An article by Blaine Greteman in The New Republic reports that “lexile ratings” have been assigned to various novels by the Common Core standards. Greteman is an English professor at the University of Iowa. Lexile ratings score readings according to their difficulty level.
This is too absurd to be true, yet The New Republic is not known for publishing satire. According to the article, “Sports Illustrated for Kids: Awesome Athletes” has a higher lexile rating than “Jane Eyre” or “Huckleberry Finn” or “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Please, someone, do a reality check. Is this possible? This is too absurd for words, at least mine.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The post in THE NEW REPUBLIC assumes that text complexity is determined solely by quantitative measures, with a particular preference for the Lexile approach to measurement. What the author of THE NEW REPUBLIC overlooks is that this is only one of the three ways in which CCSS determines text complexity. CCSS uses a triangle metaphor: one side represents the quantitatively measured difficulty level (e.g., Lexile et al); the second qualitative measures (the very issues of metaphor, theme, etc., that the author reports), and the third is “reader and task” (what the reader already knows and what the reader is expected to do with the text). It is explicit in the CCSS documentation that teacher expertise should be relied upon when determining appropriateness of a text. When I first encountered the triangle, I was relieved that we were no longer measuring texts just based on a number. I think the NEW REPUBLIC author would be relieved to hear that the complaint he articulates is already being addressed. Now, if there are districts that aren’t following these guidelines (especially the part about teacher expertise), then shame on them, but that’s not what CCSS says, and we should be showing those administrators the CCSS language — adopted by our states — that says we should get it.
That’s not the way the apparatchik conducting so-called Professional Development framed it to us. In her effort to get us to drink the Kool-Aid, it was all quantitative pseudo-science.
Please don’t insult our intelligence by trying to distract us from what our lying eyes and ears are telling us.
If I recall from reading on CC a couple of years ago, grapes of wrath was considered a freshmen book according to some computer rating. I had just finished teaching it for academic decathlon and thought the length alone prohibitive for 9th graders. Not to mention the ending. To kill a mockingbird was rated a middle school book — did they forget the issues there? Rape and incrst and malignant racism? Ratings were based on a machine’s idea of appropriateness.
What’s the problem with the ending of The Grapes of Wrath? I don’t understand why that would be a problem for ninth graders. .
I don’t think it’s just that, concerned. Make no mistake about it: ALEC et.al. don’t want anyone to read “Grapes of Wrath” & similar books because it concerns poverty, employment, hunger, etc.–the very same things going on in this country right now, courtesy of Wall Street. Why, “Grapes of Wrath” might foment…discussions and critical analysis!
Same thing with “To Kill a Mockingbird”–too much thinking about everything that is wrong and unjust in this country. Our 8th Graders (many who were reading below grade level) read the book, were spellbound, posed GREAT questions and expressed great empathy for the characters and appropriate rage at the injustices (stereotyping and racism). They saw the movie, compared differences and cried.
Oh, but schools for the plebians are not allowed to afford such educational opportunities to other people’s children.
Only the U of C Lab School, Harpeth Hall & Sidwell Friends can teach those books.
The Grapes of Wrath and 1984 are two books that American citizens REALLY need to be reading right now. They have never been more relevant.
@RobertDShepard.. in these times I think a lesser known but additional perfect book to read might be Karel Capek’s, War With Newts.
I don’t think the problem is the particular book, but at what grade level the book is read. Traditionally To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath are read in 11th grade in correlation to the US History Curriculum. This is also when The Great Gatsby is read. I’m sure many eighth or ninth graders could read and enjoy these books, but they have more meaning if read a few years later.
As a librarian, I found the reading list distorted. The titles suggested were time and again inappropriate for the given grade level. In addition, many of the books on the list were actually articles or out of print books.
I heard that this list was created originally as an example to be revised, but that the “committee” did no editing (I wonder if they even read the list – or were familiar with any of the books) and submitted the suggestions as is.
I have been on committees where reading lists are created. I would do the research, look through the books, check the lexile, and create suggestions taking into account character diversity, genre, and interest. Then the committee would disregard my suggestions and insert what they felt was a good book for a given age. I was the specialist, they were the administrators. I was ashamed to have my name on the end result.
Lexile can be surprising. What you think is a product for children, such as a picture book, can actually be written at a much higher level. SI for Kids has a primary and intermediate version. I’m sure both have a higher than expected lexile. However, both magazines are full of pictures and/or photographs, so kids like to look through them and perhaps be motivated to read what they can.
John,
You will go out of your mind when you read this.
Jim
From: Diane Ravitch’s blog <comment-reply@wordpress.com> Reply-To: Diane Ravitch’s blog <comment+p6kq961q1_6vkna9tu83aslx@comment.wordpress.com> Date: Friday, November 1, 2013 12:00 PM To: James McDermott <jmcdermott@clarku.edu> Subject: [New post] Common Core Ratings: “Hunger Games” More Complex Than “Grapes of Wrath”?
dianerav posted: “An article by Blaine Greteman in The New Republic reports that “lexile ratings” have been assigned to various novels by the Common Core standards. Greteman is an English professor at the University of Iowa. Lexile ratings score readings according to their”
Microsoft Word can calculate a “reading ease” score, and give a grade level. I believe we are required in California community colleges to report the reading level of the texts required in a course.
