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 9-10, Speaking & Listening · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026
What SL.9-10.5 Means in Plain English
Ninth and tenth graders pick each medium for a job: an audio or video clip to show what a number can’t, a chart for a comparison, a clickable map listeners can explore. Every element should sharpen the findings, reasoning or evidence, or earn attention honestly.
Eighth graders (SL.8.5) added visuals and clips that clarified and strengthened claims. Grades 9 and 10 widen the toolkit to audio and interactive elements and ask for strategy: the right medium at the right moment. Grades 11 and 12 (SL.11-12.5) keep the same wording for harder research.
SL.9-10.5 I Can Statements
I can choose the medium that shows a finding best.
I can use a short clip or interactive element with a purpose.
I can cut media that decorate but don’t explain.
SL.9-10.5 Worked Example
Two media plans for the same findings about a downtown crosswalk, one built for show and one built for the argument.
Prompt
Your findings: the walk signal at Alder and Ninth gives pedestrians 18 seconds to cross 72 feet of road. Your group timed 40 people crossing, and 11 of them, mostly older adults and parents with strollers, were still in the street when the countdown hit zero. Plan the digital media for a three-minute presentation to the city traffic committee, and say when each piece appears.
Not YetSlide 1: the title “Crosswalk Danger!” over a stock photo of a busy city street. Slide 2: a paragraph from our notes about traffic safety, which I read aloud. Then a two-minute news video about pedestrian accidents in another state, with a whoosh sound effect between every slide.None of the media shows this crosswalk or this data. The stock photo is somewhere else, the paragraph repeats the talk, the video eats two-thirds of the time, and the sound effects add noise, not interest.
Meets the StandardWhile I state the finding, a 20-second clip we filmed: a woman with a walker starts across as the signal changes, and an on-screen timer runs beside her. She is still two lanes from the curb at zero. Next, one bar chart: 18 seconds given, 24 needed at a slower walking pace. Then an interactive map on the laptop, where committee members click any of the 11 late crossings to see how far from the curb that person was. I close on the chart with one line: six more seconds.Each piece has a job. The clip shows what the number means for one real person, the chart puts the gap in one comparison, and the map lets the committee check the evidence themselves. Nothing plays without a point attached.
Moves to Use
Match each medium to one job: show, compare or let listeners explore.Use your own footage and data before anything borrowed.Keep clips short, and say what to watch for before they play.Add an interactive element only when exploring it proves something.
Common Mistakes with SL.9-10.5
Media as decoration
A stock photo of a skyline on a slide about one specific street corner
Try this: Ask of every element, “What finding does this make clearer?” and cut any slide where the answer is “none.”
Interactive for its own sake
A live poll about favorite colors to open a talk on traffic data
Try this: Allow an interactive element only when using it lets the audience check, find or test part of the evidence.
The clip that runs the show
A four-minute documentary filling most of a five-minute presentation
Try this: Limit clips to 30 seconds, and have students write the sentence they will say before and after each one.
Classroom TimerFree ToolTime each clip during rehearsal so no single piece of media takes more than 30 seconds of a three-minute talk.30-second clipsThree-minute talk