introduces the subject being interviewed, includes a thesis that states the focus of the story, records the narrative in chronological order, and concludes by closing the story and reflecting on the significance of the story.” Though this culminating task is somewhat supported by unit lessons, the task is not connected to a text nor does it demonstrate understanding. Students could complete this task without the unit lessons or unit texts. Students “Interview an older relative or a wise family friend, and document a story of special meaning. Prewrite, draft, and revise the oral history.”

• The Writing Workshop directions specifically state that “As a child, most likely you listened to someone tell you spellbinding tales of heroes and heroines. Ella Young, author of ‘The Silver Pool,’ went to Ireland to sit by turf fires and listen, as she says, to poems ‘recited by folk who had heard the faery music and danced in faery circles.’ Folk tales, fables, and legends have profound reverberations; they allow us to deeply investigate life’s mysteries. They tell stories of decision and consequence that are both personal and universal, both literal and symbolic. In The Odyssey, readers relate to the lessons Odysseus learns on his journey, even through such things could never happen to them.”

• The directions continue: “You also have heard the spellbinding stories your parents and grandparents tell about their parents and grandparents. These oral histories explain who you are and where you come from. They may be the foundation of an entire lineage. Besides their personal relevance, these episodes from people’s lives are history--family and cultural history. Capturing oral histories preserves them for generations to come.”

• Tasks that occur throughout the unit that support students in their endeavors with this culminating tasks include, writing a one-page literary analysis explaining the moral, or lesson about life, that this tale offers. Use details from the story to support your conclusion. Then, after students complete “The White Snake,” a fairy tale, students will then complete a piece of narrative writing: “Fairy tales have traditional settings, such as castles and forests, and old-fashioned characters. Prepare a modern-day retelling of ‘The White Snake’ in a setting of your choice, such as a suburb or a big city. You can replace the old-fashioned characters with modern ones, too, if you wish. Your version can be one or two pages long.”

In the Unit 6, Exceeding the Standards, Speaking & Listening Workshop, Give a Descriptive Writing Presentation, students write a description that is not connected to unit lessons or texts. This task requires students to demonstrate the skills of descriptive writing, but does not integrate skills or demonstrate student understanding. Students are asked, “Select the Subject of Your Descriptive Piece. Answer the questions below to find the right subject to describe: Think about your life 20 years from now. What person, place, activity, or time will you best remember when you look back at your childhood? What feeling or mood would you like to create in your presentation: What subject brings that feeling or mood to mind? Then students are told to, “Select the Form Your Writing Will Take. Think about your purpose for writing. Are you going to provide information? Are you going to tell a story? Your purpose for writing can help you decide on the genre for your descriptive piece.” There are exercises provided to build students' skills of descriptive writing to complete this task. For example, students are given the directions, “The passages on the next page describe similar subjects. Read each passage and circle any words that contribute to the mood and imagery of the passage. Then write a paragraph comparing the passages’ descriptive techniques and explaining which genre appeals to you.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 partially meet the criteria for materials supporting students’ listening and speaking (and discussions) about what they are reading and researching (shared projects) with relevant follow-up questions and supports.

The materials provide the teacher with ample questions to engage students in thinking about and responding to the text; however, no explanation is given on how the students will share this thinking - be it verbal or written, individual, or in groups. There are few supports or follow up questions to support students' listening and speaking to deeper their understanding about what they are reading and researching.

Throughout the Annotated Teacher's Edition, there are many places that prompt teachers to have students discuss in the context of pre-reading. Since these discussion opportunities occur prior to actually reading the text, discussions aren’t evidence-based. For example, in the Launch the Unit section, questions for a whole-class discussion on the text type being studied in the unit are provided. The Speaking and Listening portion of the Exceeding the Standards resource provides opportunities for students to prepare projects and to present information orally to the class through narratives, speeches, poems, dramatic scenes, and interviews, but these activities are not tied to the texts that are studied in the unit. In the Exceeding the Standards resource for speaking and listening, the majority of tasks are presentations--these supports tie to the speaking and listening requirements, but there are very few shared projects. Also, there are some relevant follow-up questions and supports, but the supports and follow-up questions are designed for students to respond to individually, rather than practicing through the Speaking and Listening standards with one another or in small and large groups.

Each unit includes a Speaking and Listening Workshop, but the emphasis is on the individual preparing for a particular presentation. There are collaborative research and discussion activities that can be found in the Teacher Edition, most notably as Teaching Note(s) that suggest activities for students to process the text they are reading through pair and small group work, often focused on generating questions about the text. Students may also take part in Collaborative Learning, which usually occurs in the After Reading section where students practice speaking and listening skills--this includes student planning for group activities, group skit presentations, short discussions, etc. There are other frequent questions and activities that are designed to have students speaking and listening, but they do not require the student to have interacted with the text being studied. Rather, they are based on personal thoughts and experiences and connections to themes.

The speaking and listening opportunities require students to provide evidence from what they are reading and researching. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 6, Independent Reading, students read two selections: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth and an excerpt from The Grasmere Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth. The Teacher Edition suggests that after reading the selections, the teacher should engage the students in a discussion about imagery: “Tell students that language that creates pictures by appealing to the senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell is called imagery. Ask students to identify two words and one figure of speech in the text, The Grasmere Journals, that also appear in 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.' Have students discuss the significance of this overlapping vocabulary and imagery, found both in the journal and in the poem.”

