Ninth Grade Literature/Composition, Honors Literature/Composition
Integrates writing, grammar and usage, literature, speaking, listening, and critical thinking skills. Presents the writing process: planning, drafting, revising, editing, and proofing; the study of form in personal narratives, descriptions, and expository papers with emphasis on persuasive writing. Includes reading a variety of multicultural literature: short stories, novels, tales, poetry, mythology, drama, and nonfiction. Emphasizes oral and written response to literature, distinguishing characteristics of various genres, literary elements, and vocabulary study. Prior approval required for honors courses.
Civics/Citizenship Education, Honors Civics/Citizenship
Focuses on basic concepts and principles of the American political system. Covers the structure and function of the American system of government, the roles and responsibilities of citizens to participate in the political process, and the relationship of the individual to the law and legal system. Stresses critical analysis of public issues. Integrates and reinforces social studies skills. This course is designed to be completed in one quarter or one semester. This course meets the state's Citizenship requirement for graduation. Prior approval required for honors courses.
Health
Explores the mental, physical, and social aspects of life and how each contributes to total health and well-being; emphasizes safety, nutrition, mental health, substance abuse prevention, disease prevention, environmental health, family life education, health careers, consumer health, and community health. Students will take their health class half of the year and civics/citizenship the other half.
Biology
The biology curriculum is designed to continue student investigations of the life sciences that began in grades K‐8 and provide students the necessary skills to be proficient in biology. This curriculum includes more abstract concepts such as the interdependence of organisms, the relationship of matter, energy, and organization in living systems, the behavior of organisms, and biological evolution. Students will investigate biological concepts through experience in laboratories and field work using the processes of inquiry.
Honors Biology
Introduces science process skills and laboratory safety, research, nature of biology, cellular biology, biochemistry, genetics, evolution, classification, diversity of life, human body, and ecology. Prior approval required for honors courses.
Ecology
Ecology is devoted to the study of the interactions among living things and their interactions with the nonliving parts of the environment. All parts of the Earth are interdependent upon each other. To study this, students in ecology will collect information about organisms and their environment, look for ways to explain the patterns that they measure, and develop plans to protect Earth's resources. Along the way, students develop critical thinking and science literacy skills as they address the performance standards set by the State Department of Education.
Geometry: Concepts and Connections
Geometry: Concepts and Connections is the second course in a sequence of three high school courses designed to ensure career and college readiness. This course is intended to enhance students’ geometric, algebraic, graphical, and probabilistic reasoning skills. Students will apply their algebraic and geometric reasoning skills to make sense of problems involving geometry, trigonometry, algebra, probability, and statistics. Students will continue to enhance their analytical geometry and reasoning skills when analyzing and applying a deep understanding of polynomial expressions, proofs, constructions, rigid motions and transformations, similarity, congruence, circles, right triangle trigonometry, geometric measurement, and conditional probability. High school course content standards are listed by big ideas including Data and Statistical Reasoning, Probabilistic Reasoning, Functional and Graphical Reasoning, Patterning and Algebraic Reasoning, and Geometric and Spatial Reasoning.
Algebra: Concepts and Connections
The fundamental purpose of Algebra: Concepts and Connections is to formalize and extend the mathematics that students learned in the middle grades. The critical areas, organized into units, deepen and extend understanding of linear relationships, in part by contrasting them with exponential phenomena, and in part by applying linear models to data that exhibit a linear trend. Algebra: Concepts and Connections uses algebra to deepen and extend understanding of geometric knowledge from prior grades. The final unit in the course ties together the algebraic and geometric ideas studied. The Mathematical Practice Standards apply throughout each course and, together with the content standards, prescribe that students experience mathematics as a coherent, useful, and logical subject that makes use of their ability to make sense of problem situation.