9th Grade - Gateway 1

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria for Indicator 1a. Anchor texts within the materials are of publishable quality and worthy of especially careful reading and consider a range of student interests.

Materials for Grade 9 include well-known and diverse authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, Roald Dahl, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Nikki Giovanni, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harper Lee, Audre Lorde, Pablo Neruda, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. Most, if not all, of the texts--print, film, and audio recording-- have been published in some form as books or in notable newspapers and/or journals and magazines, as well as on the screen, in video, or audiocast.

Five thematic units provide anchor texts and supplementary texts encompassing a range of topics relevant and interesting to Grade 9 students: coming of age, Defining Style, Coming of Age in Changing Times, Exploring Poetic Voices, and Coming of Age on Stage. Books, dramas, short stories, poems, film excerpts, articles, and editorials are among the text types studied throughout the year. Using these materials as a touchstone, students explore the experience of becoming an adult, how writers in a variety of texts use stylistic choices, the craft of storytelling, how authors and filmmakers develop unique styles, how context affects the writer’s construction of and readers’ responses to text, and the power and forms of poetry: music, billboards, and advertising jingles. Students are introduced to Romeo and Juliet, a coming-of-age drama about two young star-crossed lovers; students explore the story that has inspired countless artists, musicians, and filmmakers through both printed text and film versions.

Unit 1: Coming of Age, a unit of multiple texts

• Speak, a New York Times Best-Seller by Laurie Halse Anderson
• “Marigolds,” a prizewinning short story by Eugenia Collier
• Always Running, an award-winning memoir by Luis J. Rodriguez
• “Remarks by the President in a National Address to America’s Schoolchildren,” a speech by Barack Obama

Unit 2: Defining Style, a unit anchored in the study of narrative

• “The Cask of Amontillado,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe
• “The Stolen Party,” a short story by Liliana Hecker, translated by Alberto Manguel
• “The Gift of the Magi,” a short story by O. Henry
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a novel by Roald Dahl

Unit 3: Coming of Age in Changing Times, a unit anchored in the study of a novel

• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, a Pulitzer Prize winner

Unit 4: Exploring Poetic Voices, a unit anchored in the study of poetry

• “Poetry,” a poem by Pablo Neruda, winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature
• “We Real Cool,” a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American Pulitzer Prize winner.
• “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” a poem by William Wordsworth
• “Harlem,” a poem by Langston Hughes
• “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers,” a poem by Emily Dickinson

Unit 5: Coming of Age on the Stage, a unit anchored in the study of drama

• Romeo and Juliet, a drama by William Shakespeare

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria for Indicator 1c. Grade 9 texts have the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, and relationship to their associated student task.

SpringBoard Online provides a Text Complexity Analysis for each of the Grade 9 texts. Each text analysis provides a quantitative rating based on Lexile measures and a qualitative measure based on the qualitative factors described in Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards (pages 5-6): Levels of Meaning or Purpose, Structure, Language, and Knowledge Demands. The Text Complexity Analysis also describes the student task associated with the reading and the teaching of text and considers those activities in assigning an overall level of text complexity. Texts falling below the College and Career Expectations for Lexile Ranges in the 9-10 grade band are typically offset by higher qualitative measures and task demands. In general, texts that are quantitatively above grade band have less rigorous qualitative demands, and the associated tasks have scaffolds in place to ensure student access.

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.15, students read “Remarks by the President in a National Address to America’s Schoolchildren” delivered by President Barack Obama on September 8, 2009. The speech has a Lexile measure of 1110 and lies within the College and Career Readiness range expected for the 9-10 grade band. The Text Complexity Analysis rates the qualitative aspects of the text as low and notes, “The speaker’s purpose is easy to identify based on the context. The president is appealing to America’s schoolchildren to ‘fulfill your responsibilities’ for their own education and not ‘let us down... let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don’t let yourself down. Make us all proud.’ The information is explicit and clear.” Additionally noted, is the conventional text structure, contemporary and conversational vocabulary, variety of sentence structures, and first-person point of view presenting many personal anecdotes and examples. Students use the speech to analyze the structure and effectiveness of the elements of argumentation and types of rhetorical appeals--ethos, logos, and pathos--aligned to RI.9-10.6 (Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.)

• In Unit 2, Activity 2.12, students read “Tim Burton: Wickedly Funny, Grotesquely Humorous,” a biographic essay with a Lexile measure of 1310, above the College and Career Readiness range expected for the 9-10 grade band. The Text Complexity Analysis indicates text language is largely contemporary and a few terms may be unfamiliar, such as “subversiveness” and “grotesque sensibility;” nevertheless, scaffolds such as underlining key facts and details that contribute to the main idea and circling unknown words and phrases are embedded to support students' understanding of such terms in the context of the essay. Similarly, many sentences are long and complex, but scaffolds such as rereading the text to answer text-dependent questions on key ideas and details of cinematic style and the short length of the text as well as the clear transitions and pop culture references will aid student understanding.

