9th Grade — Career Research + Analog Mood Board

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

Which career from Unit 0's list are you most drawn to right now? Write it down and one reason why.

🎯 Today's Big Question

How can we visually represent a digital-design-related career using everything we've learned this semester?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Research one career connected to digital design (using the job-title list from Unit 0).
Identify that career's required skills, typical tools, and target audience it serves.
Design a paper mood board that visually represents that career using at least 3 elements/principles of design.

🧰 What You'll Need

Computer/library access for research (one class period)
Magazines, printed images, scrap paper for collage
Poster board or large paper
Scissors, glue sticks, markers

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Research

Do Now (5 min): which career from Unit 0's list are you most drawn to right now? Mini-lesson (5 min): what to look for when researching a career (duties, skills, audience it serves).
Independent research (30 min): research your chosen career and take notes on a graphic organizer.
Share (5 min).

Day 2: Plan & Collect

Do Now (5 min): sketch a rough idea of your mood board layout.
Mini-lesson (5 min): what makes a strong mood board (images, colors, and textures that work together).
Independent work (30 min): sketch a mood board layout and gather/cut images, colors, and textures that represent the career.
Check-in (5 min).

Day 3: Build & Present

Do Now (5 min): what's the strongest element/principle connection you're planning to use? Independent build (25 min): assemble your final mood board, deliberately applying at least 3 elements/principles from Unit 3.
Prepare (5 min): jot 2-3 talking points.
Present (10 min): a 30-second share to a small group.

🖨️ Print Your Handout

Word, picture, and definition for today's vocabulary, plus a place to write and draw. Available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese.

Day 1: EN · ES · FR · AR · ZH
Day 2: EN · ES · FR · AR · ZH
Day 3: EN · ES · FR · AR · ZH

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

📚 Key Words

Mood Board: A collage of images, colors, and textures used to define the visual direction of a project or idea.
Career Research: Gathering real information about a job's duties, required skills, and typical day.
Visual Representation: Communicating an idea through images and design choices rather than only words.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Mood board + short presentation scored with a rubric: research accuracy, at least 3 elements/principles applied, and craftsmanship.

Exit Ticket: Name the 3 elements/principles of design you used in your mood board and why you chose them.

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

Your physical projects don't stay in the classroom past the day you finish them -- you're responsible for your own completed work, the same way you'd be responsible for it in any job. The one exception is your class notebook: it has its own designated spot in the room (ask your teacher exactly where), and most students leave it there day to day -- but it's yours, so if you'd rather keep it with you or bring it home to study from, that's your call. Either way, always know where your own notebook actually is. Before a finished physical piece leaves your hands for good: ask your teacher for one of the classroom cameras, photograph your finished (or in-progress) work, then plug that camera's SD card into a classroom computer and upload the photo into your portfolio folder. That uploaded photo, with a short caption, IS your submission for credit -- the photo is what gets kept and graded, not the physical piece.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), photograph or save your best finished or in-progress piece from that week into your portfolio folder (a physical folder for now, or a Google Drive folder once one is set up) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, and one skill it shows. In Grade 10 this becomes your Google Sites portfolio -- keep adding to it weekly from here on so you're not trying to reconstruct a whole semester of work at the end.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Career Research + Analog Mood Board.” This project asked: “How can we visually represent a digital-design-related career using everything we've learned this semester?” I used Mood Board by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry

🔗 Want to Learn More?

CareerOneStop -- Explore Careers

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same primary-source research method a Social Studies research project requires.

Career Connection: This IS the research step behind picking a track on the Careers hub — do it for real, not hypothetically.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Build a full mood board for the specific career you're most drawn to, using real images, colors, and words that define that field. Start here: pick the one career you're most drawn to right now, not three, and pull at least eight real images for it before you arrange anything.
Interview someone (in person, online, or by reading interviews) working in that career and add their real advice to your mood board. Start here: write your three interview questions before you reach out to anyone.