Year 9 English Syllabus
Year 9
Year level description
In the middle adolescence phase of schooling, teaching and learning programs encourage students to develop an open and questioning view of themselves as active participants in their society and the world.
English provides opportunities for students to understand that particular ways of working and thinking have developed over time but still may be subject to debate, revision and change. Students develop a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the contexts of their lives and the world in which they live.
In Year 9, students use spoken, written or visual communication to interact with others and experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, including local or global community and vocational contexts. Teaching and learning programs should encourage students to develop an open and questioning view. Learning experiences should enable students to draw on increasingly diverse sources of information that facilitate comparing, contrasting, synthesising, questioning and critiquing information.
Critical literacy is integral to the English curriculum. It is developed when students actively question, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the texts they engage with. In Year 9, students learn how authors and creators adapt and experiment with text structures and language features. They learn how texts represent people and places and how techniques contribute to style, mood and tone.
Students engage with a range of texts for learning and enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, analyse, interpret, evaluate, create and perform a wide range of spoken, written and multimodal texts. These texts may include various types of media texts (including screen, online and digital texts), narratives (including novels), non-fiction, poetry and plays. Themes and issues may involve levels of abstraction, higher order reasoning and intertextual references. Students are beginning to develop a critical understanding of how texts, language, and visual and audio features relate to context, purpose and audience. They understand how the features of texts may be used as models for creating their own work. The range of texts includes:
- literary texts that may be drawn from a range of genres, may involve complex, challenging plot sequences and/or hybrid structures that may serve multiple purposes, and may explore themes of human experience and cultural significance, interpersonal relationships, and/or ethical and global dilemmas in real-world and fictional settings. These texts may represent a variety of perspectives
- informative, analytical and persuasive texts that may represent a synthesis of technical and abstract information (from credible or verifiable sources) about a wide range of specialised topics and concepts
- texts with a variety of language features that may include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, a high proportion of unfamiliar and technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and/or dense information supported by various types of images and graphics.
Students create a range of texts whose purposes may be aesthetic, imaginative, reflective, informative, persuasive, analytical and/or critical. These texts may include narratives, dramatic performances and scripts, reports, responses (including reviews and personal reflections), arguments, literary analyses, discussions, visual texts, oral and audio texts, poetry, and types of media (including screen, online and digital texts) for a range of audiences.
Year 9
Achievement standard
By the end of the year:
Speaking and Listening
Students interact with others, and listen to and create spoken and multimodal texts, including literary texts. With a range of purposes and for audiences, they discuss and expand on ideas, shaping meaning and providing substantiation. They select and experiment with text structures to organise and develop ideas. They select and experiment with language features, literary devices, multimodal features and features of voice.
Reading and Viewing
Students read, view and comprehend a range of texts created to inform, influence and/or engage audiences. They analyse and interpret representations of people, places, events and concepts, and how texts reflect contexts. They analyse and interpret the aesthetic qualities of texts and the effects of text structures, language features, literary devices, intertextual references and multimodal features. They incorporate supporting evidence from texts to provide substantiation.
Writing and Creating
Students create written and multimodal texts, including literary texts, for a range of purposes and audiences, expressing and expanding ideas, shaping meaning and providing substantiation. They select and experiment with text structures to organise, develop and link ideas. They select and experiment with language features and literary devices, and experiment with multimodal features.
Year 9
Content descriptions
Language for interacting with others
Recognise how language empowers relationships and roles
WA9ELAI1
For example:
- identifying the various communities to which students belong and exploring how language reinforces membership of these communities, such as the slang of teenage groups
Understand how evaluation can be expressed directly and indirectly using devices, such as allusion, evocative vocabulary and metaphor
WA9ELAI2
For example:
- exploring how advertisements use figurative language and evocative vocabulary to indirectly influence readers and viewers to evaluate a product or service
- discussing the direct use of evaluative language in a range of product reviews
Text structure, organisation and features
Examine how authors and creators adapt text structures and language features by experimenting with spoken, written, visual and multimodal elements and their combination
WA9ELAT1
For example:
- comparing the use and effects of linear and non-linear narrative structures in short stories
- exploring how interactive graphic novels combine words, illustrations, animations and audio to create an interactive experience
Investigate a range of cohesive devices that condense information in texts, including nominalisation, and devices that link, expand and develop ideas, including text connectives
WA9ELAT2
For example:
- sequencing and developing an argument using language, such as initially, moreover and consequently
Language for expressing and developing ideas
Identify how authors vary sentence structures creatively for effects, such as intentionally using a dependent clause on its own or a sentence fragment
WA9ELALA1
For example:
- exploring the effects of using an interrupting clause, such as His friend, who had left home the previous year, suddenly returned.
- using a dependent clause on its own intentionally, such as If you see what I mean.
- using a sentence fragment, such as Breathtaking!
Understand how abstract nouns and nominalisation can be used to summarise ideas in texts
WA9ELALA2
For example:
- exploring sections of academic and technical texts, and analysing the use of abstract nouns, such as the previous argument and the prologue to summarise and distil information and preceding explanations, and structure the argument
- comparing the effect of different types of analytical paragraphs, including those that use nominalisation and those that do not
Analyse how symbols in visual and multimodal texts augment meaning
WA9ELALA3
For example:
- investigating the symbolism of specific seasons, weather and colours in a film, and their contribution to viewers’ understandings
- exploring how symbols have different meanings for different groups and cultures
Analyse how vocabulary choices contribute to style, mood and tone
WA9ELALA4
For example:
- identifying vocabulary choices that create mood in a text
- altering the tone of a narrative by changing the vocabulary in dialogue tags, such as ‘Sit down,’ she whispered. ‘Sit down!’ she screamed. ‘Sit down?’ she argued.
