UP Board Class 10 English Syllabus 2026-27

Marks distribution

Total: 100 marks — 70 marks written exam, 30 marks internal assessment.

Unit	Topic	Marks
1	Reading	10
2	Writing Skills	10
3	Grammar	15
4	Literature	35

Exam pattern

Unit 1 — Reading (10 marks): one short unseen passage with three MCQs (3 marks); one unseen passage with three very short answer questions and one vocabulary-based question (7 marks).

Unit 2 — Writing Skills (10 marks): a letter (formal/informal) or application (4 marks); a descriptive paragraph, report, or article in 80-100 words, with a choice between verbal or figurative input (6 marks).

Unit 3 — Grammar (15 marks): five MCQs on parts of speech, tenses, articles, sentence reordering, and spelling (5 marks); three very short answer questions on narration, voice, and punctuation (6 marks); translation of a short Hindi passage into English, 4 sentences (4 marks).

Unit 4 — Literature (35 marks):

• First Flight (23 marks): Prose (15 marks — 2 MCQs on a given extract, 3 MCQs on lessons, two short-answer questions of 30-40 words each, one long-answer question of 60-80 words); Poetry (8 marks — 2 MCQs on an extract, one short-answer question on a poetry lesson or the central idea of a given poem).
• Footprints Without Feet (12 marks): 5 MCQs on prescribed lessons, one short-answer question (30-40 words), one long-answer question (60-80 words).

Prescribed books and lessons

First Flight — Prose

1. A Letter to God — G.L. Fuentes
2. Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom — Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
3. Two Stories about Flying — His First Flight (Liam O’Flaherty), Black Aeroplane (Frederick Forsyth)
4. From the Diary of Anne Frank — Anne Frank
5. Glimpses of India — A Baker from Goa (Lucio Rodrigues), Coorg (Lokesh Abrol), Tea from Assam (Arup Kumar Datta)
6. Mijbil The Otter — Gavin Maxwell
7. Madam Rides the Bus — Vallikkannan
8. The Sermon at Benares
9. The Proposal — Anton Chekhov

First Flight — Poetry

1. Dust of Snow — Robert Frost
2. Fire and Ice — Robert Frost
3. A Tiger in the Zoo — Leslie Norris
4. How to Tell Wild Animals — Carolyn Wells
5. The Ball Poem — John Berryman
6. Amanda! — Robin Klein
7. The Trees — Adrienne Rich
8. Fog — Carl Sandburg
9. The Tale of Custard the Dragon — Ogden Nash
10. For Anne Gregory — William Butler Yeats

Footprints Without Feet — Supplementary Reader

1. A Triumph of Surgery — James Herriot
2. The Thief’s Story — Ruskin Bond
3. The Midnight Visitor — Robert Arthur
4. A Question of Trust — Victor Canning
5. Footprints Without Feet — H.G. Wells
6. The Making of a Scientist — Robert W. Peterson
7. The Necklace — Guy de Maupassant
8. Bholi — K.A. Abbas
9. The Book That Saved the Earth — Claire Boiko

Also prescribed: Words & Expression (English Work Book). Recommended reference: A Handbook of Grammar and Composition Writing, published by the English Language Teaching Institute (ELTI), U.P., Prayagraj — accessible online at eltiup.org.

Internal assessment (30 marks)

1. First internal assessment (August, 10 marks): oral expression.
2. Second internal assessment (December, 10 marks): creative writing.
3. Third internal assessment (10 marks): combined score from four unit tests held across the year (July, August, November, December — the sum is converted to a score out of 10).