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9th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 7 of 12

Forms & Features

Text patterns, visuals and media

What your child practices

Knowing what each text form does, how features such as an index, footnote or caption help readers, how signal words show a text's pattern, and how images, color and design shape meaning.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 9.2; 9.5 · text patterns, visuals and media features

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Text forms have jobs: a script has dialogue and stage directions; an epistolary text is told in letters.
  2. Headings guide readers, footnotes add sources or notes, captions explain images.
  3. Signal words show patterns (because, in contrast, first). Images, color and design shape meaning too.

Example: A story is told in letters between two characters. What is this text form called? “Epistle” is an old word for letter. A text made of letters is epistolary. Answer: an epistolary text

Forms & Features in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 7 of 12 in 9th grade English Language Arts, after Digital Smarts and before Summarizing Texts.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    A bar graph in a news article is mainly used to…

    • show and compare data at a glance
    • tell a story with characters
    • list the sources alphabetically
    • give the author's biography

  2. Question 2

    A line graph in a news article is best used to show…

    • a character's emotions
    • the parts of a whole in a pie
    • how something changes over time
    • a list of definitions

  3. Question 3

    Which statement about cultural text forms is accurate?

    • Some communities share knowledge through spoken stories, songs and art, and these are valid texts
    • Songs and art are never text forms
    • Only printed books count as real texts
    • Oral stories cannot be analyzed

  4. Question 4

    Which pair of signal words shows a cause and effect pattern?

    • similarly, however
    • first, next
    • on the other hand, in contrast
    • because, as a result

  5. Question 5

    Which feature of a nonfiction book helps readers find a topic quickly?

    • The index
    • The copyright page
    • The cover blurb
    • The dedication

  6. Question 6

    What does a caption do?

    • Explains or adds information about an image
    • Lists the author's sources
    • Replaces the title of the article
    • Shows where the page ends

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