Purpose and Message in Media Texts is a Grade 9 ELA media literacy resource that helps students analyze how media texts communicate ideas through purpose, framing, emphasis, omission, and supporting evidence.

Using a public service poster about active travel, students examine how wording, visual design, statistics, repeated slogans, and quoted sources shape the way an audience interprets a message. The lesson encourages careful reading and evidence-based analysis of media texts.

What Students Practise

• Identify a media text’s purpose by examining wording, framing, and emphasized details.
• Explain a text’s message using examples, statistics, and quotations from credible sources.
• Recognize how omission can influence the information an audience receives.
• Determine whether statements about a media text are accurate using evidence from the passage.
• Analyze how repeated wording and visual emphasis reinforce a central message.

What’s Included

• Student worksheet focused on purpose and message in media texts.
• Student Notes & Lesson Summary supplement for reviewing key concepts.
• Separate Teacher Guide PDF with learning objectives, teaching tips, discussion questions, and common mistakes.

Question and Activity Types

The worksheet includes a reading passage, multiple-choice questions, true-or-false statements, brief written responses, matching questions, a cloze passage, an extended essay response, and a Did You Know? section.

Students apply their knowledge to a media text that highlights active travel, uses a statistic about carbon emissions, features a transportation analyst’s quotation, and presents a highlighted route to a nearby school. They also consider what the poster leaves out, including study limitations and alternative solutions.

Classroom Use

Use this resource for a media literacy lesson, guided reading activity, independent practice, or written analysis. The included notes support student review, while the Teacher Guide provides practical guidance for instruction and classroom discussion.

With its focus on purpose, message, framing, evidence, emphasis, and omission, this resource gives Grade 9 learners structured practice in reading media texts critically and explaining their interpretations with textual support.

Subject: ELA | Grade: 9 | Framework: Ontario