A guide to support text selection and close readings at the secondary level

1. read me closely
How to Select Works that have text Appeal
Des Floyd

2. Researchers have attended to features of different genres of text that
might shape people’s comprehension but we know less about how
texts are actually used in different domains (e.g., homes, communities,
churches, etc.).
In the dark
-The Role of Text in Disciplinary Learning (2010)

3. Text: organized networks of meaning that people generate or
use to make meaning either for themselves or for others.
Defined
- Wade & Moje (2000)

4. Multimodal view
Examples
 Aural
 Visual
 Gestures
 Letters/print
 Symbols
 Internet
 Television
 Video

5. ON CHOOSING PRINT
Stories
Historicalfiction
Mysteries
Myths
Sciencefiction
Realisticfiction
Satire
Graphicnovels
Plays
Poems
Essays
Speeches
Opinionpieces
Biographies
Memoirs
Historicalaccounts
Scientificaccounts
Technicalaccounts
Journalism

6. TEXT SELECTION
3 FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Potential for reader
engagement/interaction
Levels of meaning
Features of the text

7. #1 The potential for engagement
Question: Does the text offer opportunities for
knowledge-use, knowledge-building, and/or personal
connection?

8. {
Read me
works that have text appeal

9. “The preacher preached a wonderful rhythmical sermon, all moans
and shouts and lonely cries and dire pictures of hell, and then he
sang a song about the ninety and nine safe in the fold, but one little
lamb was left out in the cold. Then he said: "Won't you come?
Won't you come to Jesus? Young lambs, won't you come?" And he
held out his arms to all us young sinners there on the mourners'
bench. And the little girls cried. And some of them jumped up and
went to Jesus right away. But most of us just sat there.”
- Excerpt from Salvation
Langston Hughes

10. The Fire Made its Own Draft
“By Wednesday afternoon, inside of twelve hours, half the heart of the city was
gone. At that time I watched the vast conflagration from out on the bay. It was
dead calm. Not a flicker of wind stirred. Yet from every side wind was pouring in
upon the city. East, west, north, and south, strong winds were blowing upon the
doomed city. The heated air rising made an enormous suck. Thus did the fire of
itself build its own colossal chimney through the atmosphere. Day and night this
dead calm continued, and yet, near to the flames, the wind was often half a
gale, so mighty was the suck.
Wednesday night saw the destruction of the very heart of the city. Dynamite
was lavishly used, and many of San Francisco's proudest structures were
crumbled by man himself into ruins, but there was no withstanding the onrush of
the flames. Time and again successful stands were made by the fire-fighters,
and every time the flames flanked around on either side or came up from the
rear, and turned to defeat the hard-won victory.
An enumeration of the buildings destroyed would be a directory of San
Francisco. An enumeration of the buildings undestroyed would be a line and
several addresses. An enumeration of the deeds of heroism would stock a library
and bankrupt the Carnegie medal fund. An enumeration of the dead will never
be made. All vestiges of them were destroyed by the flames. The number of the
victims of the earthquake will never be known.”
Excerpt from
The Story of an Eyewitness: The San Francisco Earthquake
By Jack London

11. From the Testimony of Jeanne Levy
About Wanting to Live and Wanting to Die in Auschwitz-Birkenau
“Now, this "rivier", that was kind of "Dante's inferno". There was a little bit farther
away was a girl lying that was a neighbor of Greet of Amsterdam, in the Jewish quarter.
And she was lying there and she was crying, "I would like to die, I would like to die. I
will not live." And Greet spoke to her and said to her also in Dutch, "Mariege, you are so
nice, you are so beautiful. The boys were standing in rows. You have to be strong, you
have to go through that."....(not clear) Now Greet got better and was sent out, so I tried
to speak with Mariege and said, "I heard from Greet how the boys stood in a row and
really, Mariege, you have to be strong and to try to be better. You will get better." She
said, "Ah, what do you know? What do you know? I lie here in my own dirt already days
and I would like to die and I have to die. I can't live any longer." And that went on and
then she didn't stop saying "I will die, I will die, I will die." And suddenly it stopped and
where she lay they broke through. The beds there were only some wooden planks and
some instead of one were three or five only lying and there we were lying on. And then
the second went - she was in the upper bed - the second broke down and then the third
and I thought aren't I lucky that I was not lying there, but the nurses didn't like to bring
her outside - those who died they put outside and the "dead commando" came to fetch
them in the morning...”

