K–5 Text Complexity (Appendix A) | Wit & Wisdom by General

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

Text Complexity Grades K–8

Grade K–8

WIT & WISDOM™ Grade K–8

Text Complexity Grade K Module 1 1 Grade K Module 2. 7 Grade K Module 3 12 Grade K Module 4. 18 Grade 1 Module 1..............................................................................................................................................................24 Grade 1 Module 2..............................................................................................................................................................31 Grade 1 Module 3 37 Grade 1 Module 4 43 Grade 2 Module 1 50 Grade 2 Module 2 57 Grade 2 Module 3 67 Grade 2 Module 4 73 Grade 3 Module 1 79 Grade 3 Module 2 85 Grade 3 Module 3 90 Grade 3 Module 4 ........................................................................................................................................................... 96 Grade 4 Module 1 102 Grade 4 Module 2 105 Grade 4 Module 3 112 Grade 4 Module 4 117 Grade 5 Module 1 122 Grade 5 Module 2 ......................................................................................................................................................... 126 Grade 5 Module 3 129 Grade 5 Module 4 134 Grade 6 Module 1 137 Grade 6 Module 2 140 Grade 6 Module 3 ..........................................................................................................................................................143 Grade 6 Module 4..........................................................................................................................................................146 Grade 7 Module 1 149 Grade 7 Module 2 153 Grade 7 Module 3 156 Grade 7 Module 4 159 Grade 8 Module 1...........................................................................................................................................................163 Grade 8 Module 2 ..........................................................................................................................................................166 Grade 8 Module 3 169 Grade 8 Module 4 172

Table of Contents

Grade K Module 1:

The Five Senses

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

GK Module 1 1

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative criteria outlined in both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated CCSS Appendix A guidance on text complexity (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text–Reader–Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

My Five Senses, Margaret Miller

This text is a striking photographic compilation of young children in familiar scenarios using their senses to drink in the world.

Quantitative:

250L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text offers a straightforward explanation of the five senses by using photographs to connect readers to sensory experiences.

Structure: A repeated sentence pattern helps students follow along easily and offers opportunities for them to practice fluent reading.

Language: Simple text conveys accessible concepts supported by photographs.

Knowledge Demands: The content of the text is largely familiar to Kindergarten students and is supported by photographs.

Students analyze how words and pictures work together to make meaning and act out scenes from the text to deepen their understanding.

This text serves as an accessible introduction to the module’s content and to concepts of print. Supported by simple, repetitive language, it gives emerging readers a strong introduction to a study of the senses and to the functions of sense organs as well as the relationship between senses and emotions.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

My Five Senses, Aliki

This book combines colorful, friendly art with the important idea that everything you sense helps you become aware of the world around you. Students learn that each smell, sight, noise, taste, and touch teaches something.

Quantitative:

AD590L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text provides a straightforward explanation of the five senses yet also addresses more nuanced ideas, such as using multiple senses at once and awareness.

Structure: The book includes sections of patterned language with illustrations to support meaning.

Language: The sentence structure and vocabulary are simple and accessible. The text uses multiple forms of words (e.g., “I use my sense of taste.” and “I am tasting.” [18]) to enhance sensory vocabulary.

Knowledge Demands: The text’s content is largely familiar, but it explains unfamiliar concepts, such as awareness, through examples and explanations.

Text–Reader–Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students act out scenes from the text, analyze how words and pictures work together to make meaning, and explore how key details and textual evidence can support one’s answer to a question. Students also discuss the purposes and functions of senses and how they help a person become aware. .

Aliki’s accessible My Five Senses develops students’ understanding of the module topic. This text helps students solidify their knowledge of the senses and understanding of how one uses senses to learn about the world.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Last Stop on Market Street, Matt De La Peña

This picture book describes an afternoon in the life of CJ, who leaves church with Nana, his grandmother, and grudgingly takes the bus to the last stop on Market Street. While journeying with CJ, readers learn about CJ’s perception of the world, influenced by Nana’s appreciation of other people, her surroundings, and her ability to find beauty all around her. With the author’s descriptive words and the illustrator’s powerful art, students share in CJ’s trip to the soup kitchen as he uses his senses to experience the world around him.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD610L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The book lauds living in the moment and appreciating daily pleasures: smells, sounds, tastes, sights, and companionship. Since the story contains multiple levels of meaning, students may require support to identify its message.

Structure: The book is a narrative with chronological structure.

Language: The rich verbs are mimetic of the message that no opportunity— even the opportunity to describe something—should be wasted. Figurative language enhances the visual experience and sparks the reader’s imagination. Although limited, colloquial language shows CJ’s casual, warm relationship with his grandmother.

Knowledge Demands: : The text requires some knowledge of urban life, such as riding a bus and visiting a soup kitchen. Clean transitions and clear illustrations support meaning in the story.

Text–Reader–Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students build their skill of listening with focus as they listen to Last Stop on Market Street and answer questions about the text. Students add details to an illustration and interpret descriptive and action words, further deepening their understanding of the roles of the author and illustrator and the relationship between illustrations and words.

At this point in the module, students are able to apply knowledge gained from Aliki’s and Miller’s informational texts to a literary text.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

The text tells the story of each childlike lowercase letter of the alphabet, each with its own personality and group of friends, rushing ragtag to climb a coconut tree. When the tree bends, the letters fall to the ground. Some leave banged up and tired, while others have the adults in their community (the uppercase alphabet) rush in to comfort them.

Quantitative:

AD530L

Text–Reader–Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose is to provide delight with and practice of the alphabet. The funny story that anthropomorphizes each letter gives students the opportunity to practice recognizing letters and to associate the written form, both lowercase and uppercase, with the name of the letter.

Structure: The story has a straightforward narrative structure. Repeated language throughout gives readers an opportunity to make predictions and actively engage in fluent reading.

Language: The muscular verbs describing the varying modes of motion and the injuries sustained by the letters lend depth, personality, and joy to what could have been just another alphabet book.

Knowledge Demands: Having prior knowledge of the alphabet is useful for students but the story will activate background knowledge and reinforce or provide familiarity throughout the text.

Students analyze the purpose of repetitive language and how the text’s words and illustrations communicate key information and meaning. They begin to label drawings, expanding their ability to add details to illustrations. Students also apply their knowledge of the interplay of authors and illustrators by taking on these roles themselves.

With rhythmic and repeated refrains and rich illustrations, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom provides an opportunity for students to focus on using their senses to learn as they study the sounds of words and repetition while deepening their appreciation of the author’s craft.