• In Unit 3, the anchor text, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, has Lexile measure of 870, well below the College and Career Readiness range expected for the 9-10 grade, but SpringBoard rates the text as overall complex. The Text Complexity Analysis explains, “The 870 Lexile places this text in the 4-5 grade band, and qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty. While the excerpt is innocent, some themes and situations presented in the novel and the film are best reserved for a high school reader. The cognitive demands are moderate because students are analyzing literary elements, coming of age concept and scene, as well as subplot and motif.”

• In Unit 5, Activity 5.16, students read “On the Bard’s Birthday, is Shakespeare Still Relevant?” by Alexandra Petri. The article has a Lexile measure of 790, below the College and Career Readiness range expected for the 9-10 grade band. Overall, the Text Complexity Analysis rates the text as accessible, but the qualitative measurement is “high” and the task demand “moderate.” Qualitatively, though the speaker’s purpose is easy to identify, she “takes an unexpected turn at the end and gives the reader another layer of purpose when she says that Shakespeare ‘wrote what we all know.’” Additionally, the author’s use of rhetorical questions and “arcane references” will require students to engage in careful reading. The report also notes the author references many of Shakespeare’s “plays, plots, and characters” as well as other authors from the British canon, all of which may be unfamiliar to ninth grade students. The student task, to explain the “purpose of rhetorical questions and how changing the medium and audience of an argument would affect the writing and structure” is completed using the SOAPSTone strategy. Additionally, students respond to a writing prompt arguing for or against the inclusion of Romeo and Juliet in the Grade 9 curriculum (W.9-10.1).

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria for Indicator 1d. Over the course of the year, materials support students’ increasing literacy skills through a series of texts at a variety of complexity levels appropriate for Grade 9.

Students progressively build literacy skills through work with a variety of texts over the course of the school year. Texts sets are at various complexity levels, quantitatively and qualitatively, and therefore support learners as they develop literacy skills and background knowledge to support independent and proficient reading practices.

In Unit 1, Activity 1.3, students read the excerpt “Spotlight” from the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. With a 740 Lexile measure, the text falls in the 4-5 grade band for quantitative complexity and offers low qualitative measures as well. However, the moderate task measure, analyzing voice, allows the text to work as a transitional piece from Grade 8 and an introduction to the unit’s study of voice and narrative. The next unit text, “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, has a 1050 Lexile measure, falling in the quantitative complexity level for the 9-10 grade band. The text’s qualitative elements rate the text as complex and the task, analyzing how diction and imagery convey voice, as moderate. Students move from the study of literary fiction into literary non-fiction with Luis J. Rodriguez’s Always Running, which falls into the grade band complexity level with a 1050 Lexile measure, moderate qualitative measure, and challenging task demand. The Rodriguez texts acts as an introduction to the non-fiction pieces that are used throughout the remainder of the unit and guide students towards more reading editorials of more complex texts such as “An Early Start on College,” slightly above the 9-10 grade band.

In Unit 2, students “come to understand the effects of unique stylistic choices” by reading texts from various genres. At the beginning of the unit, students are introduced to several short stories, all falling below the 9-10 grade band, but which are used to introduce students to analytical strategies: Activity 2.5, SIFT, “The Gift of the Magi”; Activity 2.6, Levels of Questions “The Stolen Party”; Activity 2.8, Diffusing, “The Cask of Amontillado.” Thus, while the readings appear to regress in complexity, the application of learning strategies makes the texts relevant to increasing students’ proficiencies as independent readers.

In Unit 3, students read nonfiction texts to build context for the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, read in the latter half of the unit. The nonfiction texts, such as “Jim Crow: Shorthand for Separation” and “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” are generally above the 9-10 grade band in text complexity. In the second half of the unit, students begin reading the novel, which measures at an 840 Lexile but which has “themes and situations...best reserved for a high school reader.” Additionally, the text is more extensive in length than previous pieces, outside of independent reading assignments, read up to this point in the school year.

In Unit 5, students have become proficient enough as readers to take on the complex task of reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, read in the first half of unit. In the latter half of the unit, students read a variety of texts as they gather evidence to support an argument for the relevance of Shakespeare in today’s world, the objective of Embedded Assessment 2. In Activity 5.16, students read “On the Bard’s Birthday, is Shakespeare Still Relevant?” an article with a Lexile measure of 790, well below the 9-10 grade band, but with significant knowledge demands and therefore a complex qualitative measure. The article introduces concepts and questions relevant to the embedded assessment and moves students toward readings of higher complexity levels, such as “On Love and War, Iraq Learns from Shakespeare,” an informational text with a Lexile measure of 1190, a moderate qualitative measure, and a moderate task demand.

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria of Indicator 1e. The Grade 9 materials provide anchor texts and series of texts connected to them. The materials are accompanied by text complexity analyses and rationales for purpose and placement in the grade level.

SpringBoard Online provides a Text Complexity Analysis complete with rationales for purpose and placement within the online Teacher Resources. Each analysis offers users a choice to download the file or preview the analysis online. The format for each analysis is identical, providing information and discussion in five areas: the context for use, a quantitative analysis with justification if the Lexile level is below grade, a qualitative review, an overview of reader and task considerations, and placement considerations in light of grade level standards.

