Choosing Texts: Do the Common Core State Standards leave room for teacher discretion?

by Magedah Shabo

No one likes the idea of forced conformity and “one size fits all” solutions. Not surprisingly, one of the chief concerns we hear from teachers about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is that they seem to take a cookie-cutter approach to improving education.

Indeed, the standards do represent a general push toward standardization, as their name implies. Perhaps most conspicuously, they propose a universal shift toward more difficult texts and tasks than have traditionally been assigned in recent decades. In the English Language Arts category, there is an emphasis on teaching literary and informational texts that are significantly more difficult than those currently taught in most American schools.

In the Common Core literature, this upward shift in text complexity is described in the rather arcane language of the Lexile Framework, as shown in the chart below.

Text Complexity Grade Bands and Associated Lexile Ranges
(CCSS English Language Arts Appendix A, page 8)

Looking at these charts and figures, many educators fear that the standards do not adequately account for the variation among students and classrooms. Is it really feasible to take any given twelfth-grade classroom and suddenly begin teaching what we think of as college-level texts? What about the students who are struggling with the less challenging literature they are currently being assigned?

One educator who serves on Prestwick House’s National Curriculum Advisory Board described the concerns of many when she told us, “The idea that all students can learn to the same level of understanding, while high-minded, is just not true.”

There is good news, though. Within the CCSS framework, there is still room for teachers to exercise personal discretion and choose texts that make sense for their students.

The standards do not require teachers to do any of the following:

• Replace human judgment with Lexile scores.
• Disregard students’ abilities and backgrounds.
• Teach from a prescribed list.

What, then, are the standards proposing for the text-selection process?

The CCSS identify three factors to consider when gauging text complexity:

1. qualitative measures
2. quantitative measures
3. reader and task considerations

These three factors are depicted in the standards’ Appendix A as three parts of a triangle—and each element is given equal weight.

It’s important to note that the quantitative element—a computer-generated number, such as a Lexile score—is only one part of the triangle. This is the only factor that is not ultimately left to the judgment of a human being, whether it be a district administrator or an individual teacher.

What’s more, the standards directly state that quantitative measures are not always accurate and should not be used to overrule the judgments of educators. Appendix A says that educators are expected to balance quantitative and qualitative considerations by “employ[ing] professional judgment to match texts to particular students and tasks” (page 7). Quantitative measures will, in fact, be outweighed by the other two-thirds of the triangle in many cases.

In upcoming posts, I’ll be talking about the strengths and limitations of the Lexile Framework and other quantitative measures, as well as their proper application. I’ll also be unpacking the more subjective factors in selecting CCSS-appropriate reading assignments—the “qualitative” and “reader and task” considerations. When it comes to choosing texts for your classroom, the Common Core standards may not be quite as limiting as they initially seem.

Magedah Shabo is the creator and co-author of Prestwick House's Reading Informational Texts series. She is a writer, editor, and community college instructor. Her works are taught in secondary and post-secondary classrooms across the United States and have been featured on reading lists for courses at Harvard, George Mason, Fordham, and American University.

Author Interview with Rhetoric, Logic, & Argumentation Author, Magedah Shabo

This Friday, August 20th, Prestwick House will debut our newest title, Rhetoric, Logic, & Argumentation. Author, Magedah Shabo, has agreed to speak about her experiences in writing this unique guide to writing using the concept of rhetoric, how this project has influenced her personally, and how this comprehensive text will improve your writing classes.


How does this book differ from more traditional texts?


I don't know of any other book that treats logic as a tool for writers. That's probably the most unique thing about this text: the fact that it gives logic its proper place in the language-arts classroom, as the primary mode of rhetorical persuasion.



It may not be universal practice to teach logic in the context of communication these days, but the idea certainly isn't new. In fact, it's straight out of Aristotle. The book is really based on a classical understanding of what a student must know in order to communicate well.



Why do you think it is important for students to learn about rhetorical appeals, logic, and logical fallacies?


The Common Core standards are the most pressing reason for teaching these skills at present. The standards for reading and writing require that students perform logical analyses and write sound arguments. If students haven't studied rhetorical appeals or the basics of logic, they'll have to rely on guesswork and intuition as they work toward these goals. But students who've studied these subjects will have the advantage of understanding the legitimate methods of persuasion, how logic works, and what a sound argument looks like.



