Text Complexity Alissa Hall SPHS Retreat Fall 2014

Questions to ponder…  What is a text?  What are some examples of complex texts that need to be studied in high school?  What is currently concerning me about or hindering me from using complex texts in my classroom?

What is a text?  Anything that can be referred back to and studied to derive meaning from it

What makes a text complex?  Complexity of knowledge : The primary purpose of the text is to communicate information.  Complexity of ideas : The ideas in the text communicate something substantive or connected to a universal theme.  Complexity of structure : The way the text is organized requires readers to stop and think.  Complexity of craft : The language, vocabulary, or sentence structure of the text demand attention. The author may employ devices, such as metaphor or alliteration, which make the meaning of the text more subtle. Most texts will be complex in more than one of these categories.

In other words, these texts have RSVP:  Relationships —Interactions among ideas or characters in the text are subtle, involved, or deeply embedded.  Richness —The text possesses a sizable amount of highly sophisticated information conveyed through data or literary devices.  Structure —The text is organized in ways that are elaborate and sometimes unconventional.  Style —The author's tone and use of language are often intricate.  Vocabulary —The author's choice of words is demanding and highly context-dependent.  Purpose —The author's intent in writing the text is implicit and sometimes ambiguous.

Text Complexity MYTH #1:  Assigning texts is something that is only done in English classes.  Every discipline has texts and discourse that is specific to its field.  To fully benefit, every discipline must incorporate complex texts into their lesson plans.

Text Complexity MYTH #2:  Teachers should teach a long complex text to be effective with text complexity.  The task and the text must be a good match: The more difficult the task, the more difficult the concept, the more accessible the text.  Start with accessible texts and consistently work up.  The way we layer texts also affects complexity. Bundling texts requires students to dig deeper by comparing structure, vocabulary, content, and concept in various texts.

Text Complexity MYTH #3:  Putting a difficult text in front of students means we’re making them better readers.  Harder is sometimes just harder, not more rigorous. Rigor is in the engagement.  Struggling at the lowest level (decoding) is different from struggling at the highest level (analysis).  Rigor resides in the energy and attention given to the text.

Text Complexity MYTH #3:  The most important aspect of teaching complex texts is that students comprehend the text itself.  Students must be taught skills (questioning, making inferences, paraphrasing, tracing an argument or thought); text structure; and how to question the text.  Students need to read what’s in the text (the 4 corners), behind the text, and beyond the text.  It’s not about reading; it’s about teaching students to read as [insert your discipline].

Activities to Engage Students in Texts:  Poster Activity: Place a small text on a posterboard. For a designated period of time, students are to read the text, writing comments and questions on the posterboard. No talking. They should be encouraged to dialogue with others. Once time is up, groups switch and read comments from other groups, commenting on those as well.  Stations: Assign all students the same text. Students are placed in a station and asked to read the text for a specific purpose, discuss with partners, then move to the next station.  1) text-dependent questions  2) academic vocabulary – some defined in text itself  3) style  4) fluency  Possible Sentences  KWL 2.0

Activity: Possible Sentences  Ecuador  no longer attend school  child labor laws  forced to work  250 million kids  12-hour workdays  as little as $27 a week  70% of the kids  climbing banana trees  protect young workers

Activity: KWL 2.0

How do I do this in my classroom? Science and technical subjects  Show students the close connections among alternative representations of constructs (e.g., prose, graphs, charts, formulas).  Explicitly teach how to use abstracts, endnotes, etc.  Explicitly teach specialized vocabulary (e.g., common words with highly specialized subject area meaning).  Analyze syntax (e.g., apposition: “animals that eat plants, herbivores, may be.…”).  Teach the knowledge required to develop a full understanding of experiments or processes. History and Social Studies  Demonstrate (model) and discuss how authors and sourcing are central in interpretation.  Contextualize time and place.  Use multiple texts.  Evaluate information across sources.  Explicitly teach how to read historic documents (e.g., deconstruct complex sentence, pre-teach arcane or archaic vocabulary). More advice/examples found at Reading in the Disciplines report.

The Importance of This?  Giving students text complexity means giving them a variety of texts to create opportunity to transfer their learning.  Students need exposure to a range of informational texts.  Texts need to be more complex for students to be college/career ready.  Need close reading, not just skimming and scanning for facts  Too much time building background, not enough close reading  Emphasis on argument/evidence  Read, reread more difficult shorter texts