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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.

Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 9-10.RI.5; 9-10.RI.7 · 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 Arizona

In the Arizona Academic Standards, 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: Arizona Department of Education

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

    Where would you find the year a book was published and who holds its rights?

    • On the copyright page
    • In the index
    • In the table of contents
    • In the glossary

  2. Question 2

    What does a caption do?

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

  3. Question 3

    What does a sidebar in a magazine article usually offer?

    • The table of contents
    • The author's address
    • Extra information set apart from the main text
    • The whole article again

  4. Question 4

    Which feature is typical of an expository essay?

    • A thesis statement supported by evidence
    • Stage directions
    • Dialogue between characters
    • Rhyming couplets

  5. Question 5

    What is a footnote used for?

    • To list every chapter
    • To show the title of the book
    • To give extra information or a source at the bottom of the page
    • To thank the author

  6. Question 6

    A website for young children uses bright colors and rounded fonts. What tone does this design create?

    • Cold and technical
    • Friendly and inviting
    • Formal and serious
    • Threatening

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