Ohio Standards
Ohio Grades 9–10 ELA Standards
All 41 Ohio English language arts standards for grades 9–10, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Ohio Department of Education and Workforce's document, linked at the end of this page.
41 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
Determine a theme of a text, trace in detail how specific details introduce and refine it, and write an objective summary with the theme and key story elements.
RL.9-10.3
Follow a complex character with conflicting motives, like Macbeth, through the text and explain how their changes and clashes with others drive the plot or theme.
RL.9-10.4
Interpret figurative and connotative language and analyze how word choices add up to shape meaning, mood, and tone, like evoking a time and place or a formal feel.
RL.9-10.5
Explain how a writer's structure, like parallel plots, flashbacks or a slowed-down scene, builds mystery, tension or surprise in a story.
RL.9-10.6
Analyze how literature from another country reflects a point of view or cultural experience, using broad reading in world literature to inform the analysis.
RL.9-10.7
Compare how a poem and a painting, or a novel and its film, treat the same scene or subject, noting what each one stresses and what each leaves out.
RL.9-10.9
Analyze how an author borrows from and reshapes earlier source material, like Shakespeare reworking a story from Ovid or a modern writer drawing on a Shakespeare play.
RL.9-10.10
Read complex grade 9 and 10 stories, plays, and poems, with support in grade 9 and on your own by grade 10, making personal, historical, and cultural connections.
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
Determine a central idea of a nonfiction text, analyze in detail how specific details introduce and refine it, and summarize objectively how those details build it.
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
Work out figurative, connotative and technical meanings in nonfiction, and explain how word choices add up to a tone, like a court opinion beside a news story.
RI.9-10.5
Show in detail how particular sentences, paragraphs or a whole chapter build and sharpen a nonfiction author's ideas or claims.
RI.9-10.6
Determine an author's viewpoint or purpose and analyze how the author uses rhetoric, like appeals to emotion or logic, to advance it.
RI.9-10.7
Compare accounts of the same subject in different media, like a biography and a documentary about the same person, and say which details each one stresses.
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 seminal U.S. documents, like the Gettysburg Address and King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, and how they take up related themes such as freedom and equality.
RI.9-10.10
Read literary nonfiction like speeches and memoirs in the grades 9 to 10 band with support at the top end in 9th grade, and at the top end alone by the end of 10th.
Writing
10 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
Match how a piece of writing is developed, organized and styled to its task, its purpose and the people who will read it.
W.9-10.5
Strengthen drafts through planning, revision, editing, full rewrites, or a fresh approach, centering what matters most for the purpose and audience with correct conventions.
W.9-10.6
Write, publish and keep updating a piece online, alone or with a group, using links and flexible displays like an embedded chart or an expandable section.
W.9-10.7
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.9-10.8
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.
W.9-10.9
Use evidence from stories and informational texts in writing, like details that show a character in depth or the reasons an author gives for a point.
W.9-10.10
Write regularly for many tasks, purposes and audiences, from a research paper drafted and revised over weeks to a response finished in a single sitting or a day or two.
Speaking and Listening
6 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
Pull together information from a chart, a podcast and an article on one topic, and judge how credible and accurate each source is.
SL.9-10.3
Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, evidence, and rhetoric, and point out faulty logic or evidence that is exaggerated or distorted.
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
Choose digital media for a presentation strategically, like a chart for data or a short audio clip, where each one makes the reasoning clearer or adds interest.
SL.9-10.6
Adjust your speaking to different settings and tasks, using formal English with command when the situation calls for it, like in a debate or class presentation.
Language
6 standardsL.9-10.1
Print many letters, use everyday nouns, verbs and little words like in and on, make plurals like dogs and wishes, ask with who and where, and speak in full sentences.
L.9-10.2
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the word I, name the period and question mark, and spell simple words the way they sound, like kat for cat.
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
Work out an unfamiliar word in grades 9 to 10 reading from context, from word families like analyze and analytical, or from a specialized dictionary, then verify it.
L.9-10.5
Explain a nonliteral phrase like take steps, name someone who is friendly to link a word to real life, and rank knew, believed and suspected by how sure they are.
L.9-10.6
Build and use the academic and subject-specific vocabulary needed for college and career reading and writing, looking up on your own any word that matters to an idea.
The official Ohio documents
- Ohio's Learning Standards: English Language Arts, revised 2026 · adopted 2026 for K-8, 2017 for 9-12 · published July 2026
- Ohio's Learning Standards: English Language Arts, 2017 · replaced · adopted February 2017 · K-8 replaced in 2026, 9-12 carried forward
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Ohio's standards, not the official wording, which Ohio Department of Education and Workforce publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.