North Carolina Standards
North Carolina Grades 9–10 ELA Standards
All 36 North Carolina English language arts standards for grades 9–10, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's document, linked at the end of this page.
36 standards
Reading Literature
9 standardsRL.9-10.1
Support a reading of a novel, play or poem with strong, thorough quotations, covering both what it states outright and what you infer from it.
RL.9-10.2
Pick out a theme, follow in detail how it surfaces and takes shape through particular details across the text, and summarize the text without bias.
RL.9-10.3
Analyze how complex characters, like those with conflicting motives, change across a text, deal with other characters, and move the plot or build the theme.
RL.9-10.4
Work out what words and phrases mean in literature and explain how word choices build on each other to shape meaning and tone, like dark images that create dread.
RL.9-10.5
Analyze how an author's choices about structure, event order and time, like flashbacks or parallel plots, create mystery, tension or surprise.
RL.9-10.6
Analyze the viewpoint or cultural experience in a literary work from another country, like a novel from Nigeria or Japan, drawing on broad reading of world literature.
RL.9-10.7
Analyze how a subject or key scene is portrayed in two art forms, like a poem and a painting, including what each version stresses or leaves out.
RL.9-10.9
Analyze how an author borrows or reworks source material in a particular work, like a modern novel retelling a Shakespeare play or a Greek myth.
RL.9-10.10
Read grades 9 and 10 literature on your own for long periods, reaching the upper end of that range by grade 10, and link what you read to your knowledge and experiences.
Reading Informational
10 standardsRI.9-10.1
Support a reading of a novel, play or poem with strong, thorough quotations, covering both what it states outright and what you infer from it.
RI.9-10.2
Find an essay or speech's central idea, trace how it emerges and how specific facts and examples sharpen it, and summarize the text objectively.
RI.9-10.3
Explain how a nonfiction writer unfolds an argument or a chain of events, including the order of the points, how each is introduced and how they connect.
RI.9-10.4
Figure out what words and phrases mean in nonfiction and explain how word choices build up across a text to shape meaning and tone, like loaded terms in an editorial.
RI.9-10.5
Analyze how specific sentences, paragraphs or whole sections of a nonfiction text develop and sharpen an author's ideas or claims, like a key paragraph in an essay.
RI.9-10.6
Pin down an author's purpose or stance and analyze the rhetoric that pushes it, like repetition, appeals to emotion or a pointed question.
RI.9-10.7
Analyze accounts of the same subject told in different forms, like a print biography and a documentary, and decide which details each one emphasizes.
RI.9-10.8
Map out a text's argument and claims, judge whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence relevant and sufficient, and flag false statements and logical fallacies.
RI.9-10.9
Analyze landmark documents that matter to history and literature, like the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence, and how they treat related themes.
RI.9-10.10
Read grades 9 and 10 nonfiction independently and with stamina, moving to the high end of that range by grade 10, and relate speeches and essays to what you know.
Writing
6 standardsW.9-10.1
Argue a substantive topic or text in writing with a precise claim, a counterclaim weighed for its strengths and limits, linked sections, a formal tone and a close.
W.9-10.2
Explain a complex topic in writing, sorting ideas to show connections, adding headings or figures where they help, using precise terms, and closing on why it matters.
W.9-10.3
Write a story that opens on a problem, sets up a narrator and point of view, weaves dialogue, pacing and more than one plot line, and closes with a reflection.
W.9-10.4
Use digital tools to create, publish and revise writing alone or with others, using links and flexible displays like interactive charts to connect and show information.
W.9-10.5
Run short and longer research projects on a question you pose or are given, narrowing or widening it as needed and weaving several sources into one account.
W.9-10.6
Use advanced searches to find authoritative print and online sources, judge how useful each is to your question, and weave them in selectively with MLA or APA citations.
Speaking and Listening
5 standardsSL.9-10.1
Lead discussions on grades 9 to 10 texts, arriving with evidence, setting rules with peers, tying questions to larger ideas and revising your view when warranted.
SL.9-10.2
Combine information from several sources in different media, like a podcast, a chart and a news video, and judge how trustworthy and accurate each one is.
SL.9-10.3
Weigh a speaker's stance, reasoning, evidence and rhetoric, and catch a logical fallacy, an exaggerated statistic or a quotation twisted out of context.
SL.9-10.4
Present findings and evidence clearly and concisely in an order listeners can follow, with organization, depth and style suited to the purpose, audience and task.
SL.9-10.5
Use digital media purposefully in presentations, like graphs, audio or video clips, to make findings, reasoning and evidence clearer and keep the audience interested.
Language
6 standardsL.9-10.1
Use standard grammar and usage with growing skill to shape a personal style and voice when writing or speaking, building on the grammar learned in earlier grades.
L.9-10.2
Use capitals, punctuation and spelling correctly and with growing skill to build your own style and voice, like a well-placed dash or colon, expanding on earlier rules.
L.9-10.3
Notice how language works differently in a lab report, a poem and a speech, and write and edit to a style manual such as the MLA Handbook when the task calls for one.
L.9-10.4
Figure out unfamiliar or multiple-meaning words in grades 9 and 10 reading by choosing among context, word parts, related words and references, like chron in chronology.
L.9-10.5
Interpret figures of speech like euphemism or oxymoron, analyze their role in grades 9 and 10 texts, and weigh shades of meaning in near-synonyms like slender and skinny.
L.9-10.6
Use academic and subject-specific words accurately at a college and career ready level, like synthesis or bias, and build your vocabulary on your own when a word is key.
The official North Carolina documents
- 2017 ELA Standard Course of Study · adopted 2017 · since 2018-19, through 2026-27
- 2026 ELA Standard Course of Study · coming next · adopted January 2026 · from 2027-28
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of North Carolina's standards, not the official wording, which North Carolina Department of Public Instruction publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.