9th Grade — Design & History: How Ancient Civilizations Used Symbols and Design

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

Look at the symbol on the board. What do you think it might have meant to the people who made it, thousands of years ago?

🎯 Today's Big Question

How did ancient civilizations use symbols, pattern, and design principles thousands of years ago?

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

Identify at least 2 examples of ancient design systems (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek pottery patterns, textile motifs, etc.).
Connect an ancient design element/principle to one used in Unit 3.
Create a small design piece inspired by an ancient symbol system, connecting to the Historical Preservation pathway.

🧰 What You'll Need

Printed examples of ancient design systems (teacher-provided)
Drawing paper
Pencils, colored pencils

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Ancient Design Systems

Do Now (5 min, above).
Mini-lesson (15 min): examples of ancient design systems (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Greek pottery, textile patterns) and the elements/principles they used (repetition, pattern, symbol).
Guided analysis (15 min): as a class, analyze one example, identifying elements/principles.
Independent analysis (10 min): analyze a second example on your own.

Day 2: Design Inspired by History

Do Now (5 min): sketch one symbol/motif idea inspired by yesterday.
Mini-lesson (5 min): connect to the Historical Preservation pathway -- how do we study and preserve these old design systems today? Independent build (30 min): create a small design piece inspired by an ancient symbol system.
Share (5 min).

🖨️ 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

🖥️ 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.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Hieroglyphics: An ancient Egyptian writing system that used pictures and symbols to represent words and sounds.
Motif: A recurring design element or pattern that carries symbolic meaning, repeated throughout a piece.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Piece + short reflection scored with a rubric: accurate connection to an ancient design system, thoughtful use of a motif.

Exit Ticket: Name one element or principle ancient designers used that we still use today.

📊 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 “Design & History: How Ancient Civilizations Used Symbols and Design.” This project asked: “How did ancient civilizations use symbols, pattern, and design principles thousands of years ago?” I used Hieroglyphics 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?

The Met — Ancient Egyptian Art

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: This lesson IS Social Studies/World History — the same civilizations, read through a design lens instead of a political one.

Career Connection: Symbol systems are the root of every logo made in Advertising & Marketing today.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Design a modern logo inspired by one ancient symbol system you studied in Social Studies, with a paragraph explaining the connection. Start here: pick one specific symbol, not an entire civilization's worth, and sketch three modern simplifications of it before you open Illustrator.
Illustrate a timeline poster connecting three ancient symbols to three modern logos clearly influenced by them. Start here: pick your three ancient-to-modern pairs first and write the one-sentence connection for each before you lay out the timeline.