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UNIT 7

The Language That Defines You

Languages survive when people fight for them. This unit, you'll build a real website to help keep yours alive - five pages, animated cards, and audio so visitors can hear each word spoken out loud.

⏱️ 7 Stages
🌿 Early Intermediate
🎯 45–60 min per stage
🔗 Multi-Page Site

The Big Idea

Language carries things that can't be translated. Stories. Relationships. Ways of seeing the world that belong only to the people who speak it. For a lot of Native languages, there's almost nothing on the internet. You're about to help change that.

This is your first multi-page website - the way every real site on the internet actually works. Instead of one file, you'll build five pages that connect to each other. A navigation bar at the top ties them all together. Click Colors and you go to the colors page. Click Animals and you go to the animals page. Your visitor just navigates. They never see the files.

You'll also add two things that make this feel like a real language learning tool: a dropdown menu where visitors choose which language your site teaches, and an audio player on every word card. Hit play and they hear the word spoken out loud. That's a big deal for language learning - and you built it.

By the end of this unit, you'll be able to say "I can..."

  • Build a website that spans five connected pages
  • Add a nav bar so visitors can move between pages like any real site
  • Create a dropdown menu where visitors pick which language the site is about
  • Design animated cards that lift when you hover over them
  • Build vocabulary pages where each word gets its own card
  • Add an audio play button so anyone can hear a word pronounced out loud

What You'll Build

A five-page Indigenous language website - something real you can share with your school, your family, or your community.

The home page has a dropdown and four Topic Cards: Colors, Animals, Food, and Common Items. Each card links to its own vocabulary page. Every word on those pages has a card with its meaning and a note. Every word has an audio player.

When you're done, you'll have built something that didn't exist before you made it.

Colors 7+ words
Animals 7+ words
Food 7+ words
Common Items 7+ words

You've already built 6 websites to get here. You're not starting from zero - you're ready for this.

Your learning path

The 7 Stages

STAGE 1 Site Structure Multi-page file links STAGE 2 Welcome + Dropdown Select/option nav menu STAGE 3 Category Cards Coursera-style cards STAGE 4 Hover Effects Card hover + transitions STAGE 5 A Vocabulary Page New HTML page setup STAGE 6 Word Cards and Audio Audio tag + word cards STAGE 7 Make It Your Own Customize your language site
Let's Begin

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Sources

The vocabulary in this unit draws from Indigenous language resources developed by Tribal nations and Native-led language organizations. These sources represent decades of community-driven language preservation work. Students are encouraged to go beyond the starter vocabulary provided here and explore these sources directly to find words meaningful to their own community, family, or language.

Tribal Language Dictionaries & Archives

Language Preservation & Indigenous Education

On Language, Identity, and Revitalization

Educational Standards

This unit aligns with computer science, language arts, social studies, and Indigenous language standards across MN, ND, and SD. Click a panel to expand.