Yikes! I finally read the Grapes of Wrath a few years ago and it is still relevant today.I believe it could be used as a starting point to discuss many topics in the headlines these days.
I admit I haven’t read the Hunger Games yet so I can’t comment on it. It’s on my shelf.
The Hunger Games is a very compelling book. I highly recommend it. Dystopia novels appeal to young adults, but this one is also a good adult read. Ironically, it takes components from other books I’ve read, but coordinates them in a new, fascinating way.
My philosophy is that any book which motivates kids to read is a good book. Harry Potter, Twilight, and now Hunger Games have changed the scope of Children’s Literature. What makes them great is the fact they appeal to adults as well. How marvelous to discuss a book with a child or teen which you have mutuallyread and enjoyed.
Lexile ratings are a very simplistic way of “determining readability.” Like all other computer readability levels, they simply use sentence length and word counts to determine if a book is “hard” or “easy.” As a literacy professor for forty years, I tell my graduate students that there are so many other factors that need to be weighed into readability, it’s hardly worth looking at a book’s Lexile rating. It’s simply another way that computer information can provide questionable data. Remember GIGO? (Garbage in, garbage out)
Well said, Bob!
GIGO?
I prefer SISO or CICO.
Saw on twitter in response to this and it couldn’t be more apropos:
“Unsurprised that #CCSS would exalt Libertarian fantasies over working class novels discussing the aftermath of the Dustbowl.”
I haven’t read the New Republic article yet, but I read the Valerie Strauss response to it earlier.
I liken it to ice skating. Each performance gets a technical score and an artistic score.
Each work has a lexile score, to give readers an idea of how technically easy or difficult the work is to read. It doesn’t matter if the reader is a 10-year old or a 60-year old.
But of course, for inclusion in a curriculum or school library, works must also have another score for appropriateness of content to a given audience.
We can use computers to get the former, but we need media specialists or other knowledgable professionals for the latter.
Voodoo is well and alive. This time it’s voodoo by computer programs!
Indeed, Yvonne. Pseudoscience. The educational equivalent of phrenology.
If Lexile scores are the “educational equivalent of phenology” then standardized test scores are the educational equivalent of Eugenics.
The problem of course is the conflation of writing with content. My daughter’s fifth grade teacher discouraged her students from reading books above the 8th grade reading level even if they had much higher levels. Her rationale was that there are a lot of very good stories available at the grade appropriate reading level that the children would miss out on in their drive for ever higher reading “scores”.
I read Grapes of Wrath as an adult. So to Of Human Bondage and The Old Man and the Sea. I found them fascinating and thought they are probably being wasted on highschoolers. After all, no great author writes a book hoping that it someday will be read by 14 year olds. They write mostly for adults like themselves.
Thank you, Scott, for putting it so succinctly. We are quantifying content, which seem to be what we do these days in education.
If I may modify your comment.
“We are quantifying content, a logically impossible task, which seems to be the only thing we do. . . “
Scott, I agree with you daughter’s fifth grade teacher. There are so many excellent children’s books, she will be missing out if she skips them to read books meant for young adults. Unless your daughter is an avid reader who has read through the majority of the library collection, encourage her to read all the children’s classics – many which are not easy reads.
Kipling, Stevenson, Twain for the classics; Cleary, White, Estes, Blume for Contemporary Classics; and Snicket, Parks, Hiaasen, Sachar, Gantos, Christopher for Current Contemporary writers. Plus many more. Also, have her read all the current Newbery winners.
So many fantastic books – read or reread them with her and you both will have a good time.
Rereading books that I read when I was younger now that I am in my sixties is instructive. Often they are a whole different experience since I bring my lifetime of experience (I am 64) to the book now. Does this mean I shouldn’t have read the book when I was in my twenties? Of course not! Children should be allowed to read what they are interested in. I was required to read “David Copperfield” in the 8th grade. I really got into it and developed an enthusiasm for Dickens. I tried reading all sorts of things that I probably wasn’t “ready” for because I enjoyed a challenge. What am I missing now in the things that I am reading that will be apparent to me when I’m eighty? Maybe I should just wait until I am on my deathbed and see what I can cram in during my last few days on earth!!!
The chart they show in the article has a range of lexile scores according to grade level which is significantly higher for each grade level than it was when I was introduced to the concept six years ago. The formula does ignore the conceptual complexity, opting for the ease of quantifying sentence length and vocabulary (syllables?) instead. It is obvious to an educator that much more needs to be considered when choosing a text. Too bad we don’t have educators making these decisions.
I think you answered my question below. I guess I should have read more comments before I asked the question. Thanks for sharing.
Sadly, the kids are already used to this. Hunger Games is a 5.3 on a Reading Counts list and Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are a 5.9. On a lexile scale there is no difference between literature and any other book. All words are just words, regardless of who wrote them.
I find that to be shocking! So, the leveling does not take into account the themes, the complex use of language, the irony and allegory? Just really incomprehensible.
The leveling is based on sentence length and word frequency. That’s it.