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet Indicator 1f. The program’s anchor and supporting texts provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to achieve grade level reading proficiency.

Over the year, students are provided with a variety of texts, primarily representing the disciplines of literature and social science, from a wide distribution of media including newspaper, journals, music, film and the internet. Among the text types are short stories, poems, drama, novels, speeches, and informational texts; full text listings are provided within Planning the Unit and Resources at a Glance in the Unit Overview. The former lists all titles in the unit and the latter lists the titles in relation to the unit pacing guide and related activities. Additionally, grade level texts are listed in the End Matter PDF found through the Teacher Resources tab among the Book PDFs.

All units are developed thematically. Some units are structured around an anchor text, usually a complex novel or drama accompanied by supplementary texts, while other units provide multiple texts supporting the thematic and skill-based instruction. Regardless, students have the opportunity to achieve grade level reading proficiency through independent reading and study as well as supported reading, e.g., paired reading, small group reading, choral reading, and chunked reading. With the introduction of each new text, the Teacher Wrap encourages teachers to use their “knowledge of their students” to select the most effective format for the first reads. Each reading activity specifically addresses the reading and learning purpose for the text to follow and offers specific lessons designed to support diverse readers in text comprehension and analysis.

Embedded in each lesson are activity features to encourage rereading: Academic and Social Language Preview, Interpret the Text Using Close Reading, Interacting in Meaningful Ways, Academic Collaboration, and Working from the Text. These activity features specifically support close reading, thinking protocols, word consciousness, and grammar and language, all skills that move readers towards greater reading independence. Within all activities, the sidebar Teacher Wrap offers ideas and tips to support diverse readers in the classroom. Additional reading supports are delineated and defined in the Teacher End Materials PDF available through the Resources tab on the grade-level home page. Included in this Resource handbook is a comprehensive list of reading strategies, along with definitions, and purposes for use. Also included in the Resource are numerous graphic organizers aligned to activities specifically noted in the Teacher’s Edition, e.g., OPTIC, SMELL, SOAPStone, Web Organizer, and Word Map. Additionally found in the Teacher’s Edition Teacher Wrap is specific guidance for adapting teaching methods in the development of grade-level reading skills among diverse readers. Under headings Teacher to Teacher, Adapt, and Leveled Differentiated Instruction are explanations and references for additional supports that are also found in the Resource handbook, e.g., sequencing events, analyzing key ideas and details, charting cause and effect, and unknown word solvers.

Six supplementary close reading lesson sets are also included among the instructional materials: informational/literary nonfiction, poetry, argument, Shakespeare, informational STEM texts, and informational texts in social studies and history. Each lesson set offers three unique texts and instruction for each text follows a four-activity pattern supporting students work toward reading independence:

• Activity 1: provides guided reading instruction that emphasizes multiple readings, vocabulary development, and close-reading strategies with a complex text.
• Activity 2: gradually releases students from teacher-guided instruction and modeling to a collaborative analysis of a visual text to which students apply the skills and strategies of close reading.
• Activity 3: releases students to closely read texts independently to respond to analysis questions and to make connections to previous texts.
• Activity 4: requires students to respond to synthesis writing, presentation, or discussion prompts to demonstrate their mastery of the close-reading skills they have practiced in the workshop.

In addition to reading as part of classroom activities, students are expected to complete independent readings. In each unit, Planning this Unit provides a section titled Suggestions for Independent Reading and offers a “wide array of titles which have been chosen based on complexity and interest.” At the beginning of each unit, students develop an Independent Reading Plan and are instructed to discuss their reading plan with a partner through a series of questions: “How do you go about choosing what to read independently? Where can you find advice on which books or articles to read? What genre of texts do you most enjoy reading outside of class? How can you make time in your schedule to read independently? How do you think literary theory might change your perspective of the texts you read independently?”

As a mechanism for monitoring their reading progress, students are accountable for monitoring their independent reading using an Independent Reading Log provided in the Resource handbook available in the Teacher End Materials PDF and the Student Front Matter, both found through the Resources tab on the grade-level home page. Independent Reading Link: Read and Connect is a sidebar activity bridging the unit’s reading instruction and the students’ independent reading. In Activity 1.10, after a using a SOAPStone activity with the class text, students are asked to use their reading log and create a “SOAPSTone analysis of a section of your independent reading book. Then determine how effectively the author appeals to his or her audience based on tone and purpose.” Independent Reading Checkpoints are also embedded in each unit. For example, in Unit 1 Activity 1.12, following a study of voice and tone, students are instructed to choose “one of the readings from the first half of this unit. Compare author’s voice and tone with the author’s voice and tone in your independent reading text as they described a coming-of-age experience.” In building a volume of reading, students are also encouraged to do their own research, selecting their titles and topics “that intrigue them.”

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the expectations of indicator 1g. Most questions, tasks, and assignments are text-dependent and require students to engage with the text directly and to draw on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text.

