English · Grade 9

English 9 SEL activities

37 ready to use activities that teach English 9 content and build one Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skill, about 20 minutes each.

Matched to textbook chapters: StudySync Grade 9, HMH Collections Grade 9.

Identity and Story

• Who Tells My Story? Self-awareness · Week 1Students choose a meaningful moment and draft the opening of a personal narrative with a clear point of view.
• Reading Characters, Reading People Social awareness · Week 2Students analyze how a complex character develops and what motivates their choices.
• What Lies Under the Surface Self-awareness · Week 3Students cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support inferences about characters' emotions.
• Slowing Down a Moment Self-awareness · Week 4Students use pacing and precise sensory details to slow down the most important moment of a narrative.
• Through Another's Eyes Social awareness · Week 5Students analyze a point of view or cultural experience reflected in literature from outside the United States.
• Words with Weight Self-awareness · Week 6Students analyze nuances in word meanings, including connotation, and use context clues to determine meaning.

Conflict and Choice

• Torn Between Two Choices Responsible decision-making · Week 7Students analyze a character's internal conflict and how it advances the plot.
• What the Story Teaches Self-awareness · Week 8Students determine a theme and analyze how it develops over the course of a text.
• Discussion Norms We Build Relationship skills · Week 9Students prepare for discussion by referring to evidence and work with peers to set rules for collegial discussion.
• Disagree Without Disrespect Relationship skills · Week 10Students propel discussions by posing questions, responding to diverse perspectives, and qualifying their views.
• Building Tension Self-management · Week 11Students analyze how an author's choices about structure and time create tension and suspense.
• Writing Through Conflict Relationship skills · Week 12Students write a short narrative scene with a conflict, dialogue, and a reflective resolution.

Argument and Evidence

• Claim, Evidence, Reasoning Responsible decision-making · Week 13Students introduce a precise claim and support it with relevant evidence and reasoning.
• Harder Than It Looks: When Evidence Talks Back Self-awareness · Week 13Students make a claim about themselves, test it with a simple hold or a quick word recall task, revise the claim when the evidence disagrees, and then make the same move with a character in the current text.
• Does the Evidence Hold Up? Responsible decision-making · Week 14Students delineate and evaluate an argument, assessing whether reasoning is valid and evidence is sufficient.
• The Other Side Social awareness · Week 15Students develop claims and counterclaims fairly, pointing out strengths and limitations of both.
• How Words Move Us Responsible decision-making · Week 16Students determine an author's purpose and analyze how rhetoric advances it.
• Sources We Can Trust Responsible decision-making · Week 17Students assess the usefulness and credibility of sources and cite them correctly.
• Midyear Letter to Myself Self-awareness · Week 18Students write a reflective letter with clear purpose, organization, and style for an audience of their future self.
• Speaking Up Self-management · Week 19Students present a claim and evidence clearly, with a logical line of reasoning and appropriate eye contact and volume.
• Listening to Speeches Social awareness · Week 20Students evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

Voices and Justice

• Rights and Responsibilities Social awareness · Week 21Students analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance and how they address related themes.
• Whose Voice Is Missing? Social awareness · Week 22Students analyze whose perspective a text includes and whose is missing, and how that shapes meaning.
• Questions That Matter Social awareness · Week 23Students develop a focused research question and plan a short research project.
• Credit Where It Is Due Responsible decision-making · Week 24Students integrate information into their writing selectively, using quotation and paraphrase, and avoid plagiarism.
• Explaining an Issue Clearly Relationship skills · Week 25Students write an informative paragraph that introduces a topic, develops it with relevant facts, and uses precise language.
• One Event, Many Accounts Responsible decision-making · Week 26Students analyze accounts of the same subject told in different mediums and determine which details are emphasized.
• Words That Hurt, Words That Heal Relationship skills · Week 27Students interpret figures of speech and analyze their effect, and make effective language choices for meaning and style.

Poetry, Drama, and Resilience

• Poetry of Feeling Self-awareness · Week 28Students analyze the cumulative impact of word choices on a poem's meaning and tone.
• A Poem of Resilience Self-management · Week 29Students write a short poem using precise words, imagery, and a shift.
• Impulsive Choices on Stage Responsible decision-making · Week 30Students analyze how a character's impulsive decisions drive the plot and create dramatic irony.
• Same Story, New Medium Social awareness · Week 31Students analyze how a scene is represented in two different mediums and what each emphasizes or leaves out.
• Stories Built on Stories Self-awareness · Week 32Students analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material from an earlier work.
• Grief, Hope, and Literature Social awareness · Week 33Students analyze how a theme about loss and hope develops and is refined by specific details.

Becoming

• Revision Is Growth Self-management · Week 34Students strengthen writing through revising and editing, focusing on purpose and audience.
• My Reader Portfolio Self-awareness · Week 35Students reflect on the texts they read and the writing they produced, citing evidence of growth.
• A Speech of Gratitude Relationship skills · Week 36Students deliver a short formal speech adapted to an audience and purpose.

RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.