So, consider this phrase from Dylan Thomas:
the twelve triangles of the cherub wind
There is nothing particularly difficult there–one infrequent but easily explained word, “cherub.” But even if a person knows the meanings of all these words–the, twelve, triangles, of, the, cherub, and wind–the chance are that the line will make no sense to him or her at all UNLESS the person remembers that on old maps, the winds were often depicted as little cherub faces, blowing in various directions, their breath inscribing triangles. So, the line refers to covering the whole map, the entire planet, as winds do, and it associates these winds with cherubs, which are in turn associated with innocence, purity, and love.
So, it’s a low-Lexile phrase with a VERY complex meaning
BTW, Chomsky’s “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” would also have a low Lexile score.
Don’t even get me started on the automatic essay scoring algorithms that will be used to score the essay tests!
Believe me, Robert, we’ll try not to get you started on that last one-ha ha!!
I think the idea of identifying grade level texts is kind of laughable. It depends in so many ways upon who is actually reading the books. There are many types of readers in terms of how they absorb texts. I have students who can identify and analyze themes from the Grapes of Wrath but reading The Onion is over their heads. They don’t get satire. (In fact, if you want to understand how NCLB and the focus on testing has affected reading comprehension, look to the fact that seniors now need satire explained to them in nearly all cases.)
I’ve always been an advanced reader. I still read a ton. But when I was in high school I found Fahrenheit 451 to be boring but loved Catch 22. Different types of reading appeal to different people. That’s why I don’t buy into these scales.
I have a large personal library that I loan books from all the time. I ask kids what they’re interested in and make recommendations from there. I currently have 2 kids reading Candide, 2 reading the Prince and 1 reading The Drunkard’s Walk (he loves math stuff). In terms of academic ability these kids are about the same all the same. But they would not enjoy the same material.
Steve, you make a SUPERB point here:
But when I was in high school I found Fahrenheit 451 to be boring but loved Catch 22.
THANK YOU!!!!
If the kid is fascinated by the topic, miraculously, his or her “reading level” skyrockets. This is entirely unsurprising but not sufficiently appreciated, especially in this day of scripted CCSS-based curricula based on random passages of “appropriate complexity.”
The whole of the CCSS, with its INSANE focus on skills, skills, skills, skills, skills, encourages people to forget WHY we read. It’s not so that we can better appreciate how the author employed skill CCSS.ELA.RI.7.2a. And focusing on that crap is not how we will create readers.
Sadly, the people behind Common Core don’t want to create readers. I suspect all they want are obedient drones who will follow instructions when they work in a Amazon fullflliment center.
Bonnie,
I first read “Amazon fertilizer center”. Probably about the same thing, eh!
I sometimes think, Steve, that the quality of instruction in our English classes would improve dramatically if English teachers would force themselves to take a moratorium, from time to time, on using ANY literary terms in their class discussions of books the kids are reading. I get sick of seeing, say, the reading of “Sailing to Byzantium” reduced to the making of a list of the symbols that Yeats used and of their interpretations. When we read 1984, let’s talk about Winston and INGSOC. Let’s talk about surveillence. Let’s talk about what WInston wants. What he thinks is possible. What he clings to. What matters to him. What happens to all that. And then, maybe, we insert, from time to time, a term or two: “That’s great, Yolanda. Good point. You know, there’s a word for that, for what the writer did there.”
Absolutely.
Appendix A of the CCSS does indeed include lengthy explanations of quantitative and qualitative measures for judging a texts complexity, including the texts appropriateness for a particular reader or readers. This might keep Beloved out of fourth grade, if people use the qualitative measures. Unfortunately, when complex issues are reduced to numbers, the numerical oversimplification tends to hold sway. Look at the power of SAT scores or the current attempt to measure teacher effectiveness by student test scores.
Publishers will state the Lexile number on the back cover or inside cover of books no doubt. I doubt if they will publish the several pages of clarification that will be required, if teachers and parents are to understand how to actually match a book to a child.
I fear that readability will in the end be reduced to a very flawed Lexile number.
I stated my concerns and some things that teachers can do about them here:
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-comm…
and here
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-comm…
Every textbook publisher in the United States is not requiring just about all writers to submit Lexiles for just about every scrap of writing being done. Ironically, this is being done to ensure that the text is of the “proper” level of complexity. Crazy, but true. That’s just one example of the myriad ways in which the Common Core ends up vastly distorting curricula and pedagogy–one of many, many ways that most people haven’t thought at all about, that the authors of these “standards” certainly didn’t think clearly about.
That first sentence should read
Every textbook publisher in the United States is NOW requiring just about all writers to submit Lexiles for just about every scrap of writing being done.
What a difference a little typo can make!
Sorry the links above don’t seem to be working. Trying again.
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-common-core-and-text-complexity.html
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-common-core-and-text-complexity_25.html
I’ve now read the article and I have a second bad analogy to offer — marathon training.
To train for a long race, you must work on both speed and distance. In this case, reading technically complex material would be the speed work and reading for content the distance training. Both have their place.
The combination that works best for each student must be individualized for them by their teacher, just as a trainer would do for a distance runner.
It has been suggested by many experts that free reading or reading for pleasure is one sure way to increase a child’s reading ability. That is why school libraries are so important – they give children access to a wide variety of books with a specialist to guide them towards additional choices which might interest them (called a school librarian). Hand in hand with the teacher, increased literacy is guaranteed. Lexie is a secondary issue, at best.
