Grade 10 · English

Grade 10 English

In grade 10, “what happens in the story” stops being enough. Marks now go to analysis: how a writer builds an effect, and an essay that argues something and proves it. Here is what the year covers, where students usually lose marks, and one way to help.

What your teen learns this year

Grade 10 English looks much the same across curricula:

  • Reading closely. Novels, short stories, poems, plays and non-fiction, read for how they work as well as what they say.
  • Analysis. Word choice, imagery, tone, symbols and theme, and the effect each one has on a reader.
  • Essays. A clear thesis, paragraphs that prove it, and quotations worked into the writing.
  • Argument. Spotting how an article or speech persuades, and building a fair argument of their own.
  • Writing well. Grammar and punctuation that sound grown-up: semicolons, colons, sentences that don't run on.
  • Media and speaking. Reading ads, news and images critically, and presenting to a group.

In Ontario, grade 10 English is taken as an academic course (ENG2D) or an applied course (ENG2P); the skills are the same, the depth differs.

Where students usually lose marks

  1. 1Retelling instead of analysing. A paragraph that says what happens in chapter nine earns little. The marks are for what the writer is doing and why.
  2. 2Floating quotes. A quotation dropped in as its own sentence, with no lead-in and no explanation of what it shows.
  3. 3A thesis that only announces the topic. “This essay will discuss Jo's character” is a topic. A thesis takes a position someone could disagree with.

One of Pip's tricks

Says, then does

Use it when working out how an article, speech or essay is built, or answering “what is the purpose of this paragraph?”

  1. For each paragraph, write one line for what it SAYS: the content, in your own words.
  2. Write a second line for what it DOES: sets up the problem, gives an example, admits a point, answers an objection, shifts the tone.
  3. Read the DOES lines on their own: that is the skeleton of the argument.

Watch it work. An editorial's second paragraph reads: “Critics say the bike lanes slow traffic. On Main Street they are right: the morning commute is three minutes longer. But three minutes is the price of the 40 per cent drop in cyclist injuries since the lanes went in.”

  • SAYS: the bike lanes add three minutes to the commute, but injuries fell 40 per cent.
  • DOES: admits the critics' point, then outweighs it with a bigger number.

So the paragraph's job is to concede and outweigh, not just to give facts.

Why it works: writers choose what each paragraph does on purpose, and naming that job explains how the argument works, which is exactly what analysis questions ask for.

Try three

Tap a choice to see if it is right, with the reason.

  1. 1.“Oh, the committee met. They always meet. They nodded, minuted, adjourned, and the roof went on leaking.” The tone is:

  2. 2.“The jury was out for six hours, nobody left the courtroom.” Which fix is NOT correct?

  3. 3.A writer calls a house “cramped” rather than “cosy”. The word suggests:

How Sparkpip fits in

Pip works through texts and paragraphs like these with your teen one small step at a time, using methods like the one above.

Start freeSee how it works

Your curriculum

Sparkpip is built on the grade 10 English curriculum for your province or state. The official pages:

Also: Grade 9 English · Grade 11 English · Grade 10 math · Grade 10 science