Title and Author Rap a Tap Tap, Leo Dillon and Diane Dillon

Description of Text This book features gorgeous, limited-color paintings paired with verse that evoke the legendary talent and spirit of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. A well-composed urban landscape shows delighted faces wherever the dancer passes, bringing pleasure, elegance, and culture to his community.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD360L

Text–Reader–Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text shares a perspective on Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s life by chronicling his infectious vibrancy and the joy he brought to members of his community who were often in the throes of economic hardship and discrimination.

Structure: The text contains a chronological and informational narrative with characteristics of an illustrated poem.

Language: The text contains some unfamiliar words that are scaffolded by context and illustrations. The patterned rhythmic and rhyming verses that repeat throughout the text create opportunities for students to participate in reading the story.

Knowledge Demands: To understand the content of this text, knowledge of the Great Depression and the Harlem Renaissance is helpful.

Students orally retell the story and act out scenes from the narrative to understand Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s contribution to the Harlem Renaissance movement and the social atmosphere in which the characters lived. (A shorter supplementary text builds student understanding of the period so that students have context to understand Robinson’s importance.) Students also use hearing to interpret how the author uses rhyming words to mimic the sounds of dancing, adding to their understanding of the text. Repeated language allows early readers to participate in telling the story. Lesson 24 includes discussion of the difficulties of the Great Depression, and Lesson 25 addresses historically specific aspects of racial prejudice. Further discussion of these issues may support student understanding.

Rap a Tap Tap provides students an opportunity to apply what they have learned about the five senses throughout the module to a historically specific context. Students learn how their senses of sight and hearing help them experience a text and learn from the illustrations and words.

Grade K Module 2:

Once Upon a Farm

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

GK Module 2 7

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Three Little Pigs, adaptation, Raina Moore

Description of Text Moore’s adaptation of this classic story emphasizes the relationship between the three pig brothers and their individual characteristics before dramatizing their encounter with the big bad wolf. The text is accompanied by charming watercolor illustrations by the artist Thea Kilros.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

530L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This cautionary tale supports a study of characterization as it explores different traits exhibited by the pigs and the wolf. The story contains more than one level of meaning but is a relatively straightforward moral tale.

Structure: This story has a conventional structure of problem and solution. Illustrations clearly support the text.

Language: The book has clear and straightforward language.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of the qualities of materials for building sturdy structures would be beneficial though not necessary.

Students analyze the connection between a character’s traits and its actions and think about the text from a variety of perspectives. Students also compare characters in The Little Red Hen with characters in Three Little Pigs

This familiar classic tale launches the module, sparks ideas, and builds excitement around both stories and the vivid personification of animals that will come into play again later in the module. The book offers an early opportunity for students’ study of characterization and story structure.

Title and Author Farm Animals, Wade Cooper

Description of Text This informational text with quirky animal portraits, a bright design, and lots of animal facts provides or activates background knowledge about farm animals while fascinating readers with rhymes.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

470L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Accessible facts and realistic photos provide straightforward information about farm animals with an emphasis on the sounds they make and how the animals are helpful to humans.

Structure: The book’s structure is conventional for a low-complexity informational text. Text boxes and simple graphics support the meaning of the text. In addition to main text and graphics, the book includes a dictionary, key words, and a quiz.

Language: The book is written in first-person rhyming text with limited use of Tier 2 words.

Knowledge Demands: Ideally, a young reader would have some background knowledge of farm animals before exposure to this book. The text requires students to understand personification of animals and the fact that animals do not actually speak despite the text being in first person.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Students read a combination of facts, animal sounds, and statements, and make observations about the photographic illustrations to learn about farm animals. The text concludes with a quiz, which is not included in instruction but could be used to reinforce students’ understanding.

Rationale for Placement With Farm Animals, students explore how an author uses words and illustrations to convey information. Students build foundational knowledge that supports their analysis throughout the module.

Title and Author

Description of Text

The Year at Maple Hill Farm, Alice and Martin Provensen

Written and illustrated by a husband-and-wife team who live and work on the farm, this charming look at a calendar year conveys a strong sense of place. The account explains the rhythms of natural life and how the animals on the farm both take and give cues according to the seasons or months.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 630L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This informational text about animals and farm life presents multiple layers as it observes the seasons and the changes that occur, and it provides a marvelous tool for explaining setting (defined as place and time of a story).

Structure: Illustrated throughout, this book is chronologically organized through the months of the year.

Language: Strong verbs and vivid character descriptions work well with illustrations to convey ideas and the meaning of new vocabulary.

Knowledge Demands: Some knowledge of farm animals is helpful, and some knowledge of farmers’ work is needed

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students consider how the text is organized by months and seasons. Students also apply their knowledge of the relationship between words and images to further their understanding of the rhythm of a year on the Provensens’ farm.

The Year at Maple Hill Farm helps students build an understanding of setting and text structure. Work with this informative but narratively rich text supports the discussion of story elements broached later in the module through work with fictional texts.

Title and Author The Little Red Hen, Jerry Pinkney

Description of Text Pinkney’s lively version of this classic tale that narrates the golden rule has detailed, colorful illustrations and uses colored text to differentiate between the various characters the Little Red Hen encounters along the way.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD500L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This relatively straightforward story carries a clear message about the golden rule and the qualities of rigor versus laziness.

Structure: This story has a conventional structure with illustrations that clearly support the text.

Language: The book is written in literal, clear, contemporary, and conversational language.

Knowledge Demands: It would be most useful for students to understand steps in the process of making bread, from the wheat seeds to plant growth to milling the grain to baking the bread.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students deepen their understanding of character development and consider the story structure of problem and solution before collaborating to write a narrative of their own. Students also apply their work with repeated language to understand the connection between repetition and the story’s central problem. Students also compare characters in The Little Red Hen with characters in Three Little Pigs. With the support of text features such as colored fonts in The Little Red Hen, students identify characters and setting independently in this more complex text.

The Little Red Hen provides an opportunity for deep discussion about characterization and narrative structure.

Title and Author

The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Paul Galdone

Description of Text This text, a retelling of another classic tale, features whimsical drawings and a repeating, rhythmic structure.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

500L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This relatively straightforward story has an underlying message of working together to achieve a common goal.

Structure: The book has a chronological narrative structure. Illustrations support the text, though some are “close up” and require the reader to envisage a fuller picture.

Language: This book is written in literal, clear, contemporary, and conversational language.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge about what a troll is (and the fact that trolls do not actually exist) could be useful.

With the familiar narrative of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, students demonstrate their progress in this module through identifying story elements, retelling a story, and comparing characters across texts. Students closely consider how characters respond to problems in stories and explore how these events drive the narrative’s progression by looking at Three Little Pigs and The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Before students write a story of their own, they consider how and why authors sequence events in a story.

