Ninth Grade - ELA
1: Semester 1
Unit 3: Grammar, Part I
Lesson 3
Pronoun Problems
The lesson requires students to create a short slideshow presentation using PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Prezi and specifies at least four slides: title, explanation of the topic, two examples highlighted, and strategies with corrected versions. The instructions explicitly tell students to use colors or effects to highlight certain words and to draw arrows from pronouns to antecedents to clarify relationships. Option 2 thus directs students to incorporate textual and visual elements in a digital presentation to illustrate their findings and corrections.
Lesson 4
Commas
Students are asked to create a comma guide in a format of their choice, including a slideshow presentation, poster, or booklet, and to use colors or graphic aids to help explain rules. The lesson provides web links and a video for students to consult and watch as part of their work (Purdue OWL, Towson, and an Oxford comma video). The activity asks students to use explanations and examples from those online sources when assembling their guide.
Final Project
Wrapping Up
The mini-project Option 1 asks students to create a visual aid and explicitly allows creating a graphic with digital tools (Creately, Google Drawings, Canva) or a slideshow/presentation tool like PowerPoint. The Parent Plan skills list includes using technology and the Internet to produce, publish, and display information flexibly and dynamically. The lesson prompts students to consider how the visual aid will be helpful for themselves or others, which engages thinking about the aid's effectiveness.
Unit 4: Poetry
Lesson 2
Sound and Rhythm
Students are instructed to listen to audio recordings (e.g., "Lord Randall" and Marlowe's poem) while following along in the book, and to watch a video about feet and meter ("Foot & Meter"). Students are directed to use an interactive scansion tool (For Better for Verse) to mark stressed and unstressed syllables and check their work. These tasks require students to use audio, video, and an interactive web tool to deepen their analysis of sound and meter.
Lesson 8
Types of Poems
Students watch and analyze multiple digital media sources (YouTube videos of poets reading, an animator video interpreting Whitman, and online audio recordings) and view images of artworks and poems linked online. Students are asked to find reliable online images (e.g., Brueghel painting, Grecian urn) and to compare how different visual/aural interpretations affect meaning. Students complete charts and journal responses that require them to refer to these textual, audio, and visual elements.
Lesson 10
Poems and Poets
Students are asked to prepare a one-page biographical presentation using presentation software (such as PowerPoint or Prezi) or other digital tools and to include the poet's name, country, language, dates, and at least three interesting facts. The activity explicitly encourages inclusion of images of the country and poet and suggests optionally adding statistics from the MyLifeElsewhere site to provide context. The lesson provides web links (e.g., a YouTube reading of Burns and several Poetry Foundation/PoetryInternational pages) that students could incorporate as audio or visual resources.
Final Project
Poetry
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill: "Make strategic use of digital media…in presentations" as a learning target. Several project choices require students to create or display work digitally (Choice 5 asks students to present a poetry explication using PowerPoint/Prezi/Google Slides and to highlight textual evidence on slides; Choice 3 and Choice 2 ask students to present poems and artwork via slideshow, webpage, animation, video, or storyboard; Choice 6 permits using music-notation software or creating a presentation with audio). The lesson also requires that at least one final project choice involve using digital media and gives concrete guidance (e.g., use colored lettering to mark sound devices, paste images, include audio background) that shows how students should use media to show findings and evidence.
Unit 5: Nonfiction
Lesson 3
The Taliban
The activity Option 2 asks students to create one or more slides in a slideshow presentation using visual aids (images, maps, diagrams) and text to communicate specific information about the Taliban. Students are told they may use PowerPoint or an online tool such as Prezi and to note the source under each image they include. The parent notes reiterate that students can use images, maps, diagrams, and text to effectively convey information and that all text should be in their own words.
Lesson 5
Displacement
Students are instructed to visit specified web pages (The Guardian gallery and a NYMag article), select images or articles, and either save/print those images or copy them into their reports. Students paste or draw pictures into provided activity pages, add captions (school name, location, grade), write assumptions and student-perspective statements, and assemble a mini-book with pictures and annotated advantages/disadvantages. The activity pages ask students to use words and objects around a photo to communicate about students' lives and to share their mini-book with family members.
