Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations to clarify claims and findings and emphasize salient points.
Common Core State Standards, Grade 7, Speaking & Listening · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What SL.7.5 Means in Plain English
Seventh graders choose slides, charts, images or short clips that make a claim or finding easier to grasp, and that push the most important point to the front. A bar chart showing fourteen crashes falling to five earns its place; a stock photo of a cyclist does not.
Sixth graders (SL.6.5) add graphics, images, music or sound where they make information clearer. Seventh grade ties each visual to a claim or finding and uses it to drive home the key point. Eighth grade (SL.8.5) integrates media that strengthen the evidence and add interest.
SL.7.5 I Can Statements
I can choose a visual that makes my claim easier to see.
I can title a slide with the point it proves.
I can tell my audience what to notice in each visual.
SL.7.5 Worked Example
One claim about bike lanes, two versions of its key slide, and only one of them shows the audience the finding.
Prompt
Design the key slide for your talk claiming that the town’s new bike lanes made Main Street safer, and write what you will say while it is up. Your data: 14 bike crashes on Main Street in the year before the lanes, 5 in the year after.
Not YetSlide: the title “BIKE LANES!!!”, a stock photo of a cyclist, a clip-art bicycle and a paragraph pasted from the town website. The speaker says, “So, yeah, here’s some info about the bike lanes.”Everything on it is decoration or a wall of text the audience can’t read while listening. Not one element shows the claim, and the speaker never says what to look at.
Meets the StandardSlide: a five-second clip of a cyclist riding the new protected lane, then a two-bar chart, 14 crashes the year before and 5 the year after, under the title “Bike crashes on Main Street fell by almost two-thirds.” The speaker says, “Look at the drop: fourteen crashes down to five, in a single year. That’s why I think the lanes should go on Elm Street next.”The chart shows the finding at a glance, the title states it, and the speaker points the audience to the drop. The short clip shows what a protected lane looks like, which the numbers alone can’t.
Moves to Use
Ask what the audience must see to believe the claim, then show only that.Make the slide title the point itself, a sentence rather than a topic.Match the format to the idea: a chart for change, a map for place, a clip for motion.Tell the audience where to look and what it proves before moving on.Cut anything decorative that competes with the key point.
Common Mistakes with SL.7.5
Decoration instead of evidence
Clip art, a stock photo and a spinning title on the slide that carries the main claim
Try this: Ask “What does this image prove?” for every visual, and cut any visual whose honest answer is “nothing, it looks nice.”
The slide as a script
A paragraph pasted onto the slide and read aloud word for word
Try this: Cap each slide at one sentence title and one visual, and move the paragraph into the speaker’s notes where it belongs.
A visual nobody explains
The chart flashes up for three seconds, and the speaker clicks on
Try this: Require a pointing sentence for every chart or clip, “Look at…” and then “This shows…”, before the next click.
Classroom TimerFree ToolRehearse each talk with every slide and clip in it, so a ten-second video never eats the time meant for the key point.Full rehearsalClips included