This text serves as a vehicle for studying story sequence, as well as another opportunity to consider the previously taught story elements.

Grade K Module

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

GK Module 3 12

3: America, Then and Now Text Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author School Then and Now, Robin Nelson

Description of Text This informational text compares photographs of a school in the past with a more contemporary view of a school.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Text matched to photos illuminates how schools have changed in the United States.

Structure: The book’s structure is conventional for a low-complexity informational text. The structure, color scheme, and theme appear in four books in this module. A one-to-one ratio of photos to statements supports meaning. In addition to the main text and graphics, there is a timeline, a list of facts, and a glossary.

Language: Each of Nelson’s books uses Tier 1 and Tier 2 words, along with a few low-frequency words.

Knowledge Demands: Every young student will have some knowledge of school, and school in the past is clearly explained through simple text and photos. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students identify the main topic and key details in this informational text. They examine text features, including how photographs, bold print, and glossaries support readers. Informational text structures and features may be new concepts for Kindergarten students; they will develop skill with these structures and features with the other Robin Nelson texts included in the module.

This text orients students through a familiar, shared context: the classroom. The text introduces a way for students to think about historical change in the United States and prepares them to discuss Cynthia Rylant’s When I Was Young in the Mountains

Title and Author When I Was Young in the Mountains, Cynthia Rylant

Description of Text This informational narrative describes the author’s childhood in Appalachia, calling attention to changes in the way lives are led over time and showing that simple pleasures are often the best.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD780L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of this memoir-style remembrance geared toward children is to prompt them to consider what they remember from their own childhood and what they will remember in the future. The text illustrates how even though some things change, many feelings associated with summer, home, nature, and family remain consistent across time.

Structure: The structure is that of an illustrated memoir with information about the author’s life. The author frequently begins sentences with “When I was young in the mountains,” helping the readers to understand what the author is saying, and ultimately, the meaning of her story.

Language: Repeated language grounds readers of and listeners to the story. Illustrations reinforce the storyline.

Knowledge Demands: The text describes a childhood in the mountains. No prior knowledge is required to understand this text despite the description of some unusual experiences.

Students pay attention to repeated language to identify the text’s main topic and use illustrations to identify key details. Students also use illustrations to define new vocabulary. Because work with this text requires students to draw evidence to compare their own lives to Cynthia Rylant’s experiences, care must be taken to consider students’ personal contexts.

When I Was Young in the Mountains forms a bridge between the Module 2 texts and those to come in Module 3 as students look at this informational text through a narrative lens and are prompted to notice and wonder about the author’s life.

Title and Author Home Then and Now, Robin Nelson

Description of Text This informational text compares photographs of past home life in the United States with those of present home life.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Text matched to photos illuminates how home life has changed in the United States.

Language: The book uses Tier 1 and Tier 2 words, along with a few lowfrequency words.

Knowledge Demands: Any young reader will have some knowledge of current home life, and life in the past is clearly explained through simple text and photos. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students identify the main topic and key details in this informational text—skills they continue to develop in this module. Students continue to build understanding of text features by examining how photographs, bold print, and glossaries support readers.

This text provides students with another way to think about change over time in the United States and prepares them to discuss the idea of home in The Little House

Title and Author The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton

Description of Text Winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1943, this story follows the life of a little house nestled in the countryside. Modernization and urban growth threaten the house’s tranquil, predictable life.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD610L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Students make some inferences about how the house/author feels. Illustrations help them with that process.

Structure: The narrative structure is appropriate for a Read Aloud. The narrative voice is consistent, and events proceed chronologically. The story personifies the little house, which may seem confusing to some students.

Language: The narrative language is familiar, but some text-critical vocabulary words require support. The book has sections in which figurative language and word choice will need explanation.

Knowledge Demands: The story takes place in both a rural and an urban setting. Some vocabulary, settings, and concepts of change will not be familiar to some students.

Students apply module learning to identify the city and countryside settings in the text and to speak and write about their own neighborhoods. Because work with this text requires students to draw evidence from their own lives, care must be taken to consider students’ personal contexts. Students also explore how setting and emotions change over the course of the text.

At this point in the module, students are deepening their understanding of change. This text provides students with an interesting perspective on the growth and modernization of cities and how one character’s experience of an event can greatly differ from that of another.

Title and Author Transportation Then and Now, Robin Nelson

Description of Text This informational text compares photographs of earlier modes of transportation with those of present ways to travel, highlighting changes over time.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Quantitative:

N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Text matched to photos illuminates how transportation has changed in the United States.

Language: The book uses Tier 1 and Tier 2 words, along with a few lowfrequency words.

Knowledge Demands: Any young reader will have some knowledge of transportation, and modes of transportation from the past are clearly explained through simple text and photos. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Students consider changes in transportation and communication by comparing two of Robin Nelson’s texts. Students identify each text’s main topic and key details and make connections between the texts to draw conclusions.

The structure of Transportation Then and Now follows that of previous module texts, allowing students to access this text with great independence and to work with more challenging vocabulary in context.

Title and Author Communication Then and Now, Robin Nelson

Description of Text This informational text compares photographs of the way people once communicated with photographs of more current styles of communication.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Text matched to photos illuminates how communication has changed in the United States.

Language: The book uses Tier 1 and Tier 2 words, along with a few lowfrequency words.

Knowledge Demands: Any young reader will have some knowledge of the ways people communicate, and communication techniques in the past are clearly explained through simple text and photos. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students consider changes in transportation and in communication by comparing two of Robin Nelson’s texts. Students identify each text’s main topic and key details and make connections between the texts to draw conclusions.

The structure of Communication Then and Now follows that of previous module texts, allowing students to access this text with great independence and to work with more challenging vocabulary in context.

Title and Author Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin, Gene Barretta

Description of Text This text offers a fun approach to the history of inventions, exploring how Ben Franklin’s ideas in early America continue to have an enormous impact today.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

640L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story is straightforward and appropriate for the grade level, and will inspire wonder and delight. There are some sections in which further explanation might be helpful for students to gain a full understanding of the text.

Structure: The structure is straightforward and grade-level appropriate for a Read Aloud. At times the text and illustrations leap across the page, but readers can nevertheless follow along without confusion.

Language: The language is standard, but there are text-critical vocabulary words that need to be defined during the Read Aloud to help students understand what the text is describing.

Knowledge Demands: Students do not need a deep knowledge of early American history to understand the text. The book enables students to use their own lives to make sense of the past.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students identify key details and work with select illustrations to gain a greater understanding of Franklin’s inventions. The format of the informational Then and Now books prepares students to engage with this more complex text, which contrasts Franklin’s inventions with the same objects today.