12. How Mark Twain Conquered Stage Fright
“It was dark and lonely behind the scenes in that theater, and I peeked through the little
peek holes they have in theater curtains and looked into the big auditorium. That was
dark and empty, too. By and by it lighted up, and the audience began to arrive.
I had got a number of friends of mine, stalwart men, to sprinkle themselves through the
audience armed with big clubs. Every time I said anything they could possibly guess I
intended to be funny, they were to pound those clubs on the floor. Then there was a kind
lady in a box up there, also a good friend of mine, the wife of the governor. She was to
watch me intently, and whenever I glanced toward her she was going to deliver a
gubernatorial laugh that would lead the whole audience into applause.
At last I began. I had the manuscript tucked under a United States flag in front of me
where I could get at it in case of need. But I managed to get started without it. I walked
up and down--I was young in those days and needed the exercise--and talked and talked.
Right in the middle of the speech I had placed a gem. I had put in a moving, pathetic part
which was to get at the hearts and souls of my hearers. When I delivered it they did just
what I hoped and expected. They sat silent and awed. I had touched them. Then I
happened to glance up at the box where the Governor's wife was--you know what
happened.”
Excerpt from
How I Conquered Stage Fright
by Mark Twain (1835-1910)

13. Help me to remember…

14. Help me to forget…
“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”
~William Shakespeare~

15. Through texts, we can extend our communities
and learn from the experiences of others.
“I am a reflection of my community.”
-TUPAC SHAKUR

16. When we see ourselves in
what we read, we are hooked.

17. Reading
and
Responding
HISTORICAL FICTION
School: PS 6
Title: Book Club Conversation
meeting Common Core
expectations
Synopsis: A video of a fifth
grade book club from PS 6
engaging in accountable talk
around historical fiction at
grade-level text complexity.

18. Grade 05 Video: Text-based Discussion
(next slide)
Narrated by Lucy Calkins

19. #2 Levels of Meaning
Question: Does the text offer multiple levels of
meaning (e.g., readily accessible, moderate challenge,
sophisticated) as readers progress from decoding to
meaning-making and ultimately to meaning-use?

20. Factors that influence
access to meaning
Low High
Simple, conventional structures Complex, implicit structures
Events relayed in chronological order
(literary)
Frequent flashbacks/forwards
(literary)
Common genres/subgenres
(informational)
Variety of structures, discipline-specific
(informational)
Literal, conversational language Figurative, archaic/unfamiliar language
Shallow cultural/literary/disciplinary
knowledge necessary
Deep cultural/literary/disciplinary
knowledge necessary

21. {
Read me
Works that have text appeal
(even as levels of meaning are considered)

22. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
- from Macbeth (Act5,Scene5)
William Shakespeare

23. “Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or
feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but,
because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be
feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because
this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false,
cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they
will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when
the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And
that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other
precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments,
and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they
are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon;”
Excerpt from Chapter XVII
Is it better to be loved or feared?
Machiavelli

24. “It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively,
finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I
had covered myself with some clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the
dews of night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish,
nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.
Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up
and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees. [The moon] I gazed with a kind of
wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of
berries. I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I
covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was
confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my
ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could distinguish was
the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.”
Excerpt from Chapter 11
FRANKENSTEIN
Mary Shelly

25. Food for Thought
Selecting texts for student
reading should not only
depend on text complexity
but also on considerations
of quality and coherence.