Most questions, tasks, and assignments over the course of instruction are designed to encourage students’ interaction with the texts under study. Within each unit are recurrent activities such as Setting a Purpose and Second Read which cause students to consider text-dependent questions regarding concepts related to key ideas and details, craft and structure, and integration of knowledge and ideas. Additionally, Writing to Sources activities require students to engage directly with the text using explicit and valid inferential textual support in the development of analytic and explanatory writing.

Following are some representative examples of how Grade 9 materials employ text-based questions and tasks over the course of the school year:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.17, after reading “Why College Isn’t (And Shouldn’t Have to Be) For Everyone” by Robert Reich, Second Read instructs students to re-read and answer these text-dependent questions: “What is the claim of the argument? How does the writer set up this claim? Where does the author bring up his counterclaim? How does he develop it?”

• In Unit 3, Activity 3.3, while reading “Jim Crow: Shorthand for Separation” by Rick Edmonds, Setting a Purpose asks students to “Underline words or phrases that define the term Jim Crow.”

• In Unit 5, Activity 5.2, after reading an excerpt from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Writing to Sources directs students to “[r]ead the first four lines of the monologue. Identify the metaphor Shakespeare uses to describe human life. Explain how and why this is an appropriate comparison…. Begin with a topic sentence summarizing your understanding of the metaphor; cite direct quotations and specific examples from the metaphor....Provide a conclusion that summarizes your explanation.”

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria for indicator Ih. The materials contain sets of high-quality, sequenced, text-dependent, and text-specific questions with activities that build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding. Culminating tasks are rich and varied, providing opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do in speaking and/or writing over the year.

Each of the five units presents two embedded assessments followed by a logical progression of instruction and practice in preparing students to successfully demonstrate their skills and understandings. Preview of Embedded Assessment 1 occurs on the first day of the unit as students unpack the skills required for the task which culminates midpoint in the unit. Following the completion of Embedded Assessment 1, students are introduced to Embedded Assessment 2, again unpacking the skills necessary to successfully accomplish the end task. For each Embedded Assessment, the sequence of activities that follows the unpacking sequentially develops the skills necessary to complete the requirements of the assessment.

• The Unit 1 Embedded Assessment 2 asks students to write an argumentative essay about the value of a college education “in which you assert a precise claim, support it with reasons and evidence, and acknowledge and refute counterclaims fairly.” Each lesson that follows builds incrementally on discrete aspects of the assessment and provides exemplar texts as written models. Activity 1.13 builds on the parts of an argument and how to build reasons in support of a central claim. Activity 1.14 leads students through an informational article on the relationship of wealth and education. Activity 1.15 teaches students about rhetorical appeals and illustrates their use through a speech given by former President Obama. Activity 1.16 teaches students about evidence types and demonstrates their use through a 2012 Chicago Tribune editorial. Activity 1.17 teaches about counterclaims and refutations demonstrating application through a 2015 Huffington Post article. Each text selection is followed by a series of text dependent questions.

• The Unit 5 Embedded Assessment 1 asks students to work collaboratively “to interpret, rehearse, and perform a scene from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.” The thirteen lessons that follow integrate practice with reading, understanding, and performing the language of Shakespeare. In Activity 5.4, students read an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet, annotating character moods by underlining “words that imply a character is mad or angry.” Later in the lesson, students practice the vocal delivery of the selection. In Activity 5.5, students read monologues from Act I of Romeo and Juliet, using the SIFT method (symbol, imagery, figurative language, and tone) to analyze a scene and consider how to use “visual and vocal delivery in [their] monologue to communicate character, tone, and/or theme to the audience.” In Activity 5.6, students continue reading excerpts of the play and learn about blocking a performance for stage and film. The lessons continue progressively, adding theatrical elements and deepening the analysis of language and the resulting meanings of the text.

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the criteria for materials providing frequent opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions--small groups, peer-to-peer, whole class--that encourage the modeling and use of academic vocabulary and syntax.

The Grade 9 materials focus student interactions on speaking and listening by introducing students to the importance of diction and syntax in an early activity that culminates in the development of group discussion norms. Thereafter, each unit throughout the year engages students in a variety of evidence-based discussions following these norms. Discussions take place within the whole class, as small group conversations, and as partners sharing text-based ideas and information. Embedded within each unit are several Academic Collaboration lessons focused on the current text under study and designed to promote meaningful interaction. The lessons provide a discussion protocol guiding “academic conversation” and sometimes extend into a Language Checkpoint where students work with partners examining syntax related to the anchor text. Academic and Social Language Previews also appear in each unit. These collaborative investigations promote student exploration of word meaning by asking students to determine meaning through the context and then apply the word in a new context. Additionally, the Teacher Wrap supports activities with additional protocols, ideas for increasing pair and small group speaking and listening interactions, instructional advice for differentiation, modeling suggestions, and technology tips for heightening student interaction in effective evidence-based discussion.