This more complex text offers students further opportunity to think about how life has changed in the United States in an historically specific context. The illustrations combined with accessible language engage students in picturing life during Ben Franklin’s era (“Ben”) and how his contributions continue to thrive in the “Now.”

Grade K Module 4:

The Continents

Text Complexity

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

GK Module 4 18

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America, Rebecca Hirsch

Description of Text These texts introduce readers to the different continents. Each text provides information on one continent’s geographical features, populations, native animals, and modern marvels.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

410L-550L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Simple, engaging text and colorful, mesmerizing pictures teach about land features, populations, native animals, technological advances, and more—including how to find each continent on a map.

Structure: The books employ a predictable structure with photographs on the left and text on the right, making these texts very accessible. Each photo has a caption under it to explain what is happening in the photo. Headings are in blue font.

Language: Simple sentence structure, with two or three sentences on a page, allows students to process the information presented to them.

Knowledge Demands: As students learn about each specific continent and where it is in relationship to the others, they may require support with comparing and categorizing new information.

Throughout the module, students explore and analyze these texts about the continents to collect information about the natural features, animals, and activities on each. They work with text features including headings and photo captions to determine meaning. The parallel structure of the texts contributes to their accessibility and scaffolds student comprehension.

Kindergarten students are increasingly curious and ready to learn about the world around them. These texts introduce each continent to students and provide background knowledge, which is important as they access the other module texts.

Title and Author The Story of Ferdinand, Munro Leaf

Description of Text This is the story of a bull named Ferdinand who lives in Spain. All the other bulls run and jump and butt their heads together, but Ferdinand prefers to sit and smell flowers. He does just that until the day a bumblebee and some men from the Madrid bullfights give gentle Ferdinand a chance to go to Madrid and become a star of the corrida

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD760L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This story not only enchants and entertains but also conveys the message that it is acceptable, and perhaps even desirable, to be different. Along with a few other fictional tales from around the world, this storybook adds some cultural enhancement to the informational texts which form the structure of the module.

Structure: The text has a simple chronological structure and is well supported by detailed black-and-white illustrations by Robert Lawson that help tell the story in greater detail.

Language: Conversational language engages readers, though some vocabulary is specific to Spanish culture: cork tree, bullfight, Madrid, Banderilleros, Matadors, and Picadores

Knowledge Demands: Students likely will not have background knowledge about the tradition and violence of bullfighting. Without teacher support, they may not understand why all the other bulls would want to go to a bullfight or be able to understand why Ferdinand is not interested.

Students explore the setting and customs of Spain through Read Aloud text, The Story of Ferdinand. Students identify unknown words and use illustrations to analyze the story. Direct instruction on using illustrations to define unfamiliar words supports students’ work with this more complex text. Lesson 5 includes background instruction on matadors in Spanish culture and the impact of bullfighting since students may benefit from further conversation.

This more complex text provides students an opportunity to think about one of Europe’s diverse cultures, which students previously encountered in Hirsch’s Europe, in a literary context.

Author

Description of Text In this West African folktale, a mosquito brags to an iguana that he spied a farmer digging yams as big as mosquitoes. The iguana, upset by the mosquito’s tall tales, refuses to listen to any more nonsense. Grumbling, the iguana puts sticks in his ears and goes about his daily business, setting off a chain reaction among animals in the community.

Title and Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, Verna Aardema

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

770L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This origin story told through an unbelievable chain of events attempts to explain why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears and sheds light on the amazing animals and landscapes of West Africa.

Structure: This text presents a common narrative situation where one misunderstanding leads to a series of events. The solution comes about when the problem is better understood. The illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon add detail to the text and provide readers with an exaggerated perspective of each animal. Brilliant colors with arresting patterns reflect the richness of West African animal diversity as well as storytelling.

Language: This narrative text includes dialogue between the iguana and the other animals in the story. The author also uses unfamiliar words to describe the way that each animal moves: mek, mek, mek; wasawusu, wasawusu, wasawusu. Vivid vocabulary adds urgency to the story.

Knowledge Demands: Students may need support reversing the sequence of events to understand the underlying cause of all the turmoil in the jungle—and perceiving that this is a fiction text. Students use the illustrations to make sense of the events but also learn how illustrations can represent a character’s perspective and exaggerate the story.

Students use illustrations, their listening skills, and their understanding of more familiar words in the text to determine meaning. The text contains some words, such as lumbering and badamin, that may be unfamiliar to Kindergarten students. Work with illustrations also supports students’ understanding of the plot of Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. This more complex text is supported by background knowledge students built by reading Hirsch’s Africa

This text allows students an opportunity to consider the rich landscapes of West Africa, as well as the animals that live there, applying what students have learned from informational texts in a literary context.

Title and Author World Atlas, Nick Crane

Description of Text Divided by geographic region, this text looks at the way the natural world has shaped communities and cultures, as well as at the ideas and initiatives that will shape the future. Supported by illustrations by David Dean, the book shows how all parts of the planet are interconnected and looks at the challenges people face in various regions of the world.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Quantitative: 1180L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text provides a counterpoint to the smaller individual-continent books used in the model, reinforcing some information, providing new information in some instances, and giving a different visual perspective through drawn maps.

Structure: The text contains complex sentences and punctuation. Labels and map features make the information more accessible to students.

Language: Complex language (such as with the suffixes -est: largest, remotest) as well as directional words such as southeast and north may challenge students.

Knowledge Demands: The text uses some concepts, such as continents, population, and landforms, including plateau, fertile belt, plain, desert, and peaks, that may require teacher support. The scale of maps and landforms might also need to be addressed.

Students compare World Atlas to Europe by examining maps and illustrations. Due to the complexity of its written text, World Atlas instruction focuses primarily on the maps and illustrations, with students working in small groups and whole-class settings. This complex text is used as a reference resource; employ scaffolds as needed to support students’ understanding.

Rationale for Placement

World Atlas provides students with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of informational text features and to reinforce their developing knowledge of the continents.

Title and Author

Moon Rope, Lois Ehlert

Description of Text Fox wants to go to the moon. Mole is not interested in a trip to the moon until he hears about large worms up there, waiting to be eaten. With help from a rope of grass and some friends, they set off on an adventure to the moon. Bilingual text and bold art add to the meaning of this enchanting tale.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

430L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This folktale addresses the theme of achieving a goal; it also explains why moles stay underground. Students add this tale to their bank of origin stories and analyze the Peruvian art in the illustrations.

