Simple cycles texture node on a plane Setup

Here's what I tried:


Ctrl+n to create a new (empty) blend 
Enter to confirm
Del to delete cube
Enter to confirm
Shift+a >> Mesh >> Plane to add a new plane
Right-click on the lamp
Del to delete the light
Enter to confirm
Select Cycles Render to use Cycles
Right-click on the plane
Open the Materials panel
Assign the existing material Material to the plane
Select Use Nodes on the material
Switch to the Compositor
Select the Texture node editor
Check Use Nodes
F12 to render


This produces:



Question

What steps are missing to render the checkerboard on the plane using Blender v2.74 (or greater)?

Notes

I tried to UV unwrap the plane as follows:


Numpad 7 to switch to top view
Tab to enter Edit mode
Switch to Edge select mode
Ctrl+e to Mark seam
u >> Unwrap to unwrap the plane
Tab to enter Object mode
F12 to render


No change.

I also added an emissive plane above the original plane. This brightened the original plane, as expected, but no checkerboard appeared:
The part you are missing is creating a material, assigning a shader to it and  using your texture as color.



This will create a node setup on for the material>



Adding a mapping node will allow you to control size and placement of the texture: