Ninth grade language arts

Here is a list of language arts skills students learn in ninth grade! These skills are organized into categories, and you can move your mouse over any skill name to preview the skill. To start practicing, just click on any link. IXL will track your score, and the questions will automatically increase in difficulty as you improve!

Here is a list of language arts skills students learn in ninth grade! To start practicing, just click on any link.

Reading strategies Reading

Writing strategies Writing

Vocabulary Vocab

Grammar and mechanics Grammar

Reading strategies

A. Main idea

1
Determine the main idea

B. Audience, purpose, and tone

1
Which text is most formal?

2
Identify audience and purpose

3
Compare passages for subjective and objective tone

4
Compare passages for tone

C. Literary devices

1
Identify the narrative point of view

2
Interpret the meaning of allusions

3
Identify the source of allusions

4
Interpret figures of speech

5
Classify figures of speech: euphemism, hyperbole, oxymoron, paradox

6
Classify figures of speech: review

D. Analyzing literature

1
Match the quotations with their themes

2
Analyze short stories: set 1

3
Analyze short stories: set 2

4
Identify elements of poetry

E. Analyzing informational texts

1
Analyze the development of informational passages: set 1

2
Analyze the development of informational passages: set 2

3
Trace an argument: set 1

4
Trace an argument: set 2

5
Analyze rhetorical strategies in historical texts: set 1

6
Analyze rhetorical strategies in historical texts: set 2

Writing strategies

F. Organizing writing

1
Order topics from broadest to narrowest

2
Organize information by main idea

G. Topic sentences and thesis statements

1
Choose the topic sentence that best captures the main idea

2
Identify thesis statements

H. Developing and supporting arguments

1
Distinguish facts from opinions

2
Choose evidence to support a claim

3
Identify supporting evidence in a text

4
Evaluate counterclaims

5
Choose the analysis that logically connects the evidence to the claim

6
Transition logically between claims, evidence, analysis, and counterclaims

7
Classify logical fallacies

I. Persuasive strategies

1
Identify appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in advertisements

2
Use appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in persuasive writing

J. Creative techniques

1
Use personification

K. Writing clearly and concisely

1
Transitions with conjunctive adverbs

2
Avoid double, illogical, and unclear comparisons

3
Identify sentences with parallel structure

4
Use parallel structure

5
Remove redundant words or phrases

L. Active and passive voice

1
Identify active and passive voice

2
Rewrite the sentence in active voice

M. Editing and revising

1
Use the correct frequently confused word

2
Identify and correct errors with frequently confused words

3
Identify and correct errors with frequently confused pronouns and contractions

4
Correct errors with commonly misspelled words

5
Correct errors with signs

6
Correct errors in everyday use

7
Suggest appropriate revisions

N. Citations

1
Recognize the parts of a Works Cited entry (MLA 7th edition)

2
Understand a Works Cited entry (MLA 7th edition)

3
Recognize the parts of a Works Cited entry (MLA 8th edition)

4
Use in-text citations (MLA 7th–8th editions)

5
Identify plagiarism

Vocabulary

O. Prefixes and suffixes

1
Word pattern analogies

2
Word pattern sentences

3
Words with pre-

4
Words with re-

5
Words with sub-

6
Words with mis-

7
Words with un-, dis-, in-, im-, and non-

8
Words with -ful

9
Words with -less

10
Words with -able and -ible

P. Greek and Latin roots

1
Sort words by shared Greek or Latin roots

2
Use Greek and Latin roots as clues to the meanings of words

3
Use words as clues to the meanings of Greek and Latin roots

4
Determine the meanings of Greek and Latin roots

5
Determine the meanings of words with Greek and Latin roots

Q. Homophones

1
Use the correct homophone

2
Identify and correct errors with homophones

R. Foreign words and expressions

1
Use etymologies to determine the meanings of words

2
Use context as a clue to the meanings of foreign expressions

3
Use the correct foreign expression

S. Word usage and nuance

1
Choose the word whose connotation and denotation best match the sentence

2
Use words accurately and precisely

3
Replace words using a thesaurus

4
Explore words with new or contested usages

T. Analogies

1
Analogies

2
Analogies: challenge

U. Context clues

1
Determine the meaning of words using synonyms in context

2
Determine the meaning of words using antonyms in context

3
Use context to identify the meaning of a word

V. Reference skills

1
Use dictionary entries

2
Use dictionary definitions

3
Use dictionary entries to determine correct usage

4
Use thesaurus entries

Grammar and mechanics

W. Sentences, fragments, and run-ons

1
Is the sentence declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory?

2
Identify sentence fragments

3
Identify run-on sentences

4
Choose punctuation to avoid fragments and run-ons

X. Phrases and clauses

1
Is it a phrase or a clause?

2
Identify prepositional phrases

3
Identify appositives and appositive phrases

4
Identify dependent and independent clauses

5
Is the sentence simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex?

6
Combine sentences using relative clauses

Y. Nouns

1
Form and use plurals: review

2
Form and use plurals of compound nouns

Z. Pronouns

1
Identify and correct errors with subject and object pronouns

2
Subject and object pronouns review

3
Pronouns after "than" and "as"

4
Identify and correct pronoun errors with "who"

5
Use relative pronouns: who and whom

6
Use relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, and that

7
Identify vague pronoun references

8
Identify all of the possible antecedents

9
Correct inappropriate shifts in pronoun number and person

AA. Verb types

1
Identify transitive and intransitive verbs

2
Identify linking verbs, predicate adjectives, and predicate nouns

3
Identify participles and what they modify

4
Identify gerunds and their functions

5
Identify infinitives and infinitive phrases

BB. Subject-verb agreement

1
Identify and correct errors with subject-verb agreement

2
Identify and correct errors with indefinite pronoun-verb agreement

3
Identify and correct verb agreement with compound subjects

CC. Verb tense

1
Form the progressive verb tenses

2
Form the perfect verb tenses

3
Identify and correct inappropriate shifts in verb tense

DD. Adjectives and adverbs

1
Choose between adjectives and adverbs

2
Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives

3
Good, better, best, bad, worse, and worst

4
Form and use comparative and superlative adverbs

5
Well, better, best, badly, worse, and worst

EE. Conjunctions

1
Use the correct pair of correlative conjunctions

FF. Misplaced modifiers

1
Misplaced modifiers with pictures

2
Select the misplaced or dangling modifier

3
Are the modifiers used correctly?

GG. Restrictive and nonrestrictive elements

1
What does the punctuation suggest?

2
Commas with nonrestrictive elements

HH. Commas

1
Commas with direct addresses, introductory words, interjections, interrupters, and antithetical phrases

2
Commas with series, dates, and places

3
Commas with compound and complex sentences

4
Commas with coordinate adjectives

5
Commas: review

II. Semicolons, colons, and commas

1
Use semicolons and commas to separate clauses

2
Use semicolons, colons, and commas with lists

3
Semicolons, colons, and commas review

JJ. Dashes, hyphens, and ellipses

1
Use dashes

2
Use hyphens in compound adjectives

3
Decide whether ellipses are used appropriately

KK. Apostrophes

1
Identify and correct errors with plural and possessive nouns

2
Identify and correct errors with compound and joint possession

LL. Capitalization

1
Correct capitalization errors

MM. Formatting

1
Formatting quotations and dialogue

2
Capitalizing titles

3
Formatting titles

4
Formatting and capitalizing titles: review