26. Quantitative Features of Texts:
Measures Both Useful and Imperfect

27. #3 Features of the Text
Question: Consider the quantitative features of the text
(features difficult to evaluate without using computer
software). How might certain textual features help or
hinder reading comprehension?

28. The quantitative dimension of text complexity refers to
those aspects—such as word frequency, sentence length,
and text cohesion (just to name a few)—that are difficult
for a human reader to evaluate when examining a text.
These factors are more efficiently measured by computer
programs.
MEASURE

29. ATOS by Renaissance Learning takes into account three
variables: words per sentence,
average grade level of words
(established via the Graded
Vocabulary List), and characters per
word.
Flesch-Kincaid (public domain) uses word and sentence length as
proxies for semantic and syntactic
complexity respectively (i.e., proxies
for vocabulary difficulty and sentence
structure).
The Lexile® Framework For Reading
by MetaMetrics
Lexile® measures are expressed as
numeric measures followed by an “L”
(for example, 850L), which are then
placed on the Lexile® scale for
measuring reader ability and text
complexity (ranging from below 200L
for beginning readers and beginning-
reader materials to above 1600L for
advanced readers and materials).

30. Degrees of Reading Power® (DRP®) by
Questar Assessment, Inc.
The DRP Analyzer employs a derivation of a
Bormuth mean cloze readability formula based on
three measureable features of text: word length,
sentence length, and word familiarity. DRP text
difficulty is expressed in DRP units on a
continuous scale with a theoretical range from 0
to 100.
Reading Maturity by Pearson Education The Pearson Reading Maturity Metric uses the
computational language model Latent Semantic
Analysis (LSA) to estimate how much language
experience is required to achieve adult knowledge
of the meaning of each word, sentence, and
paragraph in a text.
SourceRater by Educational Testing
Service
SourceRater employs a variety of natural language
processing techniques to extract evidence of text
standing relative to eight construct-relevant
dimensions of text variation: syntactic complexity,
vocabulary difficulty, level of abstractness,
referential cohesion, connective cohesion, degree
of academic orientation, degree of narrative
orientation, and paragraph structure.

31. {
Read me
Works that have text appeal
(consider quantitative text features)

32. A quick revisit

33. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
- from Macbeth (Act5,Scene5)
William Shakespeare
Lexile score = 950

34. “Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or
feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but,
because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be
feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because
this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false,
cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they
will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when
the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And
that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other
precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments,
and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they
are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon;”
Excerpt from Chapter XVII
Is it better to be loved or feared?
Machiavelli
Lexile score = 1170

35. “It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively,
finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I
had covered myself with some clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the
dews of night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish,
nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.
Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of pleasure. I started up
and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees. [The moon] I gazed with a kind of
wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of
berries. I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I
covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was
confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my
ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could distinguish was
the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.”
Excerpt from Chapter 11
FRANKENSTEIN
Mary Shelly
Lexile score = 810
Where does this fall within the
CCSS grade bands?

36. Remember, quantitative measures of
complexity are both useful and imperfect.

37. WHEN SELECTING TEXTS
CONSIDER ALL 3 FACTORS
Potential for reader
engagement/interaction
Levels of meaning
Features of the text

38. Fair Use
“Fair Use” doctrine gives teachers more latitude than others when it
comes to copyright for educational purposes (Aufderheide & Jaszi, 2011).
Search for Texts Online
Google Books
Bartleby
Literature
Poetry
Gutenberg

39.  National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers,
Washington D.C., 2010.
 www.gutenberg.org (sample public domain
works)
 http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/
wade/
 http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-
Literacy/standard-10-range-quality-
complexity/range-of-text-types-for-612
 http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/resou
rce_center/item.asp?GATE=Z&list_type=2-
24&type_id=5&total=N
 http://www.lexile.com/using-lexile/lexile-
measures-and-the-ccssi/text-complexity-grade-
bands-and-lexile-ranges/
 http://readingandwritingproject.com/resources/co
mmon-core-standards/ccs-videos.html
REFERENCES