  • Create multiple HTML files and link between them using <a href="page.html">
  • Build a navigation bar that connects every page in a multi-page project
  • Add a <select> dropdown with <option> elements that lets a user choose from a list
  • Design category cards with distinct pastel background colors using CSS custom properties and class-based theming
  • Apply CSS hover effects using transition, transform: translateY(), and box-shadow
  • Build a vocabulary page with individual word cards showing the term, its English meaning, and a sentence or note
  • Add an <audio controls> player to a word card so visitors can play a pronunciation recording
  • OSEU.SS.C.1, Language as Living Cultural Identity (All Grades): Students will understand that Indigenous languages are not historical remnants but living systems of knowledge that encode worldviews, relationships, and ways of knowing that cannot be fully translated into English. (The unit presents Dakota, Lakota, and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe languages with this frame from the first stage. Students build a language learning interface that uses audio, vocabulary cards, and a category dropdown to present Indigenous language content with clarity and respect. The interface is styled to honor the language it carries - not as a museum exhibit but as a resource for active learners.)
  • OSEU.ELA.W.1, Language Preservation Through Digital Tools (All Grades): Students will understand the relationship between language preservation and cultural sovereignty, and produce writing that positions digital tools as potential contributors to that effort. (Students research active language revitalization programs for the nation whose language their site features and link directly to those resources. The written introduction section asks students to explain - in their own words, published on a live webpage - why language matters to Tribal nations and what it means to support its continuation through technology.)
  • CSTA 2-AP-16 (Grades 6-8): Incorporate existing code, media, and libraries into original programs, and give attribution. (Students build on starter vocabulary provided in Ojibwe and extend it with their own research. They link between HTML files using established web conventions and add audio elements using the HTML audio API, all while attributing language sources according to the unit's source tiering policy.)
  • CSTA 2-NI-04 (Grades 6-8): Model the role of protocols in transmitting data across networks and the internet. (Building a multi-page site with working file-to-file href links introduces the concept that browsers request and receive individual files from a server. Students directly experience how file paths and folder structure affect whether links resolve correctly.)
  • ISTE 3b, Knowledge Constructor: Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility, and relevance of information, media, data, or other resources. (Students research Indigenous vocabulary from Tribal language dictionaries, evaluate audio pronunciation sources, and apply the unit's source tier hierarchy to decide what belongs on their published language site.)
  • ISTE 6c, Creative Communicator: Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models, or simulations. (Students translate Indigenous vocabulary, cultural context, and pronunciation into a structured multi-page web experience with animated cards, dropdown navigation, and audio players, communicating language as a living, interactive resource.)
  • MN ELA 8.3.3.1 (Grade 8): Use technology to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others. (Students produce a five-page interconnected website that presents Indigenous language information in an organized, navigable format, demonstrating competency with multi-file web publishing and purposeful information architecture.)
  • MN Social Studies 7.4.9.6 (Grade 7): Describe the cultural contributions of groups from Minnesota's past and explain how diverse cultural perspectives contribute to the state's cultural heritage. (Indigenous languages are among the most direct expressions of cultural worldview. Students research, build, and publish a site that presents Ojibwe, Dakota, or Lakota vocabulary as living cultural knowledge rather than historical artifact.)
  • MN Social Studies 9.4.7.6 (Grades 9-12): Analyze the significance of Indigenous language revitalization movements and their connection to Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. (The unit's framing explicitly connects language to identity and sovereignty. Stage 7 asks students to reflect on what it means to publish a language website and who it serves, connecting web publishing to the larger movement of Indigenous language reclamation.)
  • MN CS K-12 Standard 6.1.1 (Grade 6): Decompose problems into smaller components through systematic analysis, using constructs such as procedures, modules, and/or objects. (A five-page site is decomposed into its parts: one index file, four vocabulary files, shared CSS patterns for cards and navigation, and per-page content. Students manage this structure intentionally, not by accident.)
  • MN Media Arts 6.8.2.3.1 (Grade 6): Create media artworks using digital and/or technical tools that communicate ideas and demonstrate craftsmanship. (Students design and build a complete multi-page web experience with consistent navigation, animated cards, color-coded categories, and embedded audio, demonstrating intentional craft in both the code and the cultural presentation.)
  • ND CS 6.E.1 / 7.E.1 / 8.E.1 (Grades 6-8): Create artifacts by applying existing knowledge of computing concepts and practices. (Students apply knowledge of HTML structure, CSS styling, and file organization gained in prior units to build a new and more complex artifact: a five-page interconnected language website with hover effects, a dropdown, and embedded audio.)
  • ND Indigenous Language Standard 1.1 (All Grades): Learners engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions using the target language. (The vocabulary pages students build are directly usable as language learning tools. The audio tag enables listening practice. Stage 7 asks students to engage deeply enough with vocabulary to select words they find meaningful and research how they are pronounced.)
  • ND Indigenous Language Standard 1.2 (All Grades): Learners understand and interpret spoken and written language on a variety of topics. (Students encounter Ojibwe words in written form alongside English translations, usage notes, and pronunciation audio. Building the word cards requires them to read and interpret language documentation sources, not just copy vocabulary.)
  • ND Indigenous Language Standard 3.1 (All Grades): Learners use the language both within and beyond the school setting. (By Stage 7, students are publishing a language site that functions as a real resource. The unit explicitly encourages students to share the finished site with family, community members, and elders as a contribution to language visibility and revitalization.)
  • ND CS 9-12.E.3 (Grades 9-12): Design and iteratively develop computational artifacts for practical intent, personal expression, or to address a societal need. (The language site addresses a genuine need: making Indigenous vocabulary accessible on the web in a beautiful, usable, student-authored format. The iterative design across 7 stages models the professional development cycle of planning, building, testing, and refining.)
  • OSEU Standard 4.1 (All Grades): Describe the significance of Oceti Sakowin language and oral traditions as expressions of culture, history, and identity. (This is the direct curricular foundation for Unit 7's language focus. Students build a website that treats Indigenous vocabulary not as trivia but as a living expression of cultural identity. The choice of which language to feature, and which words to include, is itself a cultural act.)
  • OSEU Standard 4.2 (All Grades): Explain the relationship between language preservation and Tribal sovereignty and describe contemporary efforts to revitalize Indigenous languages in South Dakota. (Stage 7 explicitly connects the student's published website to the larger language revitalization movement. Students research active language programs, locate pronunciation recordings made by native speakers, and consider how their site fits into that ongoing effort.)
  • SD ELA 6.W.6 (Grade 6): Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others. (Students produce a multi-file website and publish it as a complete, navigable web experience. The writing embedded in the word cards, the welcome section, and the navigation labels is purposeful, audience-aware, and edited for clarity.)
  • SD CS 6-8.AP.M.1 (Grades 6-8): Decompose problems and subproblems into parts to facilitate the design, implementation, and review of increasingly complex programs. (A five-page language site is substantially more complex than the single-page sites from prior units. Students plan the file structure before building, decompose each page's content into reusable CSS classes, and manage the relationship between files as they add navigation links across all five pages.)
  • SD Social Studies 8.H.1.3 (Grade 8): Analyze how cultural identity is shaped by factors including language, traditions, and community. (Unit 7 opens with a direct framing: language is not just communication; it is identity. Students encounter Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota vocabulary as evidence of distinct worldviews, and the process of building a language site requires them to engage with that framing throughout.)