Structure: The book follows a conventional story structure with characters that want something and must solve problems to achieve a goal.

Language: This is a bilingual English/Spanish book. The English throughout is straightforward and age appropriate.

Knowledge Demands: The unusual illustrations are inspired by Peruvian textiles, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and architecture. Students will use their exposure to South America and Peruvian textiles to better understand the story.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students’ work with the relationship between words and illustrations earlier in the module allows for greater independence in work with this text. The simple sentence structure and familiar vocabulary further support accessibility.

Continuing the module’s structure of building knowledge through informational text and then deepening and expanding that foundational understanding through fictional stories, Moon Rope provides students with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the setting and customs of South America, specifically Peru, through an engaging narrative.

Title and Author Introducing North America, Chris Oxlade

Description of Text This book introduces young readers to the continent of North America through ageappropriate maps and engaging photographs. Topics covered within the book include the location of the continent; the climate, geography, natural resources, animals, and plants; and the continent’s countries, people, languages, cities, and famous places.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 730L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This nonfiction text, through its differing structure, gives another angle on learning about what is likely to be the most familiar continent of all for young students.

Structure: Text features such as bold words, headings, map inserts, and captions are set apart from the text itself. Photographs offer concrete examples of information discussed in the text.

Language: The text uses many possibly unfamiliar words in context, including plains, swamps, prairie, and mountain range. Proper nouns and descriptive words such as variety, tropical, vast, and famous may prove difficult.

Knowledge Demands: Some places are mentioned but not pictured. It will be difficult for students to picture unfamiliar places without an illustration or photo. Students may require support understanding how the text’s many sections work together to describe a diverse continent.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students identify main topics and key details to form opinions about North America.

This text’s placement at the end of the module allows students to apply what they have learned to their own continental context. The foundational knowledge about informational text structure and the continents that students build over the course of this module prepares them to access this more complex text.

Grade 1 Module 1: A

World of Books

Text Complexity

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G1 Module 1 24

Appendix A: Text Complexity

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Museum ABC, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Description of Text

Complexity

Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

This stunning text is a unique ABC book that uses four different masterful works of art to describe a word for each letter of the alphabet.

Quantitative: N/A

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text provides a new twist on the traditional ABC book with visually rich, detailed works of art from different cultures and time periods.

Structure: The organization is straightforward.

Language: Simple words are supported by a variety of illustrations in this text. The index offers additional information about the art.

Knowledge Demands: Familiarity with the alphabet is needed.

These beautifully curated works of fine art offer students a rich opportunity to engage with an accessible text with increasing depth, mining the works of art for details, and understanding.

Teachers will want to plan how students will access the images in Museum ABC. See the Teacher Note in Lesson 1 for suggestions.

This visually engaging book offers an accessible entry for students at the start of Grade 1, and a jumping off point for noticing and wondering. As students notice details in the pictures, teachers can share that details aren’t just found in paintings, and that good readers also notice details in the words when they read a book.

Title and Author Tomás and the Library Lady, Pat Mora

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

This book, with illustrations by Raul Colón, tells the inspiring, true story of a young migrant worker and the kind librarian who introduces him to books—encouraging a love for learning and opening his imagination.

Quantitative:

500L

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the narrative has a straightforward story with a clear theme, it also has more than one level of meaning, including the view outside (reality) and inside (imagination) books.

Structure: The structure is conventional with a straightforward storyline and illustrations that support the text. The author’s note provides additional background on Tomás Rivera.

Language: Most language is explicit and easy to understand, though some unfamiliar vocabulary and Spanish terms are used. Sentence structure is mainly simple and compound sentences with a few complex sentences.

Knowledge Demands: The book includes slightly complex references to migrant experiences wherein Tomás’s family must move regularly so his parents can work. Other knowledge demands include other cultural elements of a Spanish migrant family. As needed, teachers may want to ensure that students understand that people in the United States speak different languages, including English and Spanish.

As needed, teachers may want to supplement their reading aloud to supply key background, such as that farmworkers travel between large farming states, such as Iowa and Texas; that migrant farming is seasonal; and that people in America speak different languages, including English and Spanish.

Because few of the texts in this module are independently accessible to students, lessons focus on students asking and answering questions and using illustrations and photographs to understand the texts more deeply. Spanish-speaking students may enjoy the opportunity to encounter Spanish words in this text.

No knowledge is more essential or foundational to a thoughtful English language arts (ELA) curriculum than the knowledge of what books can do to change lives. That libraries and librarians increase access to books and knowledge is a fundamental idea of this module.

Title and Author Waiting for the Biblioburro, Monica Brown

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD560L Inspired by a real-life librarian’s efforts to bring books to people in rural Colombia, this book, accompanied by illustrations by John Parra, tells the story of a young girl who loves books and whose small village is visited by a traveling library.

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The narrative is a slightly complex story with multiple levels of meaning.

Structure: The organization of the storyline is predictable. The illustrations directly support the written text, though some illustrations leave room for interpretation of the character’s feelings. The author’s note provides additional cultural background.

Language: The text includes simple and compound sentences, with some Spanish vocabulary that is supported with English context clues and the illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: Understanding of the cultural elements of a Spanish family and some understanding of experiences with the library system to compare with a mobile library system are helpful.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students will benefit from rereading and discussion to ascertain the levels of meaning of this story, including Ana’s love for books, the struggle to get books to Ana’s village, and her growth from a reader to a writer.

Spanish-speaking students may enjoy the opportunity to encounter Spanish words in this text. This story continues to develop the topic of the module—that books can transform lives.

Title and Author My Librarian Is a Camel, Margriet Ruurs

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

This informational text features interesting facts and real photographs that explore the different ways people get books through mobile libraries in thirteen countries around the world.

Quantitative:

970L

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This book provides a global perspective of how people access books. It also includes a small map and basic information for each country included in the text.

Structure: The organization is straightforward. Each country included in the text has a dedicated page spread, including pictures with captions, and a sidebar with a small map and basic information such as the capital, population, and language.

Language: The text is dense and includes some challenging vocabulary and country-related terms.

Knowledge Demands: The book demands knowledge of geography of certain countries and characteristics of library systems.

Students’ first look at this text is likely to generate questions about its visuals. Subsequently, students closely read the introduction and dig deeper into the captions and quotations related to each country highlighted. These initial explorations give them context of different ways children around the world access books.

Depending on students’ backgrounds and their home/school locations, students may access books in different ways themselves or have had different prior experiences in other places. Teachers will want to be sensitive to these varying contexts.

