Approaching Complex Text
Through Close Reading
Matt Reher
The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2012
Only 25% of all
ACT-tested high
school graduates
met the College
Readiness
Benchmarks in
all four subjects.
http://www.act.org/research-policy/college-career-readiness-report-2012/#.UG2sIK61smA
Common Core Instructional Shifts for
Core Instruction ELA/Literacy
1.Building knowledge through content-rich
nonfiction
2.Reading, writing, and speaking grounded
in evidence from text, both literary and
informational
3.Regular practice with complex text and its
academic language
Shift 1: Building knowledge
through content-rich nonfiction
Turn to a partner and make a list of
EVERYTHING you have read in the past
24 hours.
What percent of this list is
informational?
“80 percent of what adults read is informational. In most school districts 80 percent of
what students read is literary.” (National Geographic School Publishing, 2003)
Shift 1: Building knowledge
through content-rich nonfiction
•
Students need experience with expository text.
•
Currently we focus 80% of our time in K-5 on
stories.
•
Students read very little expository text―as little as
15% of their total reading.
•
The general knowledge students develop from
nonfiction plays a crucial role in their ability to
read and understand complex texts.
Distribution of Text Types:
Common Core Learning Standards
Grade
Literary
Information
4
50%
50%
8
45%
55%
12
30%
70%
***These percentages require not only that ELA teachers increase student
experience with informational text, but that teachers of ALL content areas play a role
in the shift.
What does it mean to
build knowledge through
content-rich nonfiction?
Building Knowledge =
Developing Expertise
What does it mean to build knowledge
through content-rich nonfiction?
In what areas are you an expert?
How did you get this way?
What does it mean to build knowledge
through content-rich nonfiction?
In what areas will your students become
experts this year?
Do you have enough content-rich nonfiction
to support their learning?
How will the New Generation Assessments
test students on Shift 1?
•
•
PARCC assesses not just ELA, but a full range of
reading and writing across the disciplines of science and
social studies.
PARCC simulates research on the assessment, including
the comparison and synthesis of ideas across a range of
informational sources.
Turn to a partner.
What is Shift 1?
Why is it important?
How might Shift 1 change your current
practice?
Shift 2: Reading, writing, and
speaking grounded in evidence from
text, both literary and informational
Read the two questions below; with a
partner, discuss their differences.
Describe the
problem in this text
and how it is solved.
Use information
from the text to
support your answer.
In what ways does
the problem in this
text relate to your
personal
experiences?
Shift 2: Reading, writing, and speaking
grounded in evidence from text, both
literary and informational
1. Anchor Questions/Standard
2. Research Questions
3. Text-Dependent Questions
Anchor Questions/Standard
What are they?
• A student-friendly version of any one Standard
• Can be answered with evidence from any relevant
text that the student has actually read
• Students practice applying this question to multiple
texts across a unit
Example: How does the main character change from the
beginning of the story to the end?
What standards do
they address?
Usually one Standard per Anchor Question
Where do they come
from?
Requirements of the Standard (CCLS, NGSS, etc.)
Steps for creating Anchor Questions:
1. Identify the KEY IDEAS of the Standard.
2. Turn the Standard into a ANCHOR QUESTION.
3. Create a RUBRIC to assess whether students’ oral or
written response to the ANCHOR QUESTION is
proficient.
4. Integrate each RUBRIC through all components of
literacy instruction: grade-level instruction, independent
application, writing, etc.
CCLS: Reading 2–Determine central idea or theme of a text and analyze its
development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
Grade
Literature
Informational
4
Determine a theme of a story,
drama, or poem from details in the
text; summarize the text.
Determine the main idea of a text and
explain how it is supported by key
details; summarize the text.
Literature
Informational
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine a theme of a story, drama,
or poem from details in the text;
summarize the text.
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine the main idea of a text
and explain how it is supported by
key details; summarize the text.
Content (nouns) –
“know”
theme
story
drama
poem
details
Process (verbs) –
“do”
Determine a
theme.
Summarize a
text.
Content (nouns) – Process (verbs) –
“know”
“do”
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the
text; summarize the text
Anchor Question:
What is a theme of this text? What key details does the author use to communicate this
theme?