Where is that in the Common Core?
The Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core do say that kids need to do independent reading. The Publishers’ Criteria is a MUCH better document than the standards themselves are.
Maybe we should back this up. Does anyone out there have a problem with the whole idea of quantifying the difficulty/complexity of a work of fiction or nonfiction? The Lexile (REGISTERED TRADEMARK) framework comes to us through research, as does ATOS. And what do we know about research? Who funds it? Who performs it? Who benefits? Who buys in to it?
In addition, these two well-regarded systems don’t much care for each other. That seems strange, since we’re all supposedly in this to share the knowledge and advance the goal of helping our students learn, right? But if you look at what Lexile has to say about ATOS, it isn’t friendly. Neither offers a way of converting its ratings to the other’s. They just don’t play well together.
So, Diane, I’m not overly shocked to learn that there is something funky in Lexile’s ratings of a watershed work of fiction and a nonfiction piece from Sports Illustrated. And I’m not surprised that the Common Core takes these (how I dislike the word) “metrics” seriously.
Again, we’re in the business lately of quantifying education. Scotty, beam me back to ancient Greece. I need a chat with Socrates.
Julie, anyone can go online and sign up to use the Lexile Analyzer tool. It’s a great tool. But it needs to be used properly, as one of a number of determinants of reading level. AND it’s important to bear in mind that kids have to be exposed to language–and, in particular, to aural language–that is of a syntactic complexity that is currently beyond them for the internal mechanisms in their heads that intuit syntactic structures from the ambient linguistic environment to have the material that it has to work upon in order for the child but together a reasonably complete internal grammar. Failure to understand this is a MAJOR flaw in much reading instruction in the United States and in the Common Core in ELA.
In theory, a reader’s lexile level is a range that would include texts that are a stretch as well as those that are appropriate for totally independent reading. Bear in mind that I am speaking about struggling readers in particular, so the formulas are attempting to consider the need to read more complex material while still avoiding frustration. The trouble comes, as several people have noted, when educrats substitute this limited metric for the judgement of professionals. Readability formulas can be useful but do not substitute for the expertise of educators.
Robert,
And what Lexile or ATOS level is “AND it’s important to bear in mind that kids have to be exposed to language–and, in particular, to aural language–that is of a syntactic complexity that is currently beyond them for the internal mechanisms in their heads that intuit syntactic structures from the ambient linguistic environment to have the material that it has to work upon in order for the child but together a reasonably complete internal grammar.”???
Well, said my man, well said!
Robert,
Tried to use that tool and couldn’t figure out how to. Oh well and they even have one for Spanish. Not that I really care about Lexile levels levels for my beginning learning of Spanish students.
Dwayne. You simply save your word-processing file as a text file. At the next screen, choose ASCI as the encoding and click the box allowing for substitution of characters. Finally, save the text file and upload it into the analyzer. It’s a very handy tool. But no one should be using it as the primary determinant of whether work is appropriate for readers of a given “level.”
Love your last line, Julie!!! Take me with you.
These “metrics” are taken seriously by CC through the efforts of our pals, Bill and Melinda Gates. Copied following from a comment on author’s original article: “susano 3 days ago – ‘Thank you for this excellent piece. I’d just point out that Lexile glorification is another example of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pushing schooling-by-quantification onto public schools.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grant
MetaMetrics, Inc.
Date: November 2010
Purpose: to fund further development of MetaMetrics’ already-existing interactive online tool (Oasis) to focus on implementing literacy common core standards; will include piloting and integration in Georgia and Kentucky
Amount: $3,468,005
Term: 3 years and 2 months’.”
Maybe we should back this up. Does anyone out there have a problem with the whole idea of quantifying the difficulty/complexity of a work of fiction or nonfiction? The Lexile (REGISTERED TRADEMARK) framework comes to us through research, as does ATOS. And what do we know about research? Who funds it? Who performs it? Who benefits? Who buys in to it?
In addition, these two well-regarded systems don’t much care for each other. That seems strange, since we’re all supposedly in this to share the knowledge and advance the goal of helping our students learn, right? But if you look at what Lexile has to say about ATOS, it isn’t friendly. Neither offers a way of converting its ratings to the other’s. They just don’t play well together.
So, Diane, I’m not overly shocked to learn that there is something funky in Lexile’s ratings of a watershed work of fiction and a nonfiction piece from Sports Illustrated. And I’m not surprised that the Common Core takes these (how I dislike the word) “metrics” seriously.
Again, we’re in the business lately of quantifying education. Scotty, beam me back to ancient Greece. I need a chat with Socrates.
Love your last line, singlehand!!! Take me with you.
What’s particularly disturbing to me is the wide range of lexile scores that CC proposes for each grade level (according to the graphic). By this calculation, To Kill a Mockingbird and other books for mature readers are within the range for 3rd graders. Although CC promoters do say that of course, topic needs to be considered, I think the not-so-implied message is that teachers are too easy on students and need to challenge them with more complex texts earlier. This is inappropriate for non-special needs students, especially with the wealth of high quality children’s literature available, but damaging for children with reading issues stemming from disabilities and/or language status. Literature for sheer enjoyment and for the promotion of empathy has been sacrificed to dehumanized algorithms of text complexity. Especially after hearing David Coleman extol his Bar Mitzvah experience as the stimulus for the idea of having students engage at length with complex text, I really have to wonder how this whole lunacy of CC ELA standards could have been foisted on an entire profession.