Following are some representative examples of how Grade 9 materials provide opportunities and protocols for evidence-based discussions that encourage the modeling and use of academic vocabulary and syntax:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.7, after reading “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, students are to work with a partner to generate five open-ended questions of a character that “push the character to reflect on the significance of key events revealed in the narrative.” After generating the questions, students are to analyze the selected character’s voice, diction, and syntax and then draft a Q & A interview that allows the character to respond to the questions through the character’s perspective using the character’s voice, language, and details from the text. The Teacher Wrap suggests that students orally present or role play their interviews to gain confidence in the interviewing process.

• In Unit 3, Activity 3.2, before reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, students build their understanding of the term “context” introduced earlier in Unit 2. The activity suggests students work with a partner to discuss the context of their classroom, their town, and their country each in light of historical, cultural, social, and geographical contexts. The Teacher Wrap suggests the activity continue by incorporating photographic images related to the context of the novel. As images are shared, students chat briefly to generate questions about the historical, cultural, social, and geographical context of images. The pairs move into small groups to refine their questions and later, the small group becomes a whole class discussion on how context shapes a reader’s understanding of a story.

• In Unit 5, Activity 5.20, after reading Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, students read the article, “Why It’s Time to Give the Bard a Heave-ho” by Brandon Robshaw. Working in pairs or small groups, the Teacher Wrap suggests students create a Writer’s Checklist based on the Exemplary column of the Scoring Guide for Embedded Assessment 2. The students’ scoring guide must contain the essential elements of an argument: hook, claims, reasons and evidence, counterclaims, and concluding statement. Students then work together in evaluating Robshaw’s argument using their own checklist design, “taking notes on elements of the argument present in the text...and text evidence for each element of an argument.”

The instructional materials reviewed for SpringBoard Grade 9 meet the expectations of indicator 1j. Most materials support students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading and researching (including presentation opportunities) with relevant follow-up questions and evidence.

Throughout the year, students are engaged in a variety of listening and speaking activities including pairing with peers to discussions in small groups, participating in Socratic Seminars, and staging class presentations. Most collaborative activities occur after reading a text and/or a combination of texts sometimes paired with multimedia sources. In most instances, students are required to engage in evidence-based discussions relevant to text themes, structure, development, and purpose. Discussion questions encouraging students to draw on academic vocabulary and syntax are provided within both teacher and student materials and support students’ preparation for collaboration to follow. Additionally, students are taught to generate text-related open-ended questions to propel ensuing conversations and discussions. Guidance for differentiating, extending, and monitoring student learning is provided to the teacher in the Teacher Wrap section provided with each activity.

The Grade 9 peer and group discussions scaffold in difficulty throughout the course of the year beginning with the establishment of rules for collegial discussion and practice in basic interview techniques to the analysis and critique of rhetorical elements and validity of arguments within a debate. Within these conversations, students are encouraged to use text to verify and clarify ideas as well as advance differing views and support those views with sufficient evidence. Opportunities to talk and ask questions of peers and teachers about research, strategies, and ideas are present throughout the year. The curriculum includes a host of protocols and graphic organizers to promote and scaffold academic discussions.

Following are some representative examples of how Grade 9 materials support students’ listening and speaking about what they are reading, researching, and presenting with relevant follow-up questions and evidence:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.15, after a lesson on the elements of rhetoric paired with a reading of Barack Obama’s “Remarks by the President in a National Address to America’s Schoolchildren,” students work in groups to analyze the speech and determine how Obama uses parallel structure and rhetorical appeals to persuade. After answering a series of text-dependent questions, Working from the Text asks students to cite examples of pathos, ethos, and logos as used in the speech. Students then conduct a SOAPStone analysis discussing and providing evidence regarding questions related to the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone of the speech. Finally, students analyze the speech as an example of rhetoric, exploring the relationship of sender and receivers, the message or thesis of the text, the desired effect of the speech, and the logic and language of the speech. Students draw conclusions on the effectiveness of Obama’s rhetoric and, in their groups, defend their positions regarding his persuasiveness.

• In Unit 2, Activity 2.13, after reading novel excerpts from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and watching a film clip from Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, students are asked to consider how the film version is similar to and different from the novel. To answer this question, students work in groups to complete a two-column Language Style Analysis, charting relationships between literary elements and cinematic techniques. As they complete the chart, students support their decisions by citing evidence for each relationship identified. Then, students conduct a close read of the film, focusing on specific cinematic techniques, e.g., lighting, sound, angles, framing, etc. Teacher Wrap suggests a jigsaw activity. Each student in the group is responsible for monitoring a single technique and “understand Burton’s manipulation of this technique” taking notes on a Film Notes chart. Later, as students share out their observations and evidence, other group members should “add details to [their] graphic organizers.” During the film’s viewing teachers are to monitor student activity and engagement with the film as well as the note taking process to ensure everyone comes to the jigsaw discussion prepared.