CCLSR 2 Rubric:
1- A theme in _____ by _____is _____.
1- Explain the challenge/problem the main character faced using a quote from the text.
1 - Describe how this challenge/problem was resolved using a quote from the text.
1- Explain how these key details communicate this theme.
4 points total
CCLS: Reading 2–Determine central idea or theme of a text and analyze its
development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
Grade
Literature
Informational
4
Determine a theme of a story,
drama, or poem from details in the
text; summarize the text.
Determine the main idea of a text and
explain how it is supported by key
details; summarize the text.
Literature
Informational
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or
poem from details in the text;
summarize the text.
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine the main idea of a text and
explain how it is supported by key details;
summarize the text.
Content (nouns) –
“know”
theme
story
drama
poem
details
Process (verbs) –
“do”
Determine a theme.
Summarize a text.
Content (nouns) –
Process (verbs) –
“know”
“do”
main idea
Determine a main
text
idea.
Explain how it is
detail
supported by
details.
Summarize a text.
Standard: CCLSR 2 for 4th grade
Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported
by key details; summarize the text
Anchor Question:
CCLS R2 Rubric:
Research Questions
What are
they?
What
Standards do
they address?
Require the student to draw evidence from multiple texts in
order to speak or write knowledgeably about a topic
Any standards relevant to the text and
• CCLS Reading Anchor 7: Integrate and evaluate
content presented in diverse media and formats,
including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
• CCLS Reading Anchor 9: Analyze how two or more
texts address similar themes or topics in order to build
knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
• CCLS Writing Anchor 7: Conduct short as well as more
sustained research projects based on focused questions,
demonstrating understanding of the subject under
investigation.
Text-Dependent Questions
What are they?
Students must have read the text in order to
answer the questions.
Example: How does Charlotte change from the
beginning of the story to the end?
What Standards do they
address?
Multiple Standards—any that are relevant
to the text
Where do we get the
questions?
Teachers may generate; ideally, students
learn to generate
What does it mean that reading, writing, and
speaking are grounded in evidence from text?
1. Anchor Questions/Standard
2. Research Questions
3. Text-Dependent Questions
To what extent are you using these types of
questions used in your classrooms currently?
What might you add?
How will the New Generation Assessments
test students on Shift 2?
•
•
•
PARCC focuses on students rigorously citing evidence from texts
throughout the assessment (including selected-response items).
PARCC includes questions with more than one right answer to
allow students to generate a range of rich insights that are
substantiated by evidence from text(s).
PARCC requires writing to sources rather than writing to decontextualized expository prompts.
Turn to a partner.
What is Shift 2?
Why is it important?
How might Shift 2 change your current
practice?
Shift 3: Regular practice
with complex text and its
academic language
Reading Between the Lines:
What the ACT Reveals About College Readiness in Reading
“Performance on complex texts is the clearest
differentiator in reading between students
who are likely to be ready for college and
those who are not. And this is true for both
genders, all racial/ethnic groups, and all
annual family income levels.”
http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pd
f/reading_summary.pdf
Why Text Complexity Matters
In 2005, only 51% of ACT-tested high
school graduates were ready for
college-level reading.
In 2012, only 52% were ready.
From: Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reveals About College Readiness in
Reading 2005 and The Condition of College and Career Readiness 2012
Academic Language and Complex Text
Tier 1: Words in everyday speech usually learned in earlier grades.
They are not considered a challenge to the average native English
speaker.
Tier 2: Words more likely to appear in written text than speech.
These words appear in ALL types of texts: informational, technical,
literary across multiple disciplines or content areas. They often
represent a subtle or precise way to say relatively simple things
Tier 3: Words that are domain-specific and are particular to a certain
field of study (e.g., medicine, dance). These words can be the key to
understanding a new concept within a text and are closely related to
content knowledge. They are more common in informational texts
and are often found to be explicitly defined (e.g., glossary)
Simon, Seymour. Volcanoes. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
In early times, no one knew how volcanoes formed or why they spouted
red‐hot molten rock. In modern times, scientists began to study volcanoes.
They still don’t know all the answers, but they know much about how a volcano
works
Our planet is made up of many layers of rock. The top layers of solid rock are
called the crust. Deep beneath the crust is the mantle, where it is so hot that
some rock melts. The melted, or molten, rock is called magma.
