56
Deborah Reck
Chief English Language Arts Officer, Amplify Learning
Larry Berger
Chief Executive Officer, Amplify Learning
Your Presenters
The median middle school student reads about
12 minutes a day outside of school.
Reading complex text (or sustained attention to any
text at all) is not winning against TV, video games,
social media and hormones.
The median middle school student reads about
12 minutes a day outside of school.
Reading complex text (or sustained attention to any
text at all) is not winning against TV, video games,
social media and hormones.
But there is hope…
What is a Complex Text?
What is a Complex Text?
M.C. Higgins, the Great Phineas Gage
“You’re getting good,” Jones told him.
M.C. nodded, waiting.
“I wasn’t trying too hard, though,” Jones said.
M.C. had to smile. “Admit you can’t get in,” he said.
“Never,” Jones said.
Oxygen and nutrients can cross
the blood-brain barrier, but
many dangerous substances
like bacteria cannot.
What is a Complex Text?
“A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its
redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails
to make himself felt as such to him who has done the
wrong.”
Tier 2
Quantitative Measures
semantic complexity
+
syntactical complexity
Qualitative Measures
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:”
– William Shakespeare
“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –”
– Emily Dickinson
Qualitative Measures
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:”
– William Shakespeare
“I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a
real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true
enough they would mean many things.”
– Ernest Hemingway
Qualitative Measures
Tasks are where the magic happens.
Tasks are what educators can control.
Tasks can make an encounter with a complex text simple,
or an encounter with a simple text complicated.
Tasks
Tasks can make an encounter with complex texts simple:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that that nation
might live.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate,
we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain—that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom—and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
Tasks
Count how many times the word ‘dedicate’ appears.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that that nation
might live.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate,
we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain—that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom—and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
Tasks
Tasks can make an encounter with complex texts simple:
Count how many times the word ‘dedicate’ appears.
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field as a final resting place for those
who here gave their lives that that nation
might live.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate,
we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain—that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom—and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
Tasks
Tasks can make an encounter with complex texts simple:
Tasks can make a seemingly simple text more complex:
Tasks
OTHELLO: Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Tasks can make a seemingly simple text more complex:
Tasks
OTHELLO: Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
How would the swords end up in the dew?
What does this tell us about what kind of warrior Othello is?
Tasks
Tasks can make a seemingly simple text more complex:
Rigorous and
Riveting
Harlem by Langston Hughes
Working with Text Visually
Harlem by Langston Hughes
Working with Text Visually
Harlem by Langston Hughes
Working with Text Visually
Discovering Patterns in Text
Discovering Patterns in Text
Discovering Patterns in Text
Discovering Patterns in Text
Reading like a movie director
Reading like a movie director
Reading like a movie director
Working with Text Out Loud
Working with Text Out Loud
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
Sequencing of Texts and Tasks
= reading like a scientist
Supporting English Learners
Supporting English Learners
Thank You
Amplify.
Q&A
Thank You
