Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Common Core State Standards, Grades 11-12, Speaking & Listening · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What SL.11-12.5 Means in Plain English
Juniors and seniors choose each slide, chart, sound clip and interactive map for a job in the argument: showing a finding, carrying a step of the reasoning or putting evidence in front of listeners. Anything that only adds interest still has to serve the point.
Ninth and tenth graders (SL.9-10.5) picked media that made reasoning clearer or added interest. Grades 11 and 12, the last band before college and career readiness, ask for a strategy across the whole talk, where text, graphics, audio, video and interactive pieces each carry something no other part does.
SL.11-12.5 I Can Statements
I can give every slide and clip a job in my argument.
I can choose the format that shows a finding most clearly.
I can cut media that adds noise instead of understanding.
SL.11-12.5 Worked Example
Two media plans for the same three-minute talk to the planning commission. One decorates; the other gives each piece a job.
Prompt
Plan the media for a three-minute talk recommending that the planning commission deny a permit for a data center that would draw its cooling water from the town’s aquifer. Your findings: the center would use 1.2 million gallons a day at peak, the aquifer has dropped 9 feet since 2010, and neighbors of a similar center two counties over report a constant low hum. List each media element and its job.
Not YetSlide 1: the title over a stock photo of glowing servers. Slide 2: a bulleted list of all my facts. Slide 3: a two-minute news video about data centers. Background music under the whole talk. Final slide: “Thank you!” with a waving cartoon.Nothing has a job. The stock photo and the music only decorate, the bullet list repeats what the speaker says, and the video eats two thirds of a three-minute talk without showing one finding about this town.
Meets the StandardOpening: a ten-second recording of the hum, made at the property line of the similar center, played once, so the commission hears the neighbors’ complaint before I explain it. Finding: one line graph of the aquifer’s level since 2010, with the 9-foot drop labeled. Reasoning: an interactive map of the town’s wells where I set the daily draw to 1.2 million gallons and the wells nearest the site turn red as their projected levels fall. Close: one slide with the recommendation in a single sentence and my three sources.Each element carries a different piece: the audio makes the complaint concrete in ten seconds, the graph shows the trend at a glance, the interactive map turns the reasoning into something the commission watches happen, and the closing slide holds the decision.
Moves to Use
Give each element one job: a finding, a step of reasoning or a piece of evidence.Pick the format by the job: a trend wants a graph, a sensory claim wants audio.Use an interactive piece when listeners need to see a cause become an effect.Cut anything a listener would not miss, including background music and stock photos.
Common Mistakes with SL.11-12.5
Slides as the script
Every sentence the speaker says is also on the slide, in bullets, in the same order
Try this: Limit each slide to one visual and at most one line of text, and move the sentences into the speaker’s notes.
The video that ate the talk
A two-minute clip in a three-minute presentation, with none of the speaker’s own findings in it
Try this: Cap any clip at fifteen seconds and require the presenter to say beforehand what listeners should notice in it.
Interest without understanding
Animated transitions, music and stock photos added because the deck “looked boring”
Try this: Ask presenters to label each element’s job on a planning sheet and cut any element whose only job is “looks nice.”
Classroom TimerFree ToolRun a strict three-minute talk with a visible countdown, so a long video clip visibly eats the speaker’s own time.Three-minute talkMedia check