Sheila–YES! I, too, found Coleman’s Bar Mitzvah reference absurd!
It was one of the most bizarre and irrelevant (and, believe me, as a 35-year teacher, I’d heard PLENTY of ridiculousness at school and district PD meetings!) educational discussions I’ve heard.
Just more proof that the man is inane and has absolutely no business doing what he does and being in the position he is in.
And another thing… The recommended Lexiles for the early grades, 2-3, are entirely off the mark and dangerous. In this post I talk about how the CCSS recommended Lexile levels for young readers may actually widen the achievement gap.
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2013/10/could-common-core-widen-achievement-gap.html
“. . . may actually widen the achievement gap.”
Couldn’t care less about the “achievement gap”-that forever sought after mystical canyon of educational jargon.
Perhaps the statement might better read this way: The CCSS may further disadvantage those who come to school at risk.
On the other hand, since the reformy argument is that the CCSS is one tool in the arsenal to overcome the achievement gap, why not throw the term back at them in a critique.
Why not?
I understand what you are saying but at the same time by using their terminology of “quantitative” type thinking (by definition a “gap” is “measurable” isn’t it?) we further their agenda. I prefer to use the term “improving the teaching and learning process for all” or “assessing the teaching and learning process for all”.
I do appreciate the link!
I like your language and see your point. Thanks.
I have a question, are students assigned scores after reading an actual book or just a few paragraphs of text? I wonder if those reading levels mean much because comprehending a page of text and immediately answering questions (perhaps multiple choice questions) vs. retaining and understanding the message of an entire book (or even individual chapters/scenes) is very different to me (I will add here that I am not an educator and my observations are based on just my own child who tends to score above-average, but I don’t feel he is really reading at the level the scores indicate).
Hey, everyone … How about assigning Lexile levels to poetry! Think of the fun!
A friend brought me a canned CCSS lesson that she had been handed in a “training.” It was for fifth-grade kids and used Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” So, just for kicks, I ran a Lexile on the Longfellow. It was at the graduate school level.
These readability scales are very, very crude. The typically use some formula involving sentence length and word frequency. Some are a bit more complicated than that, but few are. And they yield terrible results, though all educational publishers are now REQUIRING that their writers Lexile everything.
Here’s the problem: A work that uses very common words and relatively short sentences (For example, Emerson’s “Brahma” or Dickinson “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died,” can be VERY complex conceptually. And something that uses infrequent words and long sentences, like “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” can be very simple conceptually.
But the problem goes much, much, much deeper than this. WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY HERE IS VERY IMPORTANT AND IS A MAJOR SOURCE OF DISTORTION IN COMMON CORE-BASED CURRICULA:
People are born with machines in their heads for intuiting syntactic structures from their ambient linguistic environments. For these machines to work as they are supposed to, kids have to be exposed (especially aurally) to complex syntactic structures. If we expose them ONLY to a steady diet of INTENTIONALLY leveled material, which is done far too often by well-intentioned reading teachers, then the internal machine doesn’t have the data from which to do its work. The leveling of everything using crude readability formulas has, as a result, really negative consequences for development of syntactic fluency, which is one important but often neglected key to development as a reader, writer, speaker, and listener.
Lexiles and other readability tools are extraordinarily useful, but they should be used by those who understand their limitations. It’s very important that kids, especially those from linguistically impoverished environments (there’s a lot of good research on this), be exposed to syntactically and semantically rich oral language during the key window of time when the internal machines for intuiting syntactic and semantic structures are working at their highest efficiency.
Robert, do you have any papers that I can look up regarding the comments in your last paragraph? Just anything that comes to your mind first. I haven’t read the literature on this topic but I made educational choices for my family based on this premise…albeit without the idea that children have “machines in their heads” đź› The analogy is useful but it does slight the power and beauty of the human mind.
Emmy, have a look at Reading Instruction: The Two Keys, by Matt Davis, which reviews the breathtaking research on the differences in the linguistic environments that kids grow up in.
http://books.coreknowledge.org/product.php?productid=16266
Any good introduction to linguistics or to contemporary syntax will explain that most grammatical knowledge is not explicitly taught and explicitly learned. Instead, we are born with machines in our heads for intuiting the grammar of the language spoken around us based upon hard-wired language universals in the head (the basic principles that govern all languages) and the evidence from the language in the ambient environment (which set parameters that make for differences in syntax among languages). So, for example, every native speaker of English knows that
* the green, great dragon
sounds awkward and would be said only if one wanted to emphasize its greenness and that
the great, green dragon
doesn’t
because there are internalized rules for the order of precedence of adjectives that children learn unconsciously. And that’s true of all but a small fraction of the grammar that people learn.
Great intros to all this are
Akmajian, Adrian, et al. Linguistics: An Introduction to Langauge and Communciation. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2011.
and
Radford, Andrew. Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the Structure of English. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004.