The point isn't simply to fulfill the standards for their own sake, though. The idea is to teach what benefits students the most—and the Common Core Initiative makes a great case for emphasizing these subjects. In their publications, they say that the ability to write a sound argument is a major determiner of success both in college and in the workforce. For those who are interested, there's a section dedicated to this topic in the standards' Appendix A, called "The Special Place of Argument in the Standards."


What sorts of examples and exercises are included in the text?

Many of the examples in the book are taken from famous works of literature. The rhetoric section includes several speeches that illustrate the different approaches to persuasion, and the logic portion of the text includes fallacious quotes from several fictional characters.



As for the exercises, they range from simple multiple-choice to complex analysis questions. Some of my favorite exercises are the ones that ask students to imitate a given example of a fallacious argument or to evaluate a famous quote from a logical perspective. These exercises should help students achieve some of the Common Core writing standards.



How do you envision teachers using this book in their classrooms?



There are a few different ways to approach the text. Teachers can cover the entire book, or they can focus on a discrete unit, like the section on rhetoric or the chapter on the ad hominem fallacy. The material is concise, and it's divided into short chapters, so it should lend itself well to the time constraints of a classroom situation.

The book was written with AP Language classes in mind, but it could really be used to help students fulfill the reading or writing standards in any advanced course. It should be useful in lessons on composition, rhetoric, speech, debate, or analyzing nonfiction. We've also had a teacher suggest using the text to accompany novels like 1984 and Brave New World.



What level of student is this book appropriate for?


The teachers on our review board seem to think that the book could benefit students at various levels. The general consensus is that it's ideally suited to the intended AP-Language audience, but several teachers have said they'd like to introduce the book's concepts to pre-AP students in tenth or even ninth grade. Others have recommended using the text in composition courses at the college level.

The text scores a 9.7 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grace Level test, which is supposed to correspond roughly to a tenth-grade reading level.



What was your favorite part of the book to write?

One aspect of the book that was particularly fun for me was incorporating classic works of fiction into the text and interacting with them. I enjoyed interrupting fictional conversations to point out fallacious arguments from Huck Finn and Professor Pangloss, among others.

The whole book was a pleasure to write, though. The topics of rhetoric and logic are fascinating, and I learned a lot in the process.


What new projects are around the corner?

I'm currently working on a book that's geared towards the Common Core's Reading Informational Texts standards. This book is still in the concept stage right now, but the idea is to compile a group of grade-appropriate texts and use them to walk students through the reading standards.




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Related Post:

• What are Teacher Reviewers Saying About Rhetoric, Logic, & Argumentation?
• Prestwick House Releases Innovative Writing Guide Based on Rhetoric, Logic, & Argumentation

Dihydrogen Monoxide: A Killer in the English Classroom

Have you heard about the colorless, odorless, tasteless chemical killer that’s lurking in your classroom every day of the school year? It’s in the beverages your students are drinking. It’s in the air every time someone coughs. And it’s even in your own body.

Dihydrogen monoxide is a compound that’s used in the manufacture of common plastics, and it’s also a major component of both acid rain and tumor cells. It can cause severe burns, and inhaling even small amounts of this substance can be fatal for humans, according to Dr. Tom Way of the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division. This chemical has been changing the face of our environment and posing health risks for centuries now, but very little has been done to curb the tide of its destruction.

Now, before you start petitioning the school board or drafting a bill to put before Congress, there’s one more minor detail you should know about dihydrogen monoxide—its chemical symbol is H­2O. That’s right; it’s just an obscure term for water. But if you were taken in by this sensationalistic report, you’re in good company. Similar accounts about the dangers of water have been in circulation for decades, and they’ve duped many intelligent people into signing petitions and proposing bans on this substance that’s absolutely essential to life on earth.