• In Unit 3, Activity 3.20, after reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, students discuss the trial verdict in a Socratic Seminar led by the teacher. Prior to the discussion, students are asked to write out responses to two guiding questions: “Why is Jem so optimistic before he hears the verdict?” and “How and why is Scout’s reaction to the verdict different from Jem’s?” This is the first Socratic Seminar for ninth graders, and teachers are advised to establish seminar guidelines, e.g., discuss ideas not opinions; refer to the text continually; don’t raise hands but take turns speaking; converse with one another not with the teacher, etc. Following the seminar, students work in small groups and synthesize the discussion into a single response for each of the guiding questions. Additionally, in their groups, students discuss and generate a statement on how the trial was a coming-of-age experience for Jem.

• In Unit 3, Activity 3.7, after reading several articles on Jim Crow Laws and the Civil Rights Movement but before reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, students work in small groups to research a culminating presentation on “the historical, cultural, social, or geographical context” of the novel and “how individuals, organizations, and events contributed to change in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement.” Working first as a whole class, students draw on learning from previous texts to brainstorm names of people, organizations, and events relative to the period. Next, students form small groups or pairs and within those groups, independently research a webpage related to the Civil Rights Movement to build further background knowledge. While researching, students complete a cause and effect organizer to share with their groups. As students share their findings, other group members take notes, compiling findings to use in determining a single subject for further research. In the final stages of this collaborative multi-day activity, students generate research questions, use those questions to guide investigation of the topic under study, and plan and rehearse the oral multi-media presentation.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 meet the indicators for 1k. Materials include a mix of on-demand and process writing (e.g., multiple drafts and revisions over time) and short, focused projects incorporating digital resources where appropriate.

On-demand writing tasks are present within most unit activities and focus on specific text/s and/or on a specific writing skill: e.g., quickwrites, double entry journals, reflections, note taking, and answering writing prompts. Standard features of each unit--Working from the Text, Writing to Sources, Argument Writing Prompts, Explanatory Writing Prompts, and Narrative Writing Prompts--ask students to write shorter, on-demand responses that require attention to development, textual evidence, and incorporation of writing skills studied. Additionally, the program offers opportunities for student revisions of many on-demand writing activities.

Following are some representative examples of how Grade 9 materials employ on-demand writing alongside technology, editing, and/or revision tasks over the course of the school year:

• In Unit 1, Language Checkpoint 1.5, students are instructed to “revise the underlined words as needed to correct inappropriate shifts in voice or mood” as part of the unit grammar focus on active and passive voice. In the final activity of the lesson, students are to use “what you have learned about verb usage in this lesson [and] revisit what you wrote for the writing prompt activity in Lesson 1.5….Revise any inappropriate shifts between voices and moods.”

• Unit 1, Activity 1.17, Writing to Sources: Argument asks students to show what they have learned about the structure of argument by returning to their explanation of Obama’s argument from Activity 1.15. In the process, students are to draft an analysis of Obama’s argument by revising their initial “thesis to include the techniques and rhetorical appeals Obama used to reach his audience,” focus their analysis, add direct quotations, and correct shifts in voice, pronouns, and verb tense.

• In Unit 2, Activity 2.4, students complete an on-demand literary analysis of Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice.” Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text instructs students to “[e]xplain how the author uses imagery and symbolism to convey purpose and meaning in his writing. Use the interpretative statement you wrote [in Check Your Understanding] as a starting point. Be sure to: Begin with a clear thesis that states your position; include direct quotations from the text to support your claims. Introduce and punctuate all quotations correctly; include transitions between points and a statement that provides a conclusion.”

• In Unit 5, Activity 5.2, students work on a group project researching Shakespeare’s life, work, (e.g., plays, poems, publications), and theatre. The short, focused project asks students to independently research an aspect of Shakespeare’s self or milieu by using the Folger Shakespeare Library Website. After completing the independent research work, group members reconvene with their independent findings and design a presentation using visual or audio media to present their overall findings.

Process writing is supported in each unit through two Embedded Assessments preceded by a series of instructional and practice activities with concepts ranging from ideation to grammar and syntax choices, writing structures, revision and editing. The ten Embedded Assessments offer a breadth of ELA writing purposes: Writing and Presenting an Interview Narrative; Writing an Argumentative Essay; Writing a Short Story; Writing a Style and Analysis Essay; Writing a Literary Analysis Essay; Creating a Poetry Anthology; and Writing a Synthesis Argument. Each Embedded Assessment is outlined in Planning the Unit and Unit Overview sections of the Teacher’s Edition and Teacher Wrap provides general guidance to the teacher in the areas of revision and editing. Each Embedded Assessment also includes a scoring rubric and set of questions encouraging students to consider the elements of planning, drafting, and revising throughout the writing process: e.g., “pay careful attention,” “consult a peer for revision suggestions,” “use criteria on the organization and scoring guide,” “[show] concern for and command of conventions of language,” “check for an engaging and effective title,” and/or “check specifically for grammar topics studied in this unit.”