Frequently, questions and activities provide speaking and listening opportunities about what students are reading and researching, but do not require students to have interacted with the text being studied. Discussions are based more on personal thoughts and experiences and connections to the themes. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 4, Annotated Teacher's Edition, instructors are given directions in the Launch the Lesson section. For the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet: “Have students recall some recent movies about love and relationships. Ask them to choose one of the moves and write out its basic plot. Have students compare and contrast the representation of love and relationships in their movie with the representation in a movie another student wrote about. Students can compare these movies to The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet as they read.” This support given in the Annotated Teacher Edition also correlates to the Mirrors and Windows question that “the end of Act I focus[es] on the theme of true love.” Teachers are further instructed to support students by the following: “Before reading, engage students in a discussion of true love by posing these questions: Is there such a thing as true love? If so, how might you recognize it?” These supports have students recall and discuss considering students are practicing sharing information that is summarized and synthesized both individually and within a large group. However, this discussion is not evidence-based and does not require students to gather evidence from the text.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 partially meet the criteria for materials including instruction and practice of the grammar and conventions/language standards for grade level as applied in increasingly sophisticated contexts, with opportunities for application in context.

The materials contain several workshops in grammar and style, as well as vocabulary and spelling. Within each unit, students experience between two and six Grammar and Style Workshops; all workshops have students practice various grammatical and syntactical tasks that apply directly to the texts they read within the unit. However, there is inconsistent support for students to practice in increasingly sophisticated contexts. The skills instruction does not include opportunities for application both in and out of context. Additionally, the materials do not promote and build students’ ability to apply conventions and other aspects of language within their own writing. There are minimal opportunities to practice skills taught in the unit with the selected readings in the Teacher’s Edition, therefore limiting opportunities for increased sophistication of the addressed standards. While the resource workbook, Exceeding the Standards, includes “comprehensive skills development lessons," the same language standards are not necessarily addressed during the “Writer’s Workshop” task or other possible places within the unit of study. Therefore, students are not consistently given opportunities to apply the lessons on grammar and conventions in context.

In Unit 1, within the Exceeding the Standards resource, students practice nine different lessons. Within Lesson 9, students practice Indefinite Pronouns with 6 exercises. Exercise 6 states the following: “Write a paragraph about a problem you and someone else recently solved. Describe the problem and the steps you took to find the solution. Correctly use at least five examples of reflective and intensive pronouns in your paragraph.”

In Unit 2, students experience two Grammar and Style Workshops. Within each Grammar and Style Workshop, students practice Understand the Concept and Apply the Skill sections.

• Possessive Nouns and Pronouns: In the Possessive Nouns and Pronouns Workshop, students read about different types of possessive forms of nouns and pronouns. Students are also presented with Review Terms. Within the Apply the Skill section students practice the following skills: Identify Possessive Nouns, Use Possessive Nouns Correctly, Identify Possessive Pronouns, Use Possessive Pronouns Correctly, and Extend the Skill. An example from Use Possessive Pronouns Correctly is as follows: “4. Spreading the word on the dangers of pesticides was mine intention.” An example from Extend the Skill is as follows: “With a partner, make a list of fifteen insect-related nouns, such as antenna, grasshopper, thorax, and horsefly. Then write the correct singular possessive and plural possessive forms of each noun on your list.”

Unit 3 Poetry includes two Grammar and Style Workshops, one on verb tense and one on active and passive voice. It contains two Vocabulary and Spelling Workshops, one on literal and figurative meanings and one on using spelling rules correctly.

• In the verb tense workshop, students read about simple, perfect, and progressive tenses and complete practice exercises such as identifying the verb tense in a sentence: “1. Our teacher is speaking to the class about Poe’s poetry.”

• In the active and passive voice workshop, students read about the difference between active and passive voice and complete practice exercises such as identifying whether a sentence is in active or passive voice: “1. Dunbar is considered by many critics to be the first professional African-American poet.”

• The Vocabulary and Spelling section of the Exceeding the Standards booklet includes practice exercises to support the spelling workshop on spelling correctly, spelling patterns, and spell-check software and what it fails to do.

In Unit 5, Grammar and Style, Understand the Concept, students learn the concepts of Coordination, Subordination, and Apposition. After reviewing the terms, students Apply the Skill, by Identifying Coordination, Subordination, and Apposition in Sentences. Students then Improve the Use of Conjunctions by rewriting sentences using an appropriate coordinating or subordinating conjunctions. Students Practice using Conjunctions and Appositives in their writing. Students Extend the Skill by using a picture to practice describing the people using coordination, subordination, and appositives.

Unit 6, the Independent Reading Unit, contains grammar practice only in the Exceeding the Standards, Grammar and Style.

• Lesson 52: students practice in Exercise 1, Identifying Sentence Fragments in Literature. In Exercise 2, Understanding Sentence Fragments, and in Exercise 3, Correcting Sentence Fragments.

• Lesson 55: students practice using Transitions Effectively. In Exercise 1, students Identify Transitions in Literature, in Exercise 2, Understanding How to Use Transitions, and in Exercise 3, students practice using Transitions in Your Writing.

• Lesson 62: students practice Summarizing and Paraphrasing. In Exercise 1, students practice Summarizing a Selection, and in Exercise 2, students practice Paraphrasing sentences.