Lesson 8
Civil Rights
Students watch multiple web videos (Freedom Riders chapters and clips, Birmingham and the Children's March) and listen to an audio cue in the "People of the Past" activity, and they record observations and answers in journals. For creative homework, students may create a graphic response using digital design tools or assemble a collage of online photographs, and one poetry option asks students to create a found poem by selecting phrases from online articles. Several activity pages are digital-media based (video, audio, photographic sources) that students use to gather information.
Lesson 10
Learning from the Past
Students are asked to watch and listen to digital videos (links to a short video about Wiesel and a three-minute clip of Dr. King) and to reflect on how seeing and hearing a speech adds to understanding. In Activity 4 students are instructed to create a model museum wall and are explicitly given the option to "create the wall using design apps or tools" or to print images and arrange them digitally or physically. The materials repeatedly reference using images and design tools as acceptable ways to produce the museum-wall artifact.
Lesson 15
A New Life
The lesson's Activity 2 asks students to create either a flyer or a web page for a nonprofit and provides links to online tools (Canva and a webpage creation resources list). Instructions tell students to include both text and images, create an appealing layout, and to use information and images from the organizations' websites while writing much of the text themselves. The Skills section also lists using technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products.
2: Semester 2
Unit 1: Ender's Game
Lesson 1
Born to Genius
Students are instructed to use Internet search tools to complete the "About the Author" activity, requiring them to locate textual information online. The Student Activity Page for "Your Views on the Issues" includes a graphic (a balance/scale) that presents information visually. Students are asked to prepare to discuss their research and survey responses, which involves sharing findings orally.
Final Project
Think-Tac-Toe
Students are instructed in Box 6 to create a storyboard presentation using a storyboard tool (Boords) or programs like PowerPoint or Google Slides, illustrating six hero's-journey steps on individual slides/frames and exporting as a video or using slideshow mode. Box 1 allows students to use graphic design software to produce a science-fiction book cover, and Box 7 permits electronic production of a graphic-novel style illustration. The instructions explicitly mention digital tools and producing a playable/exportable presentation.
Unit 2: Grammar, Part II
Lesson 7
Verb Voice and Mood
The activity asks students to "create a short slideshow presentation" and suggests creating a comic strip "online" as options for the subjunctive mood project, which indicates students may produce digital artifacts. The student rubric includes a "Presentation" category that evaluates creativity, voice quality, eye contact, and clarity of the message, implying students will present their work to an audience. The lesson provides external web links for explanations and examples that students can reference while preparing their projects.
Final Project
Wrapping Up
Students are asked to create multimedia mini-projects such as a slideshow that must use both text and graphics and may include audio, video, and animations to help viewers understand concepts; the parent notes explicitly encourage adding audio/video/animations. The mini-project rubric assesses Presentation with criteria including "Projects use the chosen medium effectively" and that finished products be instructional and entertaining. Other project options (explanatory guide, poster) recommend digital tools (PowToon, Prezi, online poster/slideshow creators) and ask students to use graphics, designs, and colors to enhance usefulness and appearance.
Unit 3: Informational Texts
Lesson 3
The Matthew Effect
Students are instructed in Option 1 to use Excel or another computer/online tool to create a bar chart, pie chart, or pictograph and to make it accurate, colorful, and clearly labeled. Option 2 explicitly allows students to sketch or use an online tool to create a graphic representing study findings (TIMSS) that would replace or supplement written information. The Parent Plan asks students to translate quantitative information expressed in words into visual form (e.g., a table or chart).
Lesson 4
The 10,000 Hour Rule
The homework asks students to "communicate it in visual form" and lists options including a flowchart, an infographic, a PowerPoint slide, or a hand-drawn graphic, which allows students to use digital visual media. A resource link to online tools is provided so students can create digital graphics. The Parent Plan reiterates that students should create diagrams or slides that communicate important opportunities and relate them to the chapter's bigger ideas.
Lesson 6
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
Students are given web links to online articles (Ask a Korean blog and Gladwell's response) and instructed to read and analyze those digital texts in Activities 4 and 5. Activity 3 explicitly allows students to use an online comic-strip creation tool to sketch examples of appropriate and inappropriate speech, giving students an option to produce graphical digital work. The lesson includes images and a data table (PDI/Individualism/LTO) that students examine and use in journal reflections, so students interact with textual and graphical media as part of their tasks.