Volcanoes are formed when magma pushes its way up through the crack in
Earth’s crust. This is called a volcanic eruption. When magma pours forth on
the surface, it is called lava.
Simon, Seymour. Volcanoes. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
In early times, no one knew how volcanoes formed or why they spouted
red‐hot molten rock. In modern times, scientists began to study volcanoes.
They still don’t know all the answers, but they know much about how a
volcano works
Our planet is made up of many layers of rock. The top layers of solid rock are
called the crust. Deep beneath the crust is the mantle, where it is so hot that
some rock melts. The melted, or molten, rock is called magma.
Volcanoes are formed when magma pushes its way up through the crack in
Earth’s crust. This is called a volcanic eruption. When magma pours forth on
the surface, it is called lava.
Tier 2: RED
Tier 3: BLUE
What does regular practice with complex
text and its academic language mean?
What does grade-level complex text look like?
Do all of my students have regular experience
with appropriately complex text?
What am I doing about students reading
below grade level?
How will the New Generation Assessments
test students on Shift 3?
Students will be tested
on grade-level
complex text
•
•
•
PARCC builds a staircase of text complexity to ensure students are on
track each year for college and career reading.
PARCC rewards careful, close reading rather than racing through
passages.
PARCC systematically focuses on the words that matter most—not
obscure vocabulary, but the academic language that pervades
complex texts.
Turn to a partner.
What is Shift 3?
Why is it important?
How might Shift 3 change your current
practice?
Break
The Importance of Shift 3
Shift 3: Regular practice
with complex text and its
academic language
Assessing Text Complexity Using the
Common Core Learning Standards
Introduction to the Common Core and the Issue of Text
Complexity
Using a CCLS-Based Text Complexity System
 Walk-through: Matching students to appropriately
complex text
Common Core Learning Standards
Text Complexity
Text complexity refers to the placement of text along a
continuum of bands of sophisticated interplay between
words, ideas, and meaning.
The Common Core Learning Standards
advocate a "staircase" of increasing text
complexity so that students can develop
their reading skills and apply them to
more difficult texts.
Why Text Complexity Matters
The complexity of texts students are expected to read is
way below what is required to achieve college and career
readiness:
•
K-12 text and high school textbook
complexity has declined in all
subject areas over several decades
(Chall, et al., 1977; Hayes, et al., 1996).
•
Average length of sentences in K-8
textbooks has declined from 20 to
14 words.
Why Text Complexity Matters
•
Vocabulary demands have declined,
e.g., eighth-grade textbooks=former fifth-grade texts;
twelfth-grade anthologies=former seventh-grade texts.
•
Complexity of college and career texts has remained
steady or increased, resulting in a huge gap (350L)
between those texts and the texts of twelfth grade.
(Stenner, Koons, & Swartz, in press;
Williamson, 2006)
What is the Text Complexity Standard?
CCLS R10
Read and comprehend complex literary and
informational texts independently and proficiently.
Independently = 99-100% accuracy
Proficiently = 90% comprehension
Emmett Betts, 1946; Richard Allington, 2011
Assessing Text Complexity
Text complexity is determined by:
1. Quantitative Measures—Readability and
other scores of text complexity; often
measured by computer software.
2. Qualitative Measures—Levels of meaning,
structure, language conventionality and clarity,
and knowledge demands; often best
measured by an attentive human reader.
3. Reader and Task Considerations Background
knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and
complexity generated by tasks assigned; often
best made by educators employing their
professional judgment.
Reader and Task
Turn and Talk
What are you
thinking about
text complexity?
Read Complex Text
Write to Text and/or Craft Writing
Writing Extension
Common Core Instructional Shifts for
Core Instruction ELA/Literacy
1.Building knowledge through content-rich
nonfiction
2.Reading, writing, and speaking grounded
in evidence from text, both literary and
informational
3.Regular practice with complex text and its
academic language
Turn to your neighbor…
How will your understanding of text complexity,
or determining text complexity, impact your
current practice?
How can you use what you learned today when
you go back to your school?
Education is not the filling of a
pail, but the lighting of a fire.
—William Butler Yeats and Plutarch