Departmental Objective: The 9th grade year will
focus on fostering inquiry and helping students develop strong
questioning skills and annotating skills when reading and responding
to texts.
The ninth grade curriculum is based on the following beliefs:
Enduring Understandings
o Literature reflects the
history of a people and enriches its culture.
o Particular conventions
and characteristics define literary genres.
o Effective readers, writers,
and speakers engage actively with text to create meaning.
o Effective readers, writers,
and speakers master the subtleties of text and language.
Essential Questions
o How do authors reflect
the dynamics of a society?
o How do the characteristics
of a genre affect the expression of ideas?
o How does the subtext deepen
understanding of a text?
o How do culture, gender,
and social factors affect communication?
Middle Years Program (MYP)
The Middle Years Program follows the MCPS curriculum, placing
emphasis on developing students as critical thinkers who come
to see knowledge as an interrelated whole and who have an appreciation
and understanding of internationalism. Students in the MYP are
encouraged to explore relationships between subjects and to connect
what happens in the classroom with realities in the world. The
program’s “areas of interaction” provide the
focus for developing such links between disciplines so that students
see knowledge as a unified whole. In alternate years, sample 9th
grade student assignments are sent to the International Baccalaureate
Organization (IBO) for review and feedback.
Texts
Of
Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To
Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Romeo
and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A
Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Selected
poetry and short stories
Additional
novels may be chosen by individual teachers
Class Assignment Policy
o
All assignments are expected on time. Students who are experiencing
difficulty
with meeting deadlines should communicate with the teacher.
o
Assignments will be checked and graded for mastery.
Grading
A student’s grade for each quarter will be determined based
upon the total number of points earned for all assignments divided
by the total number of available points. Grades will be weighted
approximately as follows:
o
90% Classwork, including written assignments,
journal entries,
quizzes,
tests, projects, and presentations.
o
10% Homework
Late Penalty
One letter grade will be deducted for an assignment that is passed
in after the due date and by the deadline. An assignment may be
passed in after the deadline with teacher approval and only for
50% of the available points.
Reteaching and Reassessment Policy
Students will be allowed to be reassessed on a minimum of one
assignment as determined by the 9th grade teacher. Students will
be informed ahead of time when an assignment may be reassessed.
However, an assignment not turned in by its deadline will not
be eligible for reassessment. Finally, students must show evidence
as determined by the teacher that they have made an attempt to
relearn the material before taking the reassessment. Examples
of that evidence include, but are not limited to, the following:
o
Meeting with the teacher for extra help
o
Attending TAP
o
Completing practice assignments
o
Making corrections on the original assignment/assessment
Academic Dishonesty
This applies to both written work and oral presentations. Examples
of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to, the following:
the willful giving or receiving of an unauthorized text, unfair,
dishonest, or unscrupulous advantage in academic work over other
students using fraud, duress, deception, theft, trickery, talking,
signs, gestures, copying, or any other methodology.
Plagiarism:
o
Submitting or presenting another person’s work as
one’s own without proper
documentation,
including downloaded information from the Internet.
o
Using another student’s material without proper approval.
Cheating:
o
Giving or receiving information during a test, quiz, and/or
classwork
assignment
without teacher authorization.
o
Using hand signals, gestures, and the like during tests
or quizzes to
obtain/give
information.
o
Using unauthorized materials during a test or quiz.
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