Fortunately, this little prank does more than just annoy its victims—and it really does relate to the English classroom outside of your students’ Nalgenes. That’s because it’s a perfect illustration of how language-arts lessons can be useful in real life. The fact is, from the time we pull out the Toasty Os at breakfast to the minute we turn on the evening news, we’re constantly bombarded with persuasive messages. And while many of the claims we’re exposed to might be perfectly factual, they can still be just as deceptive as the opening paragraphs of this blog post. That’s why the analytical skills we develop in the English classroom are so vital to success in academia and in the outside world. When we learn to identify and properly use persuasive techniques, we are better prepared to recognize the pretexts behind the various texts we encounter, and we're better equipped to make responsible, well-informed decisions.

For some teaching resources that will help your students develop a more critical eye, check out the following Prestwick House titles:


Techniques of Propaganda and Persuasion
The Language of Politicians
The Language of Advertising Claims


Now available: Rhetoric, Logic, and Argumentation: A Guide for Student Writers

Meet Prestwick House Writer, Magedah Shabo

An anthology of pertinent African American literature that covers a variety of authors, genres, and historical periods is difficult to come by — and finding one that's affordable is nearly impossible. With those needs in mind, Prestwick House created African American Literature: A Concise Anthology from Frederick Douglass to Toni Morrison.

Magedah Shabo, editor of this compact, 232-page anthology has agreed to speak about her experiences compiling some of the works of great African American authors, how this project has influenced her personally, and how this anthology will improve literature classes.

This anthology is very concise but contains a great variety of writers. How did you choose the authors and selections for this anthology? What books most influenced your choices?

I designed this book with the goal of covering a wide variety of genres, time periods, and viewpoints, all within the small space of about two-hundred pages. I had noticed that, while there are some excellent African American lit anthologies available, none are concise enough or inexpensive enough to be useful in high school classrooms.

In developing a high school-friendly anthology, I naturally wanted to include some of the canon essentials, like Langston Hughes’s poetry and excerpts from famous works by W.E.B. DuBois and Frederick Douglass. At the same time, I also wanted to make this a truly valuable and unique resource by including some pieces that are less accessible to most high school classrooms—works by lesser-known writers like Lucy Terry and Jessie Redmon Fauset, a rarely-published short story by Toni Morrison, and so on.

The short story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison is a great example of modern African American literature that is not included in many other anthologies. How did you end up including this story in the collection?

“Recitatif” is a brilliant story, and I’m glad it will be making its way into high schools through this anthology. It was almost impossible to teach this text before we published our collection; in fact, I don’t believe it’s even in print anywhere else at present.

This is a story about two women, one black and one white, whose lives intersect at several points over the course of about three decades. One of the remarkable things about this piece is that you never find out which woman is black and which is white. The characters interact over random fragments of history—the death of Jimi Hendrix, the rise of IBM, desegregation busing—and although the narrative explores racial tensions, it never allows the reader to comfortably consign either woman to a racial category.

The selections in the anthology are arranged in chronological order, and this is the last piece in the book. We begin with Colonial-era poetry written by slaves, and we conclude with this story from the 1980s that seems to question the meaning and legitimacy of race altogether. I thought that was a great way to end the anthology.

What is the general message that ties together the selections in this anthology? What would you like your readers to grasp after reading it?

I wouldn’t say there is any particular message that unifies these selections. I think that our writers’ shared legacies of African American history and culture are reason enough for anthologizing these works together—such a collection gives us personal, artistic accounts of events we usually read about as cold, dead history, and it allows us to compare different points of view on these issues and experiences. But imposing any sort of thematic or ideological unity on such a collection would have required heavy editorializing, if not censorship.

For example, I would never have been able to pair Booker T. Washington with his legendary detractor, W.E.B. DuBois, if we were aiming to present a cohesive message; that would have meant losing one side of a fascinating conversation, and it would have been a misrepresentation of black literature and history.

In short, no, we didn’t attempt to moralize through this book. However, there is a quote on the back cover that I believe will provoke thought and discussion among readers. The quote reads, “Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.” I believe the indictment is, in other words, that the study of black literature is too often performed condescendingly—it’s treated as an act of magnanimity, rather than simply as literary analysis. I think this quote will engage readers with the question of how black literature is and ought to be and studied.

Which selection in the anthology is your favorite and why?

