Welcome to English 9 with Mr. Kertes. In this course you will explore the themes of “power of love” and “eye for an eye – transformative justice”. You will learn about reading fluency, writing to learn, scholarship and theory, reading and writing as a system, the future of writing, literature as expression (art), and the MLA format.
This course teaches you how to use writing as a tool for learning. You will apply writing as tool for learning in all your courses throughout high school. Advanced students will also learn how to reading and write at the “pre-university” level.
Course Goals
- Improve your reading fluency and apply “features of text” to speed up your reading and improve your comprehension.
- Learn the Five Foundations of Writing-to-Learn.
- Learn how skim, take notes, pre-read, summarize, and re-read. (Learn how to read with rigour.)
- Learn how to write an expository essay.
- Learn how to write a textual analysis essay.
- Learn about scholarship, systems thinking, theories, and rigorous analysis.
- Learn about the future of writing, how to use AI as a tool for thinking, and how to give a presentation.
- Learn pre-university reading and pre-university writing strategies.
- Learn about the history of English literature and connect this to First Nations literature.
- Learn how to use the Levels of Analysis, including synthesis, and learn how to apply advanced reading and writing strategies to all subjects.
Course Concepts
Learn the Difference Between the Reading Levels
- Middle school reading is learning how improve your fluency, identifying the main points, writing essays that focus on a topic, organizing your essay using paragraphs and main sections, taking notes, recalling and applying what you read, and improving your decoding (phonics) skills.
- High school reading is reading-to-learn across all subjects (Socials, Science, Math, Language Arts, etc.), organizing your notes using a variety of formats, using features of text to help you skip and skim, learning study skills (including summation and self-assessment), comprehending (understanding) the main points and key details, improving your vocabulary, and researching using books, articles, essays, and other texts.
- Pre-university reading is reading “between the lines” to understand point of view and to read using systems thinking and constructive thinking, approaching reading as a systematic and rigorous process, using theories and systems to understand and apply what you are reading, going beyond notes to include summarizing, modelling, and other strategies for remembering key concepts (that you understand and can explain), and reading at the level required to learn new things through reading.
Reading Levels in This Course
| Middle School Level | High School Level | Pre-University Level |
| Emerging or Developing Initial or Partial Understanding | Proficient Complete Understanding | Extending Sophisticated Understanding |
| Passing Quality (in grade 9) | Passing Quality Satisfactory Quality Good Quality Very Good Quality | Very Good Quality Excellent Quality Outstanding Quality |
Learn How to “Write-to-Learn”
- Writing-to-learn is one of the main goals of English 9. This is because you will be expected to write-in-learn throughout high school (at both high school level and the pre-university levels). You will use writing-to-learn strategies in all your courses, especially for advanced courses in Socials, Math, and Science.
- You will learn the Five Foundations for Writing-to-Learn at CHSS. These are listed below.
- In English class, writing-to-learn focuses on formal writing using the English language. In other classes you may use other languages. These other languages may include French, Sm’algya̲x, and Mathematical notation (yes, Math has its own language). The skills and strategies you learn in English will transfer to these other courses. Formal written English learning can also transfer to courses that focus on oral traditions and new media studies (such as English First Peoples 10 – New Media and English First Peoples 11 – Spoken Language).
Five Foundations for Writing-to-Learn at CHSS
| Foundation I | Foundation II | Foundation III | Foundation IV | Foundation V |
| Focusing | Researching | Organizing | Revising | Presenting |
To achieve a Grade of Proficient or higher, you must know the Five Foundations from memory and be able to describe and explain how to apply all of the tools for each of the Five Foundations.
Writing-to-Learn Tools
| Focusing Tools | Researching Tools | Organizing Tools | Revising Tools | Presenting Tools |
| Levels of Analysis Theory Focusing Question Focusing Answer Thesis Statement Main Ideas | Systems Thinking Source Checking Features of Text Skip and Skim Notetaking Summarizing | Outline Five Fs Sections Headings Paragraphs Topic Sentences | Rough Draft Second Draft Rubric Self-Assessment Cohesion Integration | Editing Publishing MLA Format Public Speaking |
Learn How to Be a Scholar
- Scholars produce knowledge through systematic and rigorous research. Scholars use theories to understand and explain reality.
- Writing is thinking made visible. The writing process helps you learn how to be a constructive thinker. You will use theory in your writing to learn how to be a constructive thinker.
- The purpose of essay assignments in high school is to teach pre-university reading. This means that you learn how to read at the pre-university level by writing essays (by applying the writing process). Essays are the best way to teach reading at the pre-university level.
- Pre-university reading is reading to learn new things and to understand reality. Pre-university reading goes beyond “de-coding texts” (also known as “phonics” or “sounding things out”).
- Pre-university reading requires “reading between the lines” and digging deeply into source materials (books, articles, essays, films, etc.) in order to understand meaning.
- Meaning is constructed by the reader and requires knowing how how make sense of what you are reading. Narratives help shape who we are by helping people construct meaning in order to understand reality.
Learn Systems Thinking
- Systems are a bunch of parts that work together and do more together than they do on their own.
- Scholarship requires application of systems thinking.