Understand and use punctuation conventions for referencing and citing others for formal and informal purposes
WA9ELALA5
For example:
- producing accurate references in formal writing and identifying when it is appropriate to use direct quotations or to report sources more generally
- including a reference list at the end of a slideshow in a multimodal presentation
Word knowledge
Use word knowledge to maintain conventional spelling, and recognise that spelling can be varied for particular effects
WA9ELAW1
For example:
- exploring the spelling of neologisms and their effects in media texts, such as selfie and Paralympics
- analysing how spelling is used to represent the distinctive speech of a character by noting where authors have dropped letters from words to emulate the sound of spoken words
Literature and contexts
Analyse the representations of people and places in literary texts drawn from historical, social and cultural contexts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, wide-ranging Australian and world authors and creators
WA9ELICO1
For example:
- exploring and comparing representations of values of characters, such as exploring the values associated with family in short stories drawn from different cultures and times
- examining how picture books and graphic novels by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and creators represent places in particular ways
Engaging with and responding to literature
Present a personal response to a literary text comparing initial impressions and subsequent analysis of the whole text
WA9ELIEN1
For example:
- recording evolving responses to a novel in a reading journal
Analyse how features of literary texts influence readers’ preference for texts
WA9ELIEN2
For example:
- devising, analysing and presenting the results of a survey that asks friends and family to vote on why readers prefer particular literary texts by considering reasons, such as characterisation, setting details, plot events, themes and figurative language
- discussing how language features are crafted for an intended audience in a range of picture books aimed at young children
Examining literature
Analyse texts and evaluate the aesthetic qualities and appeal of an author’s and creator’s literary style
WA9ELIEX1
For example:
- comparing poems created by the same author to determine literary style, assessing their appeal and presenting comparisons to other poems
- discussing similarities and differences in aesthetic qualities and appeal in two film versions of the same story by different creators
Analyse the effect of text structures, language features and literary devices, such as extended metaphor, metonymy, allegory, symbolism and intertextual references
WA9ELIEX2
For example:
- analysing how text structures, language features and literary devices are used in a play to influence the emotional response of the audience
- investigating the effect of metonymy in song lyrics and poetry
Creating literature
Create and edit literary texts, which may be hybrid, that experiment with text structures, language features and literary devices for purposes and audiences
WA9ELICR1
For example:
- taking an existing short story in print form and making a short film
- producing a hybrid literary text, that combines features of different genres, such as a coming of age/science fiction narrative
Texts in context
Analyse how representations of people, places, events and concepts relate to contexts
WA9ELYT1
For example:
- analysing the representation of a public figure in different types of news media and biographies and recognising how these vary in different contexts
- analysing the language features used to represent individuals or groups in advertisements from different time periods
Interacting with others
Listen to spoken texts that have different purposes and audiences, analysing how language features position listeners to respond in particular ways, and use interaction skills to present and discuss opinions regarding these texts
WA9ELYI1
For example:
- presenting a tutorial to the class analysing the purpose, audience and language features of a famous speech
- using effective strategies for dialogue and discussion in a range of formal and informal contexts, including speaking clearly and coherently and at appropriate length, asking questions about stated and implied ideas, and restating and summarising main ideas
Analysing, interpreting and evaluating
Analyse and evaluate how language features are used to represent a perspective of an issue, event, situation, individual or group
WA9ELYA1
For example:
- evaluating how a documentary uses language features to represent a perspective on a contentious issue
Analyse the use of text structures within paragraphs and extended texts, and evaluate their impact on ideas and meaning
WA9ELYA2
For example:
- evaluating text structures used in non-fiction texts to shape reader response, such as comparison, contrast, juxtaposition, the changing of chronological order, and the expansion and compression of time
Use comprehension strategies, such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring, questioning and inferring, to compare and contrast ideas and opinions in and between texts when listening, reading and viewing
WA9ELYA3
For example:
- comparing the representation of a news event across spoken, print and online sources, summarising their qualities, identifying opinions and analysing evidence
- connecting information explored in a speech to prior knowledge about a social issue
Creating texts
Plan, create, edit and publish written and multimodal texts, organising, expanding and developing ideas, and selecting text structures, language features, literary devices and multimodal features for purposes and audiences in ways that may be imaginative, reflective, informative, persuasive, analytical and/or critical
WA9ELYC1
Plan, create, rehearse and deliver spoken and multimodal presentations for purpose and audience, using language features, literary devices and features of voice, such as volume, tone, pitch and pace, and organising, expanding and developing ideas in ways that may be imaginative, reflective, informative, persuasive, analytical and/or critical
WA9ELYC2
Consolidate a personal handwriting style that is legible, fluent and automatic and supports writing for extended periods in relevant required contexts
WA9ELYC3
Select and experiment with features of digital tools to create texts for a range of purposes and audiences
WA9ELYC4
For example:
- creating an advertising campaign, including a print advertisement and audio/visual commercial, for a particular audience
- creating a short interactive graphic novel or picture book that incorporates words, audio and visual elements