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Grades 9-12

Determining Text Complexity. Day 2 | Session 1. Grades 9-12. FACILITATOR INTRODUCTION Insert name here. Tanji Reed Marshall is an expert in teacher development, literacy development, curriculum mapping, student engagement. She is earning a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at Virginia Tech.

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Grades 9-12

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  1. Determining Text Complexity Day 2 | Session 1 Grades 9-12

  2. FACILITATOR INTRODUCTIONInsert name here • Tanji Reed Marshall is an expert in teacher development, literacy development, curriculum mapping, student engagement. She is earning a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction at Virginia Tech.

  3. Standards Institute Approach • Support • Access • Rigor • Relevance July 13 - July 17

  4. Norms that Support Our Learning Take responsibility for yourself as a learner Honor timeframes (start, end, activity) Be an active and hands-on learner Use technology to enhance learning Strive for equity of voice Contribute to a learning environment in which it is “safe to not know”

  5. Today’s Sessions Text Set Design and Practice Session 2: Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Session 3: Shifting the Paradigm: A standards- based approach to fiction

  6. Goals and Purpose Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Participants will… Define the three components of text complexity Analyze texts to determine complexity Determine text complexity appropriateness

  7. Agenda Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Understanding text complexity Characteristics of complex text Determining sufficient complexity Group examination of texts and determination of complexity What to do about text complexity

  8. Agenda Writing into the Day… Please read and choose 1 of the following: • Write a haiku defining text complexity • Develop a mathematical equation defining text complexity • Graphically represent your knowledge of text complexity with an original illustration

  9. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityDetermining Text Complexity

  10. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity What Makes a Text Complex? • Carousel • Begin at your assigned text • Read and discuss the text as a group • Determine the elements of complexity contained in your text • List the components of complexity on the chart paper • Rotate and Repeat as directed (use a for repeated ideas)

  11. Let’s Debrief

  12. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityWhat are the Features of Complex Text? • Subtle and/or frequent transitions • Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes • Density of information • Unfamiliar settings, topics or events • Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences 12

  13. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityWhat are the Features of Complex Text? • Complex sentences • Uncommon vocabulary • Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student • Longer paragraphs • Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures 13

  14. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityWhat are the Grammatical and Rhetorical Features of Complex Text? • Information density (e.g. dependent clauses and phrases within sentences); • the use of nominalizations; • passive voice; • a combination of complex and simple sentences; • the use of adverbial clauses and phrases to situate events; • ellipses; • the use of abstract agents as subjects; and • the use of devices for backgrounding and foregrounding information

  15. Embedded adverbials Abstract agent Passive voice Nominalized form of verb “characterize” Relative clause

  16. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityDetermining Text Complexity

  17. The CCR (College and Career Readiness) standards anchor the document and define general, cross-disciplinary literacy expectations that must be met for students to be prepared to enter college and workforce training programs ready to succeed. The K–12 grade-specific standards define end-of-year expectations and a cumulative progression designed to enable students to meet college and career readiness expectations no later than the end of high school. The CCR and high school (grades 9–12) standards work in tandem to define the college and career readiness line—the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity CCSS Recommendations Regarding Text Complexity 17

  18. Facility with complex text strongly predicts ability to an earn a “B” grade or better) in first year college courses. (ACT, 2006.) Students who come to school without a solid base of background knowledge need increasingly complex texts to build their schema about the world. The texts that students read in K-12 have become easier, but college texts have not (and instruction in College is significantly less scaffolded.) The texts that students read in K-12 are often not expository, but the texts that they read in college are mostly expository. What instruction students have had with complex expository texts has been largely superficial/strategy based (skimming, focusing on details, not forming a full picture/deep understanding.) Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Why reading complex text is important 18

  19. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityDetermining Text Complexity

  20. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityExplanation of the Text Complexity Factors Quantitative evaluation of the text • Readability measures and other scores of text complexity Qualitative evaluation of the text • Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands Matching reader to text and task • Reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed)

  21. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityHow many ways to determine complexity? • Determining text complexity is a complex act! • Text complexity does not reside in the text, rather it is the product of the interaction between the text, the reader, and the purpose for reading. The What, the Who, the Why and the Where and When. • What—the characteristics of the text—qualitative/quantitative evaluation • Who—the characteristics of the reader (reading ability/age/experience/ motivation) • Why—the purpose for the reading (assignment/analysis of writer’s craft/ research/pleasure) • Where and When—the conditions of the reading—teacher/parent guided, group discussion/literary circle, independent (classroom/home/library/computer), instruction vs. assessment, etc.

  22. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Quantitative Measures There is no single method for determining text complexity. • The quantitative dimension of text complexity refers to those aspects that are difficult for a human reader to evaluate when examining a text. • These factors are more efficiently measured by computer programs.

