Georgia Standards of Excellence require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media. The standards recognize that students must be able to use formal English in their writing and speaking but that they must also be able to make informed, skillful choices among the many ways to express themselves through language. It is important to note the impact of the standards on classroom instruction: building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction; reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from the text, both literary and informational; and regular practice with complex text and its academic language.

ELA standards are organized in five (5) domains with each domain including multiple strands: Reading for Literature (RL), Reading for Information (RI), Writing (W), Speaking and Listening (SL), and Language (L).  Grades 9 and 10 share domains and strands.