As much as I admire many of the other pieces in the collection, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl stands out to me as a favorite. It’s a nonfiction work, so you can read it for its historical value alone. But on top of that, you get the pleasure of reading a story that has all the suspense and poetry of a romance. There’s even a philosophical side to this piece.

You’ll see the depths of human depravity in some of Jacobs’s accounts, but in the same text you’ll also see glimpses of a sublime grace and mercy shining through some of the characters. It’s quite a rewarding study. We’ve excerpted the book in the anthology, but I would encourage anyone who hasn’t read the entire narrative to pick up a copy. Prestwick House provides the full version of this text in our Literary Touchstone Classic line.

If you could meet one of the authors included in the anthology (living or dead), which would it be and why?

Each one of these authors has lived a remarkable life, but if I could interview only one, I would probably choose Phillis Wheatley. I say that because there seems to be something about literacy that makes living in slavery a particularly maddening experience—Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass both indicate as much in their narratives—and I would love to hear Wheatley’s full, uncensored story, as one who was all at once a scholar, a renowned prodigy, and a piece of property. I imagine she would have had an incredible tale to tell. Unfortunately, unlike Jacobs and Douglass, Wheatley died at a young age and never recorded her full story, so we can only imagine.

How do you think this anthology will improve literature classes? In what ways do you think this anthology will affect modern high school students?

I hope that having access to this anthology will inspire more teachers to tackle some of the great works we’ve included here, including some of those that are perhaps controversial or simply obscure. There’s a wealth of history, creativity, eloquence, and skill on display in this book, and I’m certain it will enrich the educational experiences of teachers and students alike.

What new projects are around the corner for Prestwick House?

I’m currently working on a book about reasoning and argumentation. The ability to think clearly and to recognize and interpret different kinds of persuasive techniques is essential to good writing and analysis, and this next book will be focused on sharpening these skill sets. It should be particularly useful for AP Language and Composition classes.

Happy 50th, Strunk & White

Strunk and White’s wildly popular Elements of Style turned 50 yesterday, and the occasion spurred quite an unexpected fracas in some academic circles. This slim and straightforward guide is said to be the only style manual ever to have appeared in bestseller lists, and in recent years it has even been celebrated with an illustrated edition and a musical adaptation. (No…seriously.) Not bad for a 50-year-old style guide of fewer than a hundred pages, eh?

But not everyone is in love with Elements. In fact, instead of cutting cake and lighting candles for yesterday’s birthday celebration, one indignant academic crashed the party with a stick of dynamite in hand. Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum of the University of Edinburgh marked the anniversary of the guide’s publication with an article called “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice.”

For better or worse, William Strunk and E. B. White’s little book has had a profound impact on the way we’ve been writing for the past 50 years. So if you haven’t yet read it, you might want to pick up a copy and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

National Poetry Month: Prestwick House Recommends...

Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes
(unknown)

Adam
Had ’em.


When asked to write about a favorite poem in honor of National Poetry Month, I considered posting a rambling exposition of Beowulf or Paradise Lost. Fortunately for you, the reader, I decided to instead tackle the opposite end of the poetic spectrum and offer my exegesis of a mere four-syllable couplet, often cited as the world’s shortest poem.

On the surface, it’s a rhyme about bugs. But just below the surface is a slightly more interesting layer, in which the poem can be read as a gentle mockery of poetry itself. These pithy lines caricature several of the genre’s essential characteristics, as well as a few of the poet's common pitfalls. In them, we see the value placed on brevity and verbal precision, the importance of sound, as illustrated through the exaggerated use of rhythm and rhyme, and the poet’s lofty aim of conveying a timeless, universal theme, exemplified here through an allusion to our common ancestor, Adam, and his "lousy" condition. Perhaps more than anything, we see a reflection of the bathos sometimes found in more long-winded, high-minded poetry, in the absurd pairing of a lofty title with a banal subject.

Some will surely say that I’m reading too much into these four syllables. And they’ll probably be right. But regardless of how you read the poem, it’s certainly one that can be used to start a discussion about the poetic genre—its defining features, its diverse forms, and its occasional charming absurdities.

—Magedah Shabo, Staff Writer