Following are some representative examples of how Grade 9 materials employ process writing in longer written tasks featuring revision and editing over the course of the school year:

• In Unit 2, Embedded Assessment 2, after watching several Tim Burton films, students are asked to conduct a cinematic analysis of the director’s style across the body of his work. In Activity 2.10, students are introduced to the assignment: “Think about the Tim Burton films that you have viewed and analyzed. Choose three or four stylistic devices (cinematic techniques) that are common to these films….Your essay should focus on the ways in which the director uses stylistic techniques across films to achieve a desired effect.” The activity proceeds with an example of a style analysis and is followed by Activity 2.11, building student knowledge of cinematic technique. Over the course of four weeks, students use digital resources to become more familiar with the work of Tim Burton and study various cinematic techniques. Over the course of time, they compare scenes from multiple Tim Burton films and practice creating their own cinematic style within a group of peers. The ensuing lessons work students towards drafting, evaluating, revising, and editing for publication. Before tackling the final analysis across several films, students write “a well-developed paragraph analyzing Burton’s use of one specific [cinematic] technique in Edward Scissorhands.” This activity is supported by graphic organizers and charts to serve as a foundation for the final analysis, a three-day process complete with guiding process questions, reflection considerations, and a scoring rubric.

• In Unit 4, Embedded Assessment 2, students are asked to “analyze a collection of work from a poet and write a style-analysis essay.” Through the course of the unit, students examine the music and lyrics for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana and Tori Amos, a sample from Def Poetry Jam--accessible online, and other online resources to conduct research about a poet of their choice. Lessons prior to the Embedded Assessment provide support for planning and preparation of the culminating task. Activity 4.14c provides learning around the concept of poetic device and asks students to write short explanations of how specific poets use poetic device in their work. Activity 4.15 asks students to decide on a single poet for independent analysis, using a graphic organizer in deconstructing selected poems. Activity 4.16 directs students to begin a rhetorical plan for their essay, complete with thesis statement, topic sentences, possible evidence, and conclusion. The Embedded Assessment guide asks students, “How will you share your draft with your peers and revise to reflect feedback?” “How will you evaluate your draft for organization, use of transitions, and coherence?” “What edits to do you need to make to your draft...grammar, punctuation, and spelling?” The Teacher Wrap suggests students use the scoring guide in the process of their revisions and “share and respond in writing groups.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 meet the criteria for Indicator 1m. The Grade 9 materials include frequent opportunities for evidence-based writing to support analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information appropriate to the grade level.

The instructional materials for Grade 9 support the indicator’s focus on writing to sources, a key task to grow students’ literacy skills. Writing tasks build over the course of the school year, providing students with varied opportunities of growing complexity to learn, practice, and demonstrate evidenced-based writing. Students are asked to analyze texts, create claims, and include clear information and evidence from texts read within the unit as well as texts read independently. Application of these skills is evident within the on-demand writing assignments as well as in the embedded assessments within each unit.

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.5, after reading “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text asks students to explain “how the author uses diction, imagery, and other literary devices such as juxtaposition and flashback to create the narrator’s voice and present a particular point of view.” Students are reminded to “begin with a clear thesis that states your opinion; include multiple direct quotations from the text to support your claims. Introduce and punctuate all quotations correctly; include transitions between points and a statement that provides a conclusion.”

• In Unit 2, Activity 2.21, after viewing three films by Tim Burton: Big Fish (2004), Corpse Bride (2005), and Alice in Wonderland (2010), Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text asks students to write “a brief explanatory essay comparing and contrasting the style and themes of the Tim Burton films you have watched. Use your notes to help you. What similarities in style and/or theme do you notice? What difference between style and/or theme are there between the films? Be sure to: Include specific details and evidence from the films to support your claims; use a coherent organizational structure and employ transitions effectively to highlight similarities and differences; use an appropriate voice and a variety of phrases to add interest to your writing; provide a concluding statement that supports your claim.”

• Unit 3, Embedded Assessment 2 asks students to write a literary analysis “of a key coming-of-age scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. After annotating the text to analyze Harper Lee’s use of literary elements in your selected passage, write an essay explaining how the literary elements in this passage help develop a theme of the novel.” The Assessment Scoring Guide indicates an exemplary response “includes a well-chosen passage that reveals the complex relationship between the literary elements and the major ideas and concepts of the entire work; provides supporting details to enhance understanding of the writer’s position; and relates commentary directly to the thesis.” In preparation for the assessment, Activity 3.22 asks students to perform a close reading activity in which they “write the inference you are making from the topic of the commentary, and then provide the textual evidence to support that inference.”

• In Unit 4, Activity 4.14, after reading two poems by Leslie Marmon Silko, students prepare for Embedded Assessment 2 by writing an analytic analysis of the author’s style. The Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text activity asks students to identify “the key ideas and tone. Include an explanation of all the poetic elements...include the title and author of your poem; include multiple direct quotations from the poem to exemplify your analysis. Introduce and punctuate all quotations correctly; use an appropriate voice and a variety of sentence structures.”

