reading them closely. The rigor of what students must do with the text, obviously, cannot be captured in a quantitative analysis of a text’s complexity.
Thankfully, the standards expand on these ideas and provide some guidance. According to the Common Core, complex high school–level literacy experiences in science, English, and social studies involve “multiple sources of information” (RST.11–12.7) or “multiple interpretations” (RL.11–12.7) with “uncertain” (RL.11–12.1), “conflicting” (RST.11–12.9), and “unresolved” (RST.11–12.6) components or implications; possess vocabulary with “figurative, connotative, and technical meanings” (CCRA.R.4); demand analysis and evaluation of the author’s premises, claims, and evidence; and include “particularly effective” (RI.11–12.6) uses of language and structure to achieve a purpose (NGA & CCSSO, 2010). At least a third of the Common Core Reading standards in all three subject areas incorporate these components, and the Writing anchor standards and Speaking and Listening anchor standard one do so significantly (NGA & CCSSO, 2010). The word complex is repeatedly used to invoke “ideas” (W.9-10.2); “process[es], phenomen[a], or concept[s]” (RST.9-10.2); and the structure of primary sources (RH.9–10.5; NGA & CCSSO, 2010).
As is stated in the introduction to the Common Core State Standards, high school students should be reading to literally and inferentially understand (per the Reading standards) the text itself, but they should also go beyond them to “comprehend as well as critique” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010). Rosenblatt (1994) speaks of the mature reader as engaging in two kinds of reading: efferent, reading to understand the content of the text (to learn the what), and aesthetic, reading to understand the craftsmanship of the writing (to learn the how). Note that study of craftsmanship is not just for the analysis of literature; it can also refer to precise use of vocabulary or a well-sequenced argument in nonfiction texts, too. That’s why all strands in the CCSS have a domain titled Craft and Structure. Teachers should address both efferent and aesthetic reading in all content-area instruction, since they are interwoven, rather than isolated, concepts. For instance, Reading anchor standards one, two, four, five, six, and eight ask students to look at the text while focusing on specific kinds of meaning. Students also must be able to extend their analysis of texts into critical judgments. “Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence” (RH.11–12.6; NGA & CCSSO, 2010), for instance, includes both the understanding of the text (the point of view, the argument) and how it is constructed (assessing the quality of the argument).
Quality, in short, matters. So too does the volume (the amount) and the range (text types) students read, of course, but it is critical that students have plentiful opportunities to read works that display, in the words of the two lead writers of the Common Core ELA standards, “exceptional craft and thought”—and to do so in all content areas (Coleman & Pimentel, 2012, p. 5). Social studies and science teachers can’t just rely on primary sources or technical documents (such as lab reports); they must also utilize texts that express sophisticated ideas in sophisticated ways—essays, critiques, journalistic pieces, memoirs, and even literary fiction. Students must read for information and to argue and critique, analyze, and aesthetically appreciate language and ideas.
Students have to construct their own meaning with, but not necessarily solely within, the text. Several of the Common Core standards in each of the content areas make clear that the text assists students in pursuing answers and making decisions. For grades 11–12 social studies, for example, this includes “determin[ing] which explanation best accords with textual evidence” (RH.11–12.3), “evaluat[ing] multiple sources of information … to address a question or solve a problem” (RH.11–12.7), and “integrat[ing] information … into a coherent understanding of an idea or event” (RH.11–12.9). Thus, a significant purpose for why (and how) students are to engage with complex texts in your content area is to solve meaningful intellectual problems—the same kinds of questions that make professionals read texts closely, such as, “Was the American Revolution really revolutionary?,” “Do we need theme?,” or “What is the future of the universe?”
This shift is why text complexity has upped teaching complexity: it’s not just about putting a more difficult text in front of students—it’s about making strategic, deliberate choices about the content you choose and how to ensure students can access it in ways that match the rigor of the standards. For students to comprehend as well as critique, there can’t be just one type of text, nor can there be one single way to engender proficient readings; in fact, multiple ways of integrating, understanding, and applying texts are needed to meet the standards.
Further details on the new text and teaching demands for each content area follow.
English
The high school English classroom remains the nexus for extensive fiction and literary nonfiction reading. The amount of literature to include and the focus on analyzing texts have not changed. The difference is that the Common Core State Standards are, in several areas, quite specific about what students should read in English coursework. For grades 9–10, they recommend “a wide reading of world literature” and “seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance” (for example, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”; NGA & CCSSO, 2010). In grades 11–12, they recommend “seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance” (for example, the Constitution), “seminal U.S. texts” involving “application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning” (for example, in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents), “eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature,” and “at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist” (NGA & CCSSO, 2010). The assigning of foundational and seminal nonfiction documents in English is not to remove the responsibility of their teaching from social studies teachers; rather, the idea is for students to analyze and evaluate these works as literature, looking beyond their historical context or importance and at the work itself for, as one standard says, their “themes, purposes, and rhetorical features” (RI.11–12.9; NGA & CCSSO, 2010). This opens up the possibility that students could read the same work in multiple courses, with different purposes for reading in each.
Guidance from PARCC (2012) indicates that students should read at minimum one book-length work per quarter, at least one of which should be nonfiction with the primary purpose to explain or argue. A strong memoir, such as Binyavanga Wainaina’s (2011) One Day I Will Write About This Place, can supplant a work of literary fiction. Students should read Shakespeare, whose works range between 1200L and 1400L and obviously are qualitatively rich in complexity, at least once in both the lower and upper grades of high school. While English teachers will need to devote at least one of their literary or dramatic works and some of their poetry to classic American literature (such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lorraine Hansberry, and T. S. Eliot), the best way to fully address the standards is with contemporary fiction, whose complex accounts and multiple points of view, uncertain resolutions or messages, and intricate characters best reflect the standards. Short story collections from Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies), Daniyal Mueenuddin (In Other Rooms, Other Wonders), and Louise Erdrich (“The Red Convertible”) can serve as anchor texts, or individual selections can be paired with nonfiction works or used as supplements to other literary works. Finally, students need repeated opportunities to read and respond to five-hundred- to one-thousand-word excerpts from high-quality literary nonfiction (particularly theories, critiques, analyses, and so on, in the areas of aesthetics, the humanities, and sociology), not only to access and experience college-level texts but also because the ACT, PARCC, and SBAC assessments all feature passages of this length.
Social Studies
Social studies teachers have no lack of complex texts from which to choose: most of the seminal and foundational documents of American history identified by the Common Core (such as Common Sense and