This informational text raises students’ awareness that literacy advocates like librarians dedicate their lives to making sure that people everywhere have access to books and knowledge. With each new text in this module, students construct more knowledge and collect more evidence to answer the Essential Question: How do books change lives around the world?

Title and Author That Book Woman, Heather Henson

Description of Text Complexity Ratings

This picture book, with illustrations by David Small, is the story of a hardworking young boy living in the rural Appalachian Mountains in the 1930s. He initially thinks that he does not like reading, but a persistent packhorse librarian continues to deliver books, impressing him with her bravery. When he ultimately decides to learn to read, he discovers a love for books.

Quantitative: AD920L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story’s theme is clear but conveyed subtly. The passing of time is communicated through the changing seasons shown in the pictures and the changing chores on this rural homestead.

Structure: The story’s organization is clear and chronological. The illustrations support the text, and the author’s note provides additional background information on packhorse librarians.

Language: The author uses many unfamiliar words with a heavy use of vocabulary in an Appalachian dialect (a-twixt, britches, ’course), where spelling and diction indicate geographical and economic factors. Some figurative language is not explained through illustration.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from some understanding of the larger economic setting of this story and from having experienced or having been able to envision life in a rural area, including living in a oneroom home or living without a vehicle.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

The dialect may pose challenges for students at first; teachers will want to model how students can infer meaning if it is not immediately clear. The book offers students a chance to connect with Cal’s motivation for learning to read—a motivation that is implied but not explicitly stated.

The language of this text is more challenging than that of the earlier narratives in this module, but at this point in their learning, students have built crucial knowledge and skills to engage in the richness of this text through adult-directed reading.

Title and Author Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss

Description of Text

Complexity

Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

In this classic Dr. Seuss story with signature rhyming, the main character Sam-I-am insists on another character trying green eggs and ham in different ways and in different locations.

Quantitative:

210L

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This classic narrative is a fantastical, silly story with a clear central message. It has an accessible conflict and a joyful resolution.

Structure: Picture cues highlight the alternating dialogue between two speakers while rhythm and meter add structure to the narrative.

Language: This book is composed of simple words and short sentences organized in rhyming and repeated lines.

Knowledge Demands: The knowledge demands are minimal, as the illustrations make what is happening apparent.

This is the first Grade 1 text that students read more independently in this module. Students first listen, following along with the text as the teacher reads aloud before engaging in partner and more independent rereading. While the low complexity, simple and repeating words, and rhymes make this appropriate for Grade 1 readers, some readers may be challenged. In Green Eggs and Ham, the text changes position and is surrounded by illustrations. Students with reading challenges may have difficulty tracking the text. To support these students with independent reading, teachers may want to use sticky notes or a word window to help students focus on the text in sequence.

The module closes with this text to allow students to experience a similar transformation from a book as the characters in the module’s stories experience. Green Eggs and Ham is a timeless classic that enables students to experience the power of books for themselves as they delight in the joyful wordplay and the important message about having an open mind when trying something new.

Grade 1 Module 2:

Creature Features

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G1 Module 2 31

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Seven Blind Mice, Ed Young

In this fable, a Caldecott Honor book for its illustrations, seven different-colored blind mice investigate a different part of the strange “Something,” each returning with a different theory on what it is. Only when the seventh mouse explores the whole “Something” does he see what it really is.

Quantitative:

AD530L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text reinforces the structure of a fable with an important moral, in an accessible format.

Structure: The simple, predictable narrative fable structure provides a moral at the end.

Language: The text features simple vocabulary, augmented with vivid illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: Some knowledge of fables and morals is helpful but not necessary for students to access the text.

The story told in Seven Blind Mice carries an important message about not being limited by a too-narrow perspective; it is important to look at the whole, not just specific parts. This builds on students’ Module 1 work with central messages.

In Grade 1 Module 2, students gain an awareness of the natural world around them. The module opens with accessible, and possibly familiar, fables before continuing students’ work with informational texts. The vibrant art in Seven Blind Mice, paired with its spare text, makes this an appropriate introduction to a study of animals in Grade 1.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Me … Jane, Patrick McDonnell

This Caldecott Honor book tells the delightful story of a young Jane Goodall and her toy chimpanzee, Jubilee. Readers follow along as Jane observes and wonders about the world around her and dreams of a life living with and helping animals. The interplay between text and illustrations provides a clear appeal—asking children to really notice the natural world around them. The text also provides students with a strong representation of a famous female scientist.

Quantitative:

AD740L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The gentle narrative structure of this text provides an accessible, heartwarming message of wonder, with layers of deeper meaning around fulfilling dreams that can be uncovered through multiple reads.

Structure: The narrative is structured as a series of experiences during a childhood summer as Jane wonders about the world around her. Textured illustrations help drive the story and support deeper meaning. Illustrations also include real sketches and puzzles from young Jane and a real photograph of adult Jane, providing a real-life perspective. Entries from the author and Jane Goodall at the back of the book provide additional information about Jane’s life and message.

Language: The lyrical yet simple language reflects the ease and wonder of a young child.

Knowledge Demands: Though it would be helpful to have some knowledge of Africa, the book is easily accessible regardless of this background knowledge.

This accessible biography is an excellent introduction of this genre to young children, and the narrative-like elements make it particularly approachable. Goodall’s origin story should be particularly relatable for young students—her childhood dreams become her life’s work. Students engage in close reading of the text, enriched by their asking and answering text-based questions.

Like most of the texts in Grade 1, the story of the legendary, inspiring Jane Goodall is introduced as a read-aloud. This biography offers a real-world context for students’ study of animals in this module. The book also illustrates how people use observation to learn about animals and the natural world, and, more broadly, the power of curiosity and how it drives scientific research.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea, Chris Butterworth

Intriguing facts in this text provide a comprehensive look at one of the most mysterious, unique fish. Through the engaging information and textured engraving illustrations by John Lawrence, readers learn all about the sea horse. It provides an excellent opportunity to learn a wealth of information supported by various text features and illustrations about a fascinating animal.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Quantitative: AD750L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This informational book features many scientifically accurate facts about how these interesting fish live; the rich illustrations by award-winning illustrator John Lawrence offer additional information and context.

Structure: The layout of this informational text, the most complex of the module, is intricate for a children’s book, with several prominent text features and callouts. Different-size fonts for different purposes add visual richness and meaning to the text.

Language: Some figurative language and complex vocabulary may challenge students.

Knowledge Demands: Students can access the text without significant prior knowledge of the subject, though this prior knowledge and a strong command of literary style are helpful to students in extracting deeper meanings.