• In Unit 5, Activity 5.8, after watching two film versions of the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene and reading the script from the West Side Story balcony scene, Writing to Sources: Explanatory Text asks students to write “a review stating a preference for one” of the scenes. In the review, students are to compare and contrast how “set design, blocking, and/or theatrical elements contribute to an emotional impact.” Students are reminded to clearly state their preference in the topic sentence and include details from all three scenes in the development of their review. Although identified as an explanatory prompt, the genre of review and concept of preference tend toward argument, regardless, the criteria of Indicator l are met; students are using evidence-based writing to support a careful analysis appropriate to Grade 9.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 9 meet the criteria for Indicator 1n. The instructional materials include instruction of grammar and conventions/language standards for Grade 9 and are applied in increasingly sophisticated contexts with opportunities for application context.

Direct instruction and practice with grammar and conventions/language standards are explicitly delineated and also embedded within the activities of unit lessons. Each of the five Grade 9 units is introduced with Planning the Unit, a Teacher Resource page explaining the unit purpose, followed by the Instructional Activities and Pacing chart listing instructional activities including grammar and language skills as they are taught and applied in the text selections and writing activities. An additional chart, Unit Resources at a Glance, provides a categorical list of unit features: Language Skills comprised of Language and Writer’s Craft featured on activity pages; Grammar and Usage, identified on activity pages through a sidebar; Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities, available through Teacher Resources; and English Language Development. Beneath each of these categories are specifically listed conventions and applications of grammatical structures taught and practiced throughout the unit. The unit’s activities, Word Connections, Academic and Social Language Preview, and some Check Your Understanding activities, address specific language concepts (L.9-10.4-6) and provide opportunities for student practice.

For example, in Unit 1, the Instructional Activities and Pacing Guide indicates that Activities 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 offer instruction and practice with language goals. The Unit 1 Resources at a Glance lists verb mood and parallel structure as studies in Language and Writer’s Craft and lists dashes, compound sentences, correlative conjunctions, and subjunctive voice among the Grammar and Usage conventions to be studied. Activities 1.2 and 1.3 engage students in their knowledge of diction, syntax, imagery to analyze how “elements of language create a distinct voice” and tone. Activity 1.3 also presents a Grammar and Usage sidebar on dashes, defining the term, pointing out its use in the text under study, and suggesting students discuss the effect of the dash, a convention first cited for instruction in L.6.2a and urged by the standards for “continued attention in higher grades as they are applied to increasingly sophisticated writing and speaking” (CCSS, p.30). Thereafter, students are asked to find other instances of the convention and consider its effect on voice and tone. These lessons are followed by Activity 1.4, a lesson in parallel structure (L.9-10.1a & 1b) further developed by a Grammar and Usage sidebar providing instruction and practice in the use of correlative conjunctions as they function in parallel structure (L.9-10.2a). Later in the unit, Activity 15 asks students to analyze how the use of parallel structure in a speech, “Remarks by the President in a National Address to Schoolchildren” by President Obama, enhances the persuasive nature of his words. This activity asks students to demonstrate their proficiency at higher level of sophistication as they explain “how language functions in different contexts” (L.9-10.3).

Word Connections, a sidebar featured throughout many unit activities, supports L.9-10.4-6, language standards related to Vocabulary Acquisition and Use. For example, in Unit 4, Activity 2, a callout box defines the word “abyss” and analyzes the word alongside two other words used in the text, “infinitesimal” and “void,” explaining how the three words work together to enhance the author’s meaning. An additional sidebar, Literary Terminology, defines domain specific words. Unit 4, Activity 2, Literary Terminology highlights “anaphora” alongside the technical words, “repetition” and “stanza.” Later, in the same activity, another Word Connections callout defines the word “homonym” and points out homonyms found in the text under study. Word Connections and Literary Terminology support students as they grow in skill to determine word meaning and as they “acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases” (CCSS, p. 53).

Additionally, found in all Grade 9 units are lessons titled Academic and Social Language Preview, which typically precede lessons titled Interpreting the Text Using Close Reading. Unit 1 offers three such lessons. Academic and Social Language Preview offers an opportunity for students to determine word meaning through a context sentence prior to reading an entire text and then check their definitions against a formal source (L.9-10.4a & 4d). The lesson is followed by the close reading and study of the associated mentor text. Found in most Grade 9 units is an optional Language Checkpoint class period activity. The Grade 9 checkpoints included in Units 1-3 are lessons in verb voice and mood, using punctuation within sentences, and pronoun antecedent agreement.

Among the resource materials found under the Teacher Resource tab on the SpringBoard landing page are Grammar Activities aligned to specific grades, units, and activities (currently bearing the 2014 copyright date) as well as a Grammar Handbook for grades 9-12 (2014 copyright). Writing Workshops (copyright 2014), accessed through the Teacher Resources tab, also include instruction and practice with Language and Writer’s Craft through mentor texts. For example, Writing Workshop 6: Research Writing, Language and Writer’s Craft Practice provides instruction on citing sources (L.9-10.3a), then asks students to use the Works Cited at the end of a provided article to “rewrite the sentences that use outside sources. Instead of parenthetical citations, directly state who the source authors are, and emphasize their expertise using the information provided.”