Are the Examples Listed in Appendix B for Text Complexity Required Readings?

2.2.2 Introduction to Text Complexity

Are the examples listed in Appendix B for text complexity required readings?

Sue Pimentel: Appendix B. When we were writing the standards and we were talking a lot about text complexity we said, “Well how do you make this concrete? What can we give people to look at that says, ‘Oh, I get it, these sentences, this level of vocabulary, the syntax here, this is at about the 6-8 grade level of reading.’” So what we wanted to do was show just samples of novels, and poems, and speeches, and other sorts of informational text, and drama, the whole range, and have enough of a sample within each grade band so that teachers and curriculum developers could take a look at these and see concrete examples of it, rather than just a Lexile number or some other sort of number. Appendix B is not is not even a sample reading list, it is not a suggested reading list, it is not a required reading list by any stretch. What we tried to show is just the range of the type of reading, because you can see when you are looking at a novel that is complex versus informational text that is complex that they pull on different levels and kinds of structures. So how does that work? And we used excerpts because we just wanted to show enough of the text so that people would have a sense of what complexity looks like. You can use a sample from that if that is something that people want to use. It’s not required, not even a suggested list. We didn’t even try to make a balanced list like that.

Text complexity, how many people have heard about text complexity and you’re not surprised? So raise your hand if you’ve heard, you’ve read, you’ve known, you’ve done work with text complexity. Here’s what we know, the gap between college level reading and actually on the job reading and high school reading is LARGE. The high school texts have been declining in complexity. Vocabulary demands have declined. 8th-grade textbooks now, 40 years ago were 5th-grade textbooks. 12th-grade anthologies were 7th-grade anthologies 40 years ago. The gap between high school-level reading, just to give another metric, high school reading and college reading/career reading, the gap is like between 8th-grade NAEP and 4th-grade NAEP. So think about that. It’s about 350 Lexiles, that’s about the difference between the kind of reading you would give a 4th grader on the test versus an 8th grader. It’s HUGE!

So what are we going to do about it? Do we care a lot? How much should we worry about this? When we were putting the standards together… Have you read this? There is an ACT study called “Reading between the Lines.” I recommend it because it’s where we got our research. What the ACT study told us was to worry about this a lot. And here’s why. When they looked at students’ performance and to see how they did, they did not differentiate, and I want to be clear about this, they did not differentiate between whether I was able to figure out the main idea, or I was able to tell you something about the structure of the text, or I was able to evaluate the author’s argument. Whatever the question was, if I could do one, I could do the other. All important skills, by the way, you wouldn’t want to not be doing them. Or I could be doing a lower-level skill like identify or a higher-level skill like evaluate, and again, with a particular piece of writing, if I could do one, I could do the other. What was the difference was the degree of text complexity. So that means if Petra was able to find the main idea, able to figure out the structure of the text and I’m able to do the same, the difference between us is that Petra can do it with a complex text, and I cannot. That’s the difference. And that has actually, as they looked at it, predicted the success of students or not. It wasn’t whether I could find the main idea or not; I could do that but only with a simple text. But what predicts their success is their ability to do this. This is HUGE!

So just to recap, it’s not the question type that is the chief differentiator. And I want to be clear here, because there was some misunderstanding in one place I went. It doesn’t mean that knowing how to evaluate an author’s argument isn’t critical, because of course it critical. It’s not that the ability to find the main idea or being able to define a word or something like that isn’t important. Those are all really important. But it doesn’t differentiate the students, that particular skill. It’s not higher order or lower order, those are important, too. We obviously want higher order thinking and we need some basic thinking as well. But that didn’t differentiate. It’s really what students could read. And the likelihood of success for students once they get into college, if they’re going there, was about 50/50 unless students answer at least 40% of the complex text questions properly. So these are students ending up in remedial classes, and if they are ending up in remedial classes often times they are falling by the way side. So if I were going to pay attention to something with my students, it would be text complexity.