The book presents scientific concepts about sea life and the life cycle in grade-appropriate ways. The fascinating facts presented through the words and illustrations will captivate readers of all ages. The text also provides a chance for students to explore how specific text features bolster readers’ understanding.

The book offers a beautiful intersection of art and science, allowing young readers to draw meaning from the text and the rich illustrations. This book also draws students more deeply into the focus of this module—animals’ forms and functions.

Title and Author

Description of Text

What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, Steve Jenkins, Robin Page

This Caldecott Honor text explores the many unique things different animals can do with their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, feet, and tails. The text provides fascinating facts of nature by engaging readers in a guessing game through its skillful use of questions and playful approach to building rich content knowledge about the features of animals.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: 510L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose and meaning are clear.

Structure: The structure of this text—a question followed by facts answering the question—is predictable. Details provide intrigue, and the integrated text and illustrations bolster understanding. The pages at the back of the book offer more information about the animals.

Language: The language is clear and playful.

Knowledge Demands: Students will need little background knowledge to access this text.

Structured as an interactive guessing book, What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? offers an engaging learning opportunity for Grade 1 students. Winner of the Caldecott Honor for its cutpaper collages, the book also provides students with another example of how illustrations and text work together to support meaning in picture books. The facts organized by animals and their features offer students a perfect opportunity to make comparisons. This foundational skill helps students learn to organize information and make connections among ideas.

This book provides a further opportunity for students to consider the idea of form and function of animal body parts. The text also serves as a model for students’ own writing. They build knowledge of informational texts that will support them in crafting their own informative paragraphs and prepare them for the End-of-Module (EOM) Task of writing about an animal’s unique feature.

Title and Author

Description of Text

Never Smile at a Monkey, Steve Jenkins

In this heart-pounding text, readers learn that some creatures have unique ways of protecting themselves, which can make them unexpectedly dangerous to humans. The author provides readers with a series of compelling, stark directives that develop each key point.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: AD920L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This bold text provides readers with an opportunity to discover some of the most dangerous creatures on Earth. The author’s point and reasons to support his point are clearly stated in the text.

Structure: The simple layout of this text makes the complex language and concepts more accessible.

Language: Complex vocabulary may challenge students, though the context in the text and pictures offers rich opportunities for students to learn new words.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of the animals, especially about the different places these animals live, is helpful (but not necessary) to put their threat into perspective.

Never Smile at a Monkey introduces students to a host of new animals and their unusual features, which can prove dangerous to those who are unprepared. Teachers may want to point out that while the book points out animals’ dangerous features, it also shares the ways that we can stay safe if we encounter any of these creatures—in the unlikely event that we do find ourselves face-to-face with a monkey, for example. The text’s clear structure with a key idea followed by evidence provides students with an opportunity to build skill analyzing how authors support their points in text.

This text continues to address the crucial ideas of animals’ form and function, building students’ knowledge for their EOM Task and serving as a model of the craft of informational text writing.

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

Grade 1 Module 3: Powerful Forces

Text Complexity

G1 Module 3 37

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Feel the Wind, Arthur Dorros

Description of Text This informative text presents a complex topic in simple terms to explain concepts including how wind is made and what it can do. The book introduces the topic of the wind as a force, through playful, supportive examples and illustrations to which young readers can relate.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD600L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This information-rich text provides the science of what causes wind.

Structure: Information is presented in a straightforward structure and is organized by different topics about the wind. Engaging illustrations and a few text features provide ample support.

Language: Simple language explains complex science topics well.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from knowledge of science, of how the wind is formed, and of scientific vocabulary.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations In Module 3, students continue to build skills working with different text genres. With informational texts such as this one, students continue to work with organizing concepts into main ideas and supporting details. In conjunction with building foundational knowledge of the module topic through Feel the Wind, students simultaneously complete a mini-research project to investigate hurricane winds.

Rationale for Placement

The study of wind in Module 3 introduces students to key scientific concepts of weather and forces and to key content-area words related to this study. Feel the Wind sets the foundation for students’ module learning through an information-rich introduction to the wind—how it is created and how it affects our lives. The book also serves as a model of how an author of informational texts uses research-based facts to develop ideas—a skill students practice with their mini-research project.

Title and Author Feelings, Aliki

Description of Text This delightful, creative book by a well-known author describes many of the different common human feelings. The book uses a unique format of illustrations and dialogue, and readers learn about feelings through relatable stories.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Quantitative: NP

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The informational text presents feelings in as many different ways as there are feelings in a child’s life, showing both causes and effects of one’s emotions and the emotions of others. The author acknowledges the reality that humans experience a range of emotions.

Structure: The book is structured as several short fictional vignettes, with illustrations and text features such as dialogue, thought bubbles, bold words, and font changes. The expressive illustrations are essential to students’ understanding of the main ideas. Varying fonts and print sizes may pose challenges.

Language: Most vignettes feature simple language and sentence structures.

Knowledge Demands: Some of the vocabulary may be new to students.

With Feelings, students continue their study of informational texts, taking the opportunity to analyze text features. Students closely examine the illustrations and words to identify the information provided by both and to analyze how illustrations can support readers’ comprehension. Feelings describes a full range of human emotions, which aids students in developing an emotional vocabulary that will serve them as they read and write stories about people and characters who face challenges and find solutions. The book also helps students identify characters’ emotions helps them analyze stories and create narratives of their own.

Rationale for Placement

Through the next three books of the module, students encounter stories of different characters who react with varying intensities to the wind. These books enable students to explore another invisible power: emotions. Feelings provides key knowledge and vocabulary that empowers students to describe emotions and interpret stories. Students’ work with feelings also provides key background for their End-of-Module (EOM) Task narratives, in which they will use words that appeal to the senses and feelings and will mirror the descriptive craft of the authors’ works in this module.

Title and Author Gilberto and the Wind, Marie Hall Ets

Description of Text This book tells the intriguing story of a young boy who engages in wide-ranging adventures and learns that the wind can be a fickle playmate.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

520L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story explores the many effects and moods of the wind. The text introduces the concept of personification through the perspective of a child who describes the wind as a person.

Structure: The story, enriched with simple illustrations that use a limited color palette, is told from the first-person perspective.

Language: The text features simple words and sentences.

Knowledge Demands: Understanding personification and cause-andeffect will support readers’ comprehension.

The first narrative text in this module offers Grade 1 students a chance to continue to deepen their understanding of narrative elements. Students retell Gilberto and the Wind and examine the role of problem and resolution in a story—work that helps prepare students to write their own EOM Task narratives.

Students have built key knowledge of the wind through Feel the Wind and deepened their understanding of emotions and feelings through the book Feelings. Now, Gilberto and the Wind offers students a chance to experience one character’s reactions as he embarks on various adventures with the wind as his playmate.

