The document discusses selecting complex texts for middle and high school ELA classrooms that are aligned to the Common Core standards. It provides examples of complex text types like legal opinions, editorials, and scholarly journals. It also discusses how to measure text complexity, including quantitative measures like readability tests and qualitative measures like text structure, language features, and required background knowledge. The document emphasizes that teachers should model close reading of complex texts, establish a clear purpose for reading, and scaffold support to help students comprehend challenging material and develop important reading skills.

1. Unpacking the
Standards and
Selecting Common
Core-Aligned Texts for
the High School and
Middle School ELA
Classroom
Allison Dodson, NBCT
John Kuijper, NBCT
John Boggs, NBCT

2. Text Complexity
How do I teach complex texts in an
already complicated classroom?

3. How did we get here?
-Everyone needs to read Appendix A
of the Common Core Standards.
-Essentially, according to a report from ACT
called ―Reading Between the Lines,‖ students
are not getting enough practice with complex
texts. Also, the texts we’re reading in school
have ―trended downward‖ in the last half
century.

4. From ACT’s ―Reading Between the Lines‖
the clearest differentiator was students’ ability to answer
questions associated with complex texts. Students scoring below
benchmark performed no better than chance (25 percent
correct) on four-option multiple-choice questions pertaining to
passages rated as ―complex‖ on a three-point qualitative rubric
described in the report. These findings held for male and female
students, students from all racial/ethnic groups, and students
from families with widely varying incomes. The most important
implication of this study was that a pedagogy focused only on
―higher-order‖ or ―critical‖ thinking was insufficient to ensure that
students were ready for college and careers: what students
could read, in terms of its complexity, was at least as important
as what they could do with what they read.

5. How did we get here?
Examples from my own life:
-Use of Young Adult Lit.
-Oprah Winfrey episode (1: 54)
In this clip, Jane Smiley talks about her
experience with Charles Dickens. Are our kids
having these same experiences?
How can we make sure our kids have these
Experiences?

6. Ideas for Complex Texts?
The standards call for complex texts, but they also
suggest using short passages, allowing the students
to reread the passage and go deep.
• Legal opinions
• Editorials
• Epic poems
• Scholarly journals
• City Ordinances
• Opening/Closing arguments

7. How can WE assess a text
that we’d like to use in our
classroom for appropriate
grade-level complexity?

8. By now, you’ve all seen
this?

9. Measuring Text Complexity
includes:
1. Quantitative Measures: Fry Readability test, lexile.com, other online tools,
etc.
2. Qualitative Measures:
A. Structure
B. Levels of Meaning or Purpose
C. Language Conventionality and Clarity
D. Knowledge Demands
3. Reader and Task Assessment: YOU are the best judge of what your
students can manage.

10. Traditional Quantitative Measures for
Assessing Readability
• Counting the number of syllables in each word.
• Counting the number of words in each sentence.
• Determining a readability level based on those two variables.
• Lexile.com

11. Understanding
Qualitative
Measures:

12. Structure:
Complicated text-structures (chronological, problem-solution, cause-effect, etc.) will add
to a text’s complexity level.
*Holes, by Louis Sachar
Quantitative Measurement: 4.9 (Fry Readability value).
Qualitative Measurement:
Structure: Story continuously jumps back and forth between three
different time periods/settings, and character groups.
Adjusted text-complexity value: 5.9 – 7.5 for independent reading.
Possible “Stretch-Text” : In order to challenge students’ reading capacity—stretching them to grow to a
higher reading level-- teachers might have students read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
(7.9) describing the effects of racism during the slavery period.
Scaffolding needed: Teacher should provide critical backgound knowledge, along with teacher-directed
reading of the text.

13. *Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Quantitative Measurement: 5.9 (Fry Readability value).
Qualitative Measurement:
Structure: Narrated as a series of memories through the point of
view of an ―unreliable narrator‖ with many emotional
insecurities, who provides continual commentary and
judgments about the events he describes.
Adjusted text-complexity value (plus mature content): 9.0 – 10.5.
Possible “Stretch Texts” : Other psychological studies, such as Hamlet (10.5
– 12.0) by William Shakespeare.

