Year 9 Reading and Writing Comprehension outline

This course further prepares students for what they will encounter in the Cambridge International Examinations system.

Students will expand their vocabulary, as well as hone their skills of inferencing and interpreting literary texts in this course. They will also learn how to compose non-fiction texts for particular purposes: persuasive, expository and different forms of recount writing.

• Module 1 introduces students to new vocabulary, reading skills, language analysis and interpretation through a range of short stories written in English.
• Module 2, continuing to use the short stories from the previous module, introduces the art of the literary essay. Students will learn how to write a range of different styles of essay, including the general and passage-based essays required by Cambridge. They will learn how to summarise information to better enable its use in an essay, the structure of an essay, how to refer to the text, how to form and build a strong thesis/argument, and how to articulate this using sophisticated language.
• Module 3 introduces creative writing. Students will be exposed to more short fiction and build skills in both descriptive and narrative writing. They will learn how to create vivid sensory imagery and describe settings in terms of light, sound and colour. They will consider the ingredients of a good story and think imaginatively about how to hook and twist their readers.
• In Module 4, students learn how to write for particular purposes. They will learn how to write persuasively and how to form robust arguments, how to construct different types of recounts of events (such as news reporting and biographical forms of writing) and various styles of articles.