There’s an online update of Radford’s masterful survey of contemporary syntax here:
Click to access Radford2009.pdf
Again, for that internal machine to work, it has to be exposed to the full range of basic syntactic forms in the language, and if the kid is exposed only to language that is intentionally syntactically impoverished (e.g., what in EdSpeak is referred to as “leveled” material), then the natural mechanism for learning grammar will break down because it won’t have the materials with which to do its magic.
Two more quick points, Emmy.
Two huge factors influencing reading comprehension that are commonly ignored are
a. Background knowledge in the domain of the writing. Writers assume certain background knowledge. If the kid doesn’t have it, then he or she will not be able to understand the text. So, it’s important for kids to do extended work within particular knowledge domains because comprehension depends to an enormous extent on knowledge. A very strong argument can be made for approaches that attempt to build in kids, in the early grades, systematically, familiarity with a knowledge base determined, empirically, to be taken for granted by adult writers.
and
b. Syntactic fluency. Often, kids have insufficiently developed syntactic models in their heads because they have grown up in linguistically impoverished environments and have been fed, in school, a steady diet of leveled language, and so they are not able to decode sentences that they encounter that contain complex syntactic forms and relations, and so the process of comprehension stalls at the syntactic processing level. I read a study, once, that I haven’t access to now that showed that more than half of adult Americans were tripped up by the insertion into a sentence of a single relative clause! Also, the common distinction made by reading specialists between decoding and comprehension is useful but somewhat misleading because it seems pretty clear, now, that much of the syntax of a language is a projection of the argument structures required by verbs, which have both syntactic and semantic components.
Emmy, I posted a comment with some references for you, but it is awaiting moderation. I hope (but doubt) that that means that the indomitable Dr. Ravitch is getting a bit of rest!!! She’s indomitable but not indefatigable. EVen superheroes like her need to recharge sometimes. 🙂
I entirely agree about the machine analogy, Emmy, and thank you for pointing that out. It’s a very useful analogy but shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but that’s a VERY LONG conversation! 🙂
“People are born with machines in their heads for intuiting syntactic structures from their ambient linguistic environments.”
Not sure I agree with the term “machines” in that sentence.
“Most people (or the vast majority) are born with neuro-chemical structures that act on and interact with sound (aural and oral) vibrations that over time allow the individual to acquire linguistic capabilities.”
Yes, Duane, I grabbed the currently fashionable, easy metaphor there. Aristotle compared the mind to catapults; Freud, to pneumatic tubes; today, we’re talking about it being a digital computer. All lousy metaphors.
I’m still interested to see what the Lexile score for your one sentence would be. It’s probably so far of the charts that it has to be considered an “outlier”. (Isn’t it interesting that there are always “outliers” that don’t fit the so overused concept of the Bell curve?)
I ran the Lexile on that sentence, Duane: 2040. The highest CCSS Lexile level: 1355,
Thanks for doing that. What is the highest “score”? And, rhetorically speaking what does the score supposed to mean?
Seems to me to be just another futile attempt at quantifying something that can’t be quantified.
Duane, the highest grade equivalent is 11-12, 1355. As far as I can tell, there is no “highest score,” no upper limit.
Muchas gracias otra vez, Roberto.
I guess your “score” must be post post post PhD level, eh!
Thank you, Robert. This is beautiful.
To your excellent point about intentionally leveled material:
Lexile.com defines “readability” as the ability to comprehend approximately 75 percent of a text. Seventy-five percent? Seems a mighty low bar to me. I wonder, also, what amounts to “comprehension” in Lexile Land. Grasping literal meaning? Understanding implications? plot? theme?
As it was explained to me, 75% is considered to be an instructional level. Go down as much as 150 points to find an independent reading level.
Yes, Diane, it is possible. Lexile ratings depend on several factors, such as difficult or less common vocabulary and sentence length, and therefore complexity. A computer program rates the text. Readers/students can be (and probably are in the big bad testing world) given a rating, too.
Teachers often rate students. It is called the grade for the class.
And that rate has no logical basis and no base in reality.
Yes, TE. But there is a difference. The grade for the class often has some validity.
Nope, no validity whatsoever.
Now can there be assessments that do have validity? Yes, but “grades” are not one.
I loved to use the book, “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak in my middle school classrooms, a book with a lexile of “AD740L” according to The Lexile Framework for Reading (http://www.lexile.com/about-lexile/lexile-codes/). This lexile puts it at a 3rd-4th grade reading level. The “AD” means “adult directed,” and is often applied to picture books read by adults to children, but I didn’t read this book to middle school students because of the pictures – I read it to help them understand the idea of figurative language. It was a great way to help them begin thinking beyond the denotative meaning of words on a page and to help prepare them for books like “The Giver.”
Lexiles seem to be more applicable to nonfiction, so it makes sense that the Common Core would use them considering it’s emphasis on informational text. They do not seem as useful for fiction, however, and some literature, such as poetry, cannot even be measured by lexile. Blaine Greteman had a point when he said: One alternative would be to trust teachers themselves to determine the moral and aesthetic complexities that engage students as individuals. Only it’s not “just” one alternative – it’s the best one. We trust our children with teachers for 1/3 of their day. Why don’t we trust them with our children’s learning?