14. Levels of Meaning or Purpose:
Texts that contain multiple levels of meaning or purpose (connotative or implicit language, satire
in narrative texts; informational texts with implicit purposes) have a greater text complexity than
texts with a singular meaning or purpose.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Quantitative Measurement (Fry): 5.8
Qualitative Measurement: Hemingway use
images and word choice to convey emotion rather than
describing it; words are sparse but and have multiple
connotative meanings; the novel as the story contains multiple
themes.
Adjusted text-complexity value: 11.5+
Similar “stretch-texts”: The poems of Emily Dickinson (11.5+) and
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (12+) also use sparse, precise word
choice with multiple connotations.

15. Levels of Meaning or Purpose:
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Quantitative Measurement (Fry): 7.3
Qualitative Measurement: Orwell uses political
satire -- the explicit purpose is different
from the implicit purpose.
Adjusted text-complexity value: 11
Similar “stretch-texts”: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (12+), ―A
Modest Proposal‖ by Jonathan Swift (11+),
The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (12+).
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Quantitative Measurement (Fry): 4.9
Qualitative Measurement: The heavy use of
symbolism and allusion result in multiple
inferences and author commentaries.
Adjusted text-complexity value: 9-10
Similar “stretch-texts”: ―The Yellow Wallpaper‖ by Charlotte
Perkins Gilman (10), ―Hills Like White Elephants‖ by Ernest
Hemingway (11), The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (10-11).

16. Language Conventionality & Clarity:
Texts that rely on literal, clear, contemporary, and conversational language tend to be easier to
read than texts that rely on figurative, ironic, ambiguous, purposefully misleading, archaic or
otherwise unfamiliar language or on general academic and domain-specific vocabulary.
• Examples:
– Shakespeare
– Arcane classics
– Medieval, Puritan, or other dialects/ language patterns
The actual reading level is not difficult, but due to unfamiliar language patterns and
old-fashioned language, the reading becomes more difficult.

17. Knowledge Demands
*Chew on This, by Eric Schlosser
Quantitative Measurement: 8.7 (Fry Readability value).
Qualitative Measurement:
Knowledge Demands: History of fast food; familiarity with food industry and the role that government and politics play in this
industry; lasting and ongoing impact of fast food on our country and on our health;the correlation between fast food and poverty.
Adjusted text-complexity value: 10-11.

18. Knowledge Demands
Possible “Stretch Texts” : Other books that address the history
of fast food and the impact of choices on the overall value
of life—Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich (11+); Fast
Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser (11+); The Jungle, by Upton
Sinclair (10+)

19. Knowledge Demands
Specific examples:
• Life Experiences/Cultural/Literary/Content & Discipline Knowledge
– Simple theme vs. complex or sophisticated theme
– Single theme vs. multiple themes
– Single perspective vs. multiple perspectives
– Perspective(s) like one’s own vs. perspective(s) unlike or in opposition to one’s own
– Everyday knowledge vs. cultural and literary knowledge
– Few allusions to other texts vs. many allusions to other texts
– Low intertextuality (few or no references to other texts)vs. high intertextuality (many
references or citations to other texts)

20. How to incorporate complex texts
into classroom?
• Teachers should model active reading. - Think aloud
• It’s all about establishing a purpose and letting students know
why this is a valuable skill.
• Remember Vygotsky. You are the more knowledgeable other.
Meet the kids where they are at and take them higher.
• Establish purpose—tell students

21. When faced with a U.S. Supreme Court decision, an epic poem, or an ethical treatise—works characterized by
dense meanings, elaborate structure, sophisticated vocabulary, and subtle authorial intentions—college-ready
students plod through them. Unready students falter.
Does the gap widen because unready students don't have the intelligence or background knowledge to
understand complex texts? To some extent perhaps, but ACT suggests that the difficulty lies just as much in
students' lack of experience and practice with reading complex texts. ACT asserts, "The type of text students are
exposed to in high school has a significant impact on their readiness for college-level reading" (p. 23). The more
students are exposed to complex texts, the more they realize that they can't complete their studies through "a
single superficial reading" (p. 24). Complex texts require a slower labor. Readers can't proceed to the next
paragraph without grasping the previous one, they can't glide over unfamiliar words and phrases, and they
can't forget what they read four pages earlier. They must double back, discern ambiguities, follow tricky
transitions, and keep a dictionary close at hand. Complex texts force readers to acquire the knack of slow linear
reading. If they rarely encounter complex texts, young students won't even realize that such a reading tack is a
necessary means of learning. Unready students might be just as intelligent and motivated as the ready ones are,
but they don't possess the habits and strategies needed to carry on.