  23. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Text Complexity: Quantitative Measures • Quantitative measures of text complexity generally measure measures of word difficulty (frequency, length) and sentence length. • Some metrics add other features of words, sentence syntax, and text cohesion, creating a broader range of text and linguistic measures.

  24. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Free Quantitative Measures of Text Complexity • ATOS Analyzer from Renaissance Learning: https://www.renaissance.com/products/accelerated-reader/atos-analyzer • Degrees of Reading Power from Questar: http://textcomplexity.questarai.com/getdrp/ • The Lexile Framework from Metamatrix: http://www.lexile.com/analyzer • Reading Maturity from Pearson Knowledge Technologies: http://www.readingmaturity.com (Beta site) • SourceRater from Educators Testing Service: https://texteval-pilot.ets.org/TextEvaluator/ • Flesch-Kincaid (part of your Microsoft Word)

  25. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Text Complexity Grade Bands and Associated Ranges from Measures

  26. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Text Complexity: Qualitative Measurements

  27. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Text Complexity: Qualitative Measurements

  28. Session 1: Determining Text Complexity Practice Evaluation of Text Complexity In pairs or triads, read literature text #1 (Dickens) and discuss where it might fit in terms of the following qualitative criteria in the text complexity rubric. • Meaning • Text Structure • Language Features • Knowledge Demands THEN, using the quantitative measures provided, place it in a grade band for instruction and assessment….

  29. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: Dickens NOTES: By beginning with Marley's death, the theme is arrived at in a non-linear manner and conveyed with some subtlety.

  30. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: Dickens NOTES: Again, by beginning with Marley's death, and including diversions about idioms, and given the stress on the death without revealing its import, the author includes some non-linear/discursive elements that add to the text’s structural complexity.

  31. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: Dickens NOTES: Text includes some ironic, figurative language and discussion of figurative language, archaic language and references, and a variety of sentence structures.

  32. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: Dickens NOTES: The text makes multiple allusions to other texts/cultural elements, including "the Country", "Hamlet," "Nature lived hard by," some of these references can be partially explained in context.

  33. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: Dickens OVERALL QUANTITATIVE COMPLEXITY RATINGS OVERALL QUALITATIVE COMPLEXITY RATING AND PLACEMENT Very Complex/Moderately Complex Appropriate for 9-10 instruction/ 11-12 assessment

  34. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityGroup Evaluation of Text Complexity In pairs or triads, review informational text #1 on page 14 (Red Jacket ) and use the qualitative rubric to determine the ratings in each of the qualitative criteria: • Meaning • Text Structure • Language Features • Knowledge Demands THEN, using the quantitative measures provided, place it in a grade band for instruction and assessment…. NOTE: the criteria are different for informational text….

  35. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: RED JACKET

  36. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity: RED JACKET OVERALL QUANTITATIVE COMPLEXITY RATINGS OVERALL QUALITATIVE COMPLEXITY RATING AND PLACEMENT Moderately Complex Appropriate for 9-10 instruction/ 11-12 assessment

  37. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityPractice Evaluation of Text Complexity What about Literature text # 3 (Kafka) or #5 (Poe)? What about informational text # 3 (Thoreau) or #4 (Sagan?) How do these texts feature specific aspects of qualitative text complexity ? For example: Kafka in terms of language features; Thoreau in terms of structure and/or meaning

  38. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityA Closer Look at Text Structure

  39. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityGetting to the Sentence Level in high School to Support Reading and Writing Looking at the qualitative rubric, what are the aspects of complexity that are manifested in text structure? e.g Text features? Plot and sub-plot? Connections between ideas and organization?

  40. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityA look at Text Organization Paragraphs/Sentences Overarching Ideas/Texts • Sequence (Process) Structure • Chronology • Events/Description • Compare/Contrast • Cause/Effect • Problem-Solution Structure • Judgment/Critique Structure • Proposition- Support • Inductive/Deductive Reasoning

  41. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityProficient vs. Less Experienced Readers Less experienced readers have difficulty organizing and prioritizing text information. Students who can follow a regular narrative can confused by other text structures Proficient readers use awareness of text structures to understand key points of the text. When asked to recall or process what they have read, their summaries reflect the text organization

  42. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityText Complexity • Teachers need to understand the text complexity of what they provide to students... AND FOR STRUGGLING STUDENTS, • Teachers need to demonstrate and make visible to students how literacy operates within a text, helping them learn how content experts use language in characteristic ways to present information, engage in interpretation, and create specialized texts.

  43. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityRewards and Challenges Turn and discuss: The rewards and challenges to taking students through text at this level. How this fits into tier 1 and tier 2 instruction in the RTI model; who gets this deep dive, and how do we determine?

  44. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityWhat Next? • What are your key take-aways about complex text? • What are the best ways to prepare students for reading complex text? • volume of reading • modeling/practicing how literate individuals approach complexity • Students must build their academic vocabulary • Students must build their knowledge about the world

  45. Session 1: Determining Text ComplexityReference List

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