My daughter, at the age of 4, would roar her terrible roar and gnash her terrible teeth with Sendak’s Wild Things. Sendak knew a LOT more about writing for kids than any textbook editor with his or her Lexiles will ever know.
And about your last point: yes, yes, yes. It’s time teachers drive the CCSS invasion force out of their classrooms. It’s time they told these people, “Don’t you DARE PRESUME to tell ME what’s right for MY STUDENTS. I’m the professional here. I will listen to your advice, but I WILL NOT be told by you what I am to do, and I CERTAINLY WILL NOT be turned into a robot: “Pull my string to begin lesson CCSS.ELA.RL.6.2.b.” Who do you think you are, to PRESUME that you have the last word on what “standards” I will teach to? What I do cannot be captured by anyone’s bullet list, and it’s laughable and offensive that anyone would think this possible.
cx: It’s time for teachers to drive the CCSS invasion force out of their classrooms
The plutocrats, pundits, politicians, and their collaborators among the educrats and the union leaders have turned our schools into Vichy, France. It’s time to show them what the resistance can do.
Thanks Robert for forcefully stating what all teachers should be doing with these top down mandates.
“. . . t’s laughable and offensive that anyone would think this possible.”
EXACTLY!!
Picture books are a good way to introduce a unit to middle school students who are at that inbetween stage – too cool, yet able to nostalgically enjoy books from their childhood.
For high school, when doing research, it helps to look at a more primary source which breaks the topic down, many of them with excellent pictures and graphics, before reaching for that more scholarly reference or online source.
Right on. I’ve used picture books in high school. My sophomores loved The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Used it to encourage very reluctant writers to step up and tell their stories.
Ellen, singlehand, GREAT WORK! But don’t let the evaluation goons see you doing it. Not on their checklist.
I totally agree….but need some advice here. How do teachers who fear for their jobs (if they are not tenured) or worry about their evaluations (if they are tenured) stand up for what they know is right? I have so much admiration for all the folks who speak out, and I want to do more!
I read a comment in another thread about the teachers and administrators who “go along to get along”. I know they are out there…not questioning anything, striving to please those above them. I wonder, though, if anyone realizes just how many of us WANT to question, to protest things we know aren’t really in the best interest of our students; how many of us would dearly love to resist this nonsense, who are beginning to feel they can’t look in the mirror because they are in the midst of a moral dilemma?
Many teachers are afraid to do anything other than follow directives-failure to do so is insubordination, after all. Many teachers want to question practices that do not seem to be in their students’ best interest, but are afraid of “rocking the boat”. Many teachers want to be more vocal and get the word out to fellow educators and parents, but are afraid to share or even like something on Facebook because it might be frowned upon.
I know that all I’ve said applies to countless good people in the profession. To those of you who have managed to get over this fear and take a stand I ask: Do you have any advice for the rest of us? I truly believe that, we’re it not for the fear of repercussion, the public would see a massive uprising of educators protesting and speaking up for our students.
You are screwed.
No, seriously, just modify it, break it down, read some aloud or paraphrase the book. Try your best to make it interesting and relevant.
Most of the Common Core can be modified for the given grade level by a capable teacher. It’s just the fact that it needs so much tweaking that is annoying since teachers already have too much on their plate.
LOL, Ellen!
Until people wise up and toss out these amateurish “standards,” we all have to “work with them.” When the surgeon shows up at the makeshift field hospital and finds, laid out for her, the local tools of the trade: a machete, a hammer, a butcher knife, one hopes the she has brought some tools with her and will use those instead.
One consequence of the standards-and-testing juggernaut is that Michelle Rhee-style cultures of fear are being created in districts around the country, so what you are referring to here is quite real. People will have to be stealthy in order to continue teaching well DESPITE these amateurish “standards.” This will make the job harder and, sometimes, impossible. But that’s the way it is and will be until people wise up and toss these egregious, crude, crude, crude standards onto the fire.
Phrase of the day: “Be Stealthy to Stay Healthy”
My suggestion: Look at the example of Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. This past January, teachers at the school voted unanimously to boycott the MAP test brain infarction of Michelle Rhee. All of them faced disciplinary action and possible dismissal, but nothing ever happened. Community members backed the Garfield boycott; administrators backed down.
It is very, very dangerous to make decisions based on fear and the surest way I know of to live life on the margin.
BW23,
Start subtly. Talk with others. Send links to important information. Cautiously spread the word. Let the students know the insanity of it all, they will know and understand. Let them know you don’t believe in any of it and that in order to teach you have to “play the game” and that you will help them “play the game” all the while subverting the “game”. Challenge the validity of the edudeformers points in any way possible. Read a ton and be very knowledgeable about the issues because people are going to think you’re crazy. You will be isolated, people will be afraid to be seen with you if that is such a fear inducing place. Follow all the rules and regs but at the same time fostering an attitude of this is not right and I deplore the fact that I am being forced to do this.
