What Makes This Text Complex? Quantitative Measure Go to and enter the title of your read-aloud in the Quick Book Search in the upper right of home page. Most texts will have a Lexile measure in this database. Qualitative Features Consider the four dimensions of text complexity below. For each dimension*, note specific examples from the text that made it more or less complex. Theme perseverance, appreciation. Text is written from the girl’s point of view, but at times, she talks – Example from text: you go owling, you don’t directly to the reader (also called an aside). “When need words or warm, or anything but hope.” Example: had been waiting to go owling with Pa for a long, long time.” you go owling, you have to be and make your own heat.” “I “If you go owling, you have to be brave.” “When Meaning/Purpose Structure Language Knowledge Demands includes much figurative language. Example: watched silently with the heat in our mouths, the heat of Students in large urban districts often don’t have “We all those words we had not spoken.” Experiences with the snow or owling. They don’t my eyes got cloudy with the cold.” know that snow crunches when you walk on it or how “…even echo came threading its way through the snow.” quiet the forest can be away from the city. They aren’t “…an the snow below it was whiter than the milk in a cereal bowl.” aware of the darkness of the woods or possibly that owls “…and Vocabulary owling, shrugged, meadow are nocturnal. – Syntax can be difficult as sometime the sentences are (The “backward.” subject follows the predicate or is embedded later in the sentence. Example: was late one winter long past my bedtime, when Pa and “It I went owling.”
What Makes This Text Complex? Quantitative Measure Go to and enter the title of your read-aloud in the Quick Book Search in the upper right of home page. Most texts will have a Lexile measure in this database. Qualitative Features Consider the four dimensions of text complexity below. For each dimension*, note specific examples from the text that made it more or less complex. Theme – perseverance, appreciation. Example from text: “When you go owling, you don’t need words or warm, or anything but hope.” “I had been waiting to go owling with Pa for a long, long time.” “When you go owling, you have to be brave.” Meaning/Purpose Text is written from the girl’s point of view, but at times, she talks directly to the reader (also called an aside). Example: “If you go owling, you have to be and make your own heat.” Structure Language includes much figurative language. Example: “We watched silently with the heat in our mouths, the heat of all those words we had not spoken.” “…even my eyes got cloudy with the cold.” “…an echo came threading its way through the snow.” “…and the snow below it was whiter than the milk in a cereal bowl.” Vocabulary – owling, shrugged, meadow Syntax can be difficult as sometime the sentences are “backward.” (The subject follows the predicate or is embedded later in the sentence. Example: “It was late one winter long past my bedtime, when Pa and I went owling.” Knowledge Demands Students in large urban districts often don’t have Experiences with the snow or owling. They don’t know that snow crunches when you walk on it or how quiet the forest can be away from the city. They aren’t aware of the darkness of the woods or possibly that owls are nocturnal.