Lesson 7
Rice Paddies and Math Tests
Students are asked to create a diagram or infographic for homework and are explicitly allowed to use slideshow software, poster-creation or online diagramming tools, and other digital tools. The homework gives concrete examples of digital media students might embed (audio files of someone speaking Asian numbers, online pictures of rice farming) and links to an online resource list. In Activities, students watch and take notes on two instructional videos (Counting to 100 in Chinese; Learn Numbers 1-10) and are asked to practice along with the speaker, which requires use of audio/visual materials.
Lesson 9
Writing about History
Students are asked to produce a split-perspective magazine cover (Option 1) and are explicitly allowed to "use and manipulate pictures from the Internet" or "use an online graphics or poster creation tool." The lesson provides a web link titled "Online Resources -- Poster Creation Tools" and tells students they "may be able to use one of these free tools to create your cover," which supports creation of a digital graphical presentation.
Lesson 11
Technical Writing
Students are asked to design and add an infographic (Activity 5) by drawing, using an online diagram tool, taking a photograph, or finding and editing an image, and to insert the digital infographic into their typed how-to guide. Students are directed to choose a step that would benefit from a diagram or picture and to make that visual clear and instructional. The Guide Checklist and Parent Plan explicitly require that the guide include an infographic and that students integrate graphics and multimedia when useful to aid comprehension.
Final Project
Argumentative Research Essay
Students are instructed to create a slideshow (Part 12) that includes a title slide, thesis, major points, and counterargument and to avoid wordy slides. The lesson tells students to adapt statistical data into charts or graphs with accompanying explanations (Part 11) and requires them to find at least two visual aids of different types and cite their sources (Part 13). The oral-presentation and slideshow rubrics evaluate slide design (color, font, readability) and visual aids (charts, graphs, posters) and the skills list explicitly includes "Make strategic use of digital media..." as a learning target.
Unit 4: Drama
Lesson 3
Life and Times
Students are asked to watch a History Channel video on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to jot down major points in their journal to prepare to answer questions. Students are provided web links to historical images of 1940s–1950s tenement housing and to a biography of Lorraine Hansberry, and they read the text of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Students answer comprehension questions about the video and the linked materials, demonstrating use of audio, visual, and textual digital media as information sources.
Lesson 4
A Raisin in the Sun
Students are instructed to listen to five dialect audio samples from the Speech Accent Archive and to take notes for discussion, showing use of digital audio. The lesson links to an infographic about salary by education level and two online videos (YouTube) for students to watch and reflect on in their journals. Students are given the option to draw the stage using online drawing tools, indicating use of digital visual/creative media.
Lesson 5
Act II
Students listen to digital audio recordings via provided web links (e.g., Johnny Cash and other songs) and analyze each song's message about the American Dream. Students are directed to view a Google Arts & Culture slideshow about Aso-Oke cloth patterns, engaging with visual digital media to inform an art activity. The Parent Plan skills explicitly mention consulting print and digital reference materials and integrating and evaluating information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
Lesson 11
Nuanced Meaning
Students are asked in Activity 2 to rewrite a six-line exchange from Act 3 as modern text messages and are explicitly allowed to use emojis. The Parent Plan asks students to "show" the original scene and compare it to their text exchange, which involves producing a digital-style representation of dialogue. The lesson also assigns watching video recordings of Act 3 scenes, exposing students to an audiovisual medium.
Lesson 12
Time and Tension
Students are directed to use an online version of Romeo and Juliet (MIT link) to search for specific time-related words and record counts, which requires interacting with textual digital media. The Student Activity Page includes an illustration of a clock tower (a visual element) and the homework directs students to watch Act IV (a timed video segment), so students engage with audio/visual material and a web-based text.
Final Project
Drama
The Parent Plan Skills list explicitly names the standard: "Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations...". Several mini-project options require students to create digital media: students are asked to write and record a podcast with sound effects and online tools, to film a commercial using a video device, to build a news webpage with images and captions, and to create playlists on music services or online comic/storyboard and set-design files. Part 7 directs students to play or display recorded or online projects for an audience and to queue audio when presenting playlists, indicating students will present digital media to support their projects.