As I was leaving yesterday the principal asked “If I have a minute?”. You have to get used to hearing those words. He was concerned that people, from other districts no less, reported that I had been grading papers during a big new shiny “Tri-County Professional Development Extravaganza” (which I think was the brainchild of our new supe). I did my best G. Washington and said “Yes, I was.” followed by because there was nothing of substance in any of the three sessions that I went to that was relevant to the classroom and that the “keynote” (hotdamn) speaker (only the 20th of my teaching career), although challenging the edudeformer rhetoric (I’m sure he won’t be invited back) didn’t say anything that I didn’t already know from reading this blog and others. We had an afternoon session where all the foreign language teachers from the four districts involved “shared” practices and talked about the “good” things we do in our classroom. He asked “Were you negative?” Then we were supposed to fill out a form that showed we were going to implement something from the conference within the next two weeks. Didn’t learn anything new, what am I to do? Filled out the form and the dog and pony show will be next Friday. Complete waste of time, I’d rather be working with the kids!
The point being that once one gets a reputation for questioning what is happening one has to be prepared to defend oneself. And I have already mapped out my strategy to handle this situation-the first step being having a beer after school and letting off steam to my son-He’s heard it before!!
I imagine I will be getting a letter of reprimand next week. And as while we were talking a much beloved ass kisser retired teacher came barging in complaining about the fact that he didn’t have a school email account. But he was privy to our conversation and that point will be brought up. Principals mistake to allow him in the room. You gotta know those little things that can turn their case against them.
The key though is to know your points as to why these educational malpractices should be challenged and stopped. And to me the first place to start to know the harms caused by much of what we do is “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an â€F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Wow., thanks everyone for your suggestions. Knowledge is power and you’ve given me dome great advice! I’m so delighted to have discovered Dr. Ravitch and this blog!
Your PD “Extravaganza” sounds exactly like many I attended. At one, the special ed teachers came close to open revolt. The presentation was so basic it was beyond insulting. People did get up and walk out. I imagine there were a few letters that went into files for insubordination.
The deformers LOVE crude measurements. Here’s the measurement of text complexity. Here’s the measurement of how well the child can read. We might as well be using yardsticks to measure synaptic junctions, for all these good these do.
If the deformers knew anything, anything at all, about cognitive psychology, linguistics, or language acquisition, they would know that approaching a child with the attitude that he or she is an vessel to be filled up and then measured is entirely inappropriate, that when dealing with the minds of children, we are dealing with the most sophisticated, plastic, and variable natural phenomena known to us, that more is not known than is known, and that while we do not understand how those minds work at their deepest levels in any detail, we do know some things about what they are capable of IF they are given the proper environments in which to work and if we pay very, very careful attention to what is emerging from the interactions of those minds with those environments and build on that. In such conditions we must approach our work with caution, care, and respect. The surest sign of ignorance is certainty that there is some one, simple answer or set of answers. All very ignorant people are characterized by those sorts of certainties. Here’s my verdict on the CCSS in ELA: “There is no bullet list like Stalin’s bullet list.” And Stalin was a brutal, ignorant thug.
The person who thinks that he or she can write out THE LIST of what the outcomes should be in all the domains of English instruction is the one who betrays, thereby, his or her breathtaking ignorance of the variability and combinatorial possibilities in outcomes from the encounters of the minds children with symbol systems, texts, and the human individual and social cultural materials communicated via those. The educrats who are collaborating with the deformers are like people who have learned the names of the parts of the body from a chart in a children’s book and, ipso facto, think of themselves as doctors. I listen to what these people have to say about how to teach writing or literature or discussion or debate or thinking and I am sickened. I am also horrified that such BARBARIANS hold positions of power and authority in our education departments, our school districts, and our unions.
The deformers are always saying, “Where are your alternatives?” But they don’t REALLY want to hear them. Here’s an alternative:
Various competing frameworks, standards, curricula, and pedagogical approaches advanced by experts in the various domains
that are freely adopted and adapted by professionals in the classroom
and continually revised and improved in light of emerging science and best practices
that are shared via national portals for discussion and debate of that science and those practices.
Combined with
Empowerment of teachers, giving them the time to do collaborative, Japanese-style Lesson Study, submitting their practice to reflection and critique that THEY, not goons from outside their departments, conduct.
Continuous improvement occurs in conditions of autonomy, variability, competition, collaboration, and ease of introduction of innovations. IT DOES NOT HAPPEN WHEN YOU EMPOWER SOME TOP-DOWN COMMON CORE CURRICULUM COMMISSARIAT AN MINISTRY OF TRUTH TO MAKE THESE DECISIONS FOR EVERYONE ELSE.
Continuous improvement flows from the bottom up. You know what flows from the top down.
Aren’t the various domains being bought out by corporations too?
If the plutocrats who appointed David Coleman and Susan Pimentel king and queen of English language arts instruction in the United States had asked them to create VOLUNTARY guidelines (like those in the Publishers’ Criteria, for example), that one have been one thing. But they created, instead, an invariant bullet list for measurement, thereby ensuring a truncation of the possibilities for language arts instructional approaches, thereby ensuring that our pedagogy and curricula would be narrowed and deformed and that all innovation would be stopped cold. These work well as a business plan for “creating national markets for products that can be brought to scale,” for ensuring the Walmartization of U.S. education. If you thought we had monopolization of the provision of educational materials in this country, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The creation of such monopolization was THE PURPOSE, the real purpose, of these national “standards.”
Amen!
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I do feel like I have landed on the wrong planet! Koch brothers, ALEC, & things like this!!!