Implications for the Common Core: Getting Started with Text Complexity

by Carol Brown Dodson

In the six years that Adolescent Literacy In Perspective was published on the ORC website, the online magazine included a column titled "A Look at the OGT." These thirty-five archived columns are still available and valuable, not only for helping to prepare for the OGT, but also for finding methods other than using practice tests to prepare for any large-scale assessment. In addition, the columns include formative assessments with suggestions for intervention.

ORC has created a new column for In Perspective that replaces the OGT columns. And, in fact, you are reading the first one. The new column will focus on implications for planning instruction to teach, assess, and provide intervention for the Common Core (also referred to as CCSS and the Core).

A good way to begin is to focus on the words of NCTE author Sarah Brown Wessling, who offers inspiring ways to think about the CCSS and reminds us that the Core standards are more than a checklist of tasks. She views the standards as a map for student learning filled with rich, open-ended questions and learning experiences. Wessling's keynote speech for Chicago teachers is captured in a You Tube video which is 18 minutes long and includes a great deal of information. You might want to view parts of the video and stop to review some of the Common Core standards. If you are viewing the video with colleagues, Wessling's comments can be used to inspire rich discussions of the implication for instruction as we transition to the Common Core.

What Are People Saying About the New Tests?

Some are saying not to worry about the new tests. They won't be given until 2014. Others warn that districts must embrace the Common Core State Standards now and that teachers must increase the rigor of their instruction.

Ohio's superintendent of public instruction Stan Heffner is credited by the Cleveland Plain Dealer (March 24, 2012) with saying, "The report cards will also show predicted grades for when the new, more rigorous learning standards and state tests take effect in three years." Heffner's comment is made in reference to the school report cards that will be issued during each of the three years before the new tests are in place.

The Columbus Dispatch published its predictions, based on state test data from the Ohio Department of Education, that show how percentages of students passing the new state tests would drop if the tests were given now. In her column "Harder Tests = Fewer Passing," on April 8, 2012, Dispatch education columnist Jennifer Smith Richards included a chart, reprinted below, comparing current passing rates in central Ohio school districts to predicted passing rates.

As you view the chart, note that predicted drops are severe for both high-performing and low-performing school districts. Upper Arlington's reading scores are predicted to fall from the current 94.3 percent passing rate to 65.4 percent.

What Can Teachers Do?

Two of the major shifts in the CCSS reading strand are the emphasis on text complexity and the emphasis on close reading. This issue of In Perspective provides suggestions from teachers and experts in the field for increasing the rigor of learning by scaffolding students as they read challenging texts, including novels, nonfiction books, drama, poetry, and short stories.

Here are some things you can do right now.

1. Read the CCSS.
   1. The Maine Department of Education suggests that you think of Appendix A as a preface to the ELA Core that should be read first.
   2. The department also recommends reading Appendix B side by side with the reading standards.
   
   
2. Work with others at department or grade-level meetings by:
1. Reviewing whole-class books to determine text complexity, using the criteria found in Appendix A of the CCSS. Remember that it's essential to use your professional judgment in making the decision.
2. Talking about how you can stop asking students the "what" of the text and focus more on the layers of meaning and major questions addressed by the text.


3. Gather lists of additional texts to use before or during the reading of a fulcrum text.
   In her book Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts, Grades 9–12 (Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2011), Sarah Brown Wessling addresses text complexity and close reading by looking at three types of texts: context texts, fulcrum texts, and texture texts. She defines context texts as "accessible ‘anchor' texts that create a reservoir of prior knowledge that gives context to the complexity of further reading." Instead of introducing a novel with a summary of the book or a lecture about the background needed to read the book, Wessling might start with a short story, poetry, a film excerpt, or a number of other kinds of text. The fulcrum text is usually the "traditional whole-class text," perhaps a book, a collection of short stories, or drama. She then uses texture texts to "juxtapose two major texts to create reading texture" (p. 24).
   
   
4. Ask text-dependent questions.
1. Review the questions you currently ask students when they read a class novel. If they ask the "what" questions, try substituting "what if" and "why" questions.
2. Develop questions that cause students to search the text for answers, not for a word or phrase, but for a layer of meaning or an analysis of character.


5. Visit the Ohio Department of Education website regularly at http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEPrimary.aspx?page=2&TopicRelationID=1699.
   
   
6. Watch for future issues of In Perspective. Each issue will focus on a key component of the CCSS. Topics for the next three issues are:
   Close Reading and Reader Response
   Digital Writing and e-Reading
   Writing Arguments
   
   

Carol Brown Dodson is the outreach specialist for the Ohio Resource Center. Dodson was an English language arts consultant for the Ohio Department of Education and is past president of OCTELA (Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts). Dodson, formerly a high school English teacher, department chair, and supervisor of English language arts in Columbus Public Schools, serves on the Ohio Graduation Test Reading Content Committee.

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