Title and Author “The Guest” from Owl at Home, Arnold Lobel

Description of Text Owl at Home, by an award-winning author and illustrator, includes a humorous series of short stories about Owl. The module focus is on “The Guest,” a story in which the wind behaves as an unwelcome visitor to Owl. Rich words describe the wind, yet the language is simple enough for many to enjoy reading the text independently.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

490L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This story demonstrates the effects of harsh winter wind and how it can feel like an intrusive guest.

Structure: The story follows a chronological structure with a clear beginning and end and features just two characters. Illustrations personify the wind as a disruptive guest.

Language: The text features simple vocabulary, dialogue, and sentence structures.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from an understanding of personification and the effects of a cold winter.

Students continue to develop their understandings of story elements, with a focus on problem and resolution. Students’ work is scaffolded by using a story map and retelling the story to a partner. They continue to use question words to ask and answer questions about the story. Students analyze the sensory and feeling words that the author uses to describe the wind and Owl’s reactions to it.

In preparation for crafting their own narratives, students continue with “The Guest” to read and discuss another narrative example of a character affected by the wind.

Title and Author Brave Irene, William Steig

Description of Text This book, by an award-winning author, details an exciting journey that features a courageous young girl, Irene, who must fight the wind to deliver a ball gown for a duchess. Readers follow intently, rooting for Irene to overcome nature’s challenges.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD630L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Brave Irene provides a lesson in persistence—never give up trying to reach your goal. Irene demonstrates the will to overcome obstacles, and the text explores the wind as a dramatic, conflicting force.

Structure: The text follows a chronological narrative structure with simple dialogue. Illustrations enhance readers’ visualization of the story.

Language: The text is full of detailed sensory language. The author employs some challenging language and sentence structures.

Knowledge Demands: Students will again benefit from understanding personification.

Students again engage in noticing and wondering with Brave Irene. Students continue to organize the narrative elements by using a story map and act out Irene’s dramatic journey. Students also examine how sensory words and phrases develop the narrative.

Students in warmer climates may benefit from information about strong snowstorms. Students might watch a video or read a short text about blizzards to build needed knowledge.

Brave Irene provides a third opportunity for students to explore narrative elements as well as sensory and feeling words in a story about a character affected by the power of the wind. The main character provides a lesson in persistence—while she is discouraged at first, she nevertheless carries on and reaches her goal. Thus, she models for young students that they too can reach their goals.

Title and Authors The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Description of Text This poignant true story follows a fourteen-year-old boy who pursued his dream to use the wind to bring electricity and running water to his poverty-stricken village. As a young inventor, Kamkwamba devised a plan to help his community by building windmills to combat the drought in Malawi. With remarkable determination and inventiveness, the boy overcame extreme adversity to successfully build a windmill.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 850L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The book provides a real-life example of determination—working hard and not giving up achieving one’s dream— to use the wind for energy.

Structure: Structured as a chronological biography, the book also includes detailed illustrations. The authors provide additional biographical information at the end.

Language: Most unfamiliar vocabulary is supported by context and illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from some cultural knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa. Sensitivity to students’ cultural and personal contexts is necessary when discussing issues of poverty, spiritual beliefs, and cultural practices. Students’ understanding of wind as a power source is essential.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students determine the main events in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and construct a timeline to organize these events. Students also practice adding descriptive words to a scene from the book.

While the text is informational and tells the true story of Kamkwamba, it follows a narrative format. Students have familiarity with this format from their work with the biography of Jane Goodall in Module 2. Students may benefit from additional review of informative, narratively structured texts, which include storylike elements to make factual events come to life for the reader.

Students complete the module with this final informational text, which offers an inspirational, real-world application for the wind.

Grade 1 Module 4:

Cinderella Stories

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G1 Module 4 43

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella, Paul Fleischman

Description of Text This unique text integrates many different cultural versions of the Cinderella story into a single story. Illustrations by Julie Paschkis include elements of global folk art and textile patterns that enhance the story.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD700L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The unique retelling emphasizes the universality of the Cinderella story while acknowledging the important role of culture in storytelling.

Structure: The story is told in sequence, with pieces of many different tales woven into one. A helpful world map in the front and back of the book indicates all the areas featured.

Language: Most unfamiliar vocabulary is supported by context and illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from knowledge of geography of countries and continents; characteristics of various cultures; and the elements of fairy tales.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

This compilation of over a dozen Cinderella stories manages both to seamlessly tell this common tale and convey the differences among the many versions. The book offers students a visually rich introduction to the idea of a story told across time and place.

Cinderella stories are specifically included in the CCSS and offer a rich opportunity to compare tales from across different cultures. However, the fairy tale has the potential to communicate cultural messages (e.g., emphasis on female beauty or the societal roles of young women) that educators may want to be cognizant of during instruction. Lesson 1 provides suggestions and encouragement for approaching these issues mindfully and purposefully. Additionally, many versions of the classic tale do not simply helplessly wish for the young woman’s future to change; rather, Cinderella can be read as a self-reliant individual who actively constructs her own future. This idea is worth exploring across the Module 4 texts.

Almost every culture seems to have its own Cinderella story, and these stories are united by common elements and themes. Changes to the setting across cultures do not disrupt the messages of the importance of kindness and of good triumphing over evil. Many readers admire the Cinderella character for her ability to adapt as well as endure.

Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal introduces and concludes the module, reinforcing the idea of Cinderella as a universally told story. The module begins with a brief exploration of the book, which introduces the module’s diverse compilation of Cinderella stories from around the world. At the end of the module, students return to the text to reflect on the role culture plays in the Cinderella stories. The text also offers a useful map that enables students to visually think about the places in the Cinderella stories throughout the module.

Title and Author Cinderella, Marcia Brown

Description of Text Winner of the Caldecott Medal, this book introduces the classic Cinderella tale of magic and justice.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD840L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The book beautifully illustrates the elements of a Cinderella story and shows that kindness and perseverance can help dreams come true.

Structure: The story follows sequential structure of a fairy tale with a clear problem and resolution.

Language: The text features some unfamiliar vocabulary and complex sentence structures.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from some familiarity with the unique structure of fairy tales, which feature a “Once upon a time” beginning and magical elements.

With this first version, Grade 1 students listen to and discuss the text to identify the core elements of the Cinderella story and to understand the story’s structure.

While this text features some complex language and syntax, research shows that students can listen to texts at a higher level than they can decode, and young learners benefit from read-aloud exposure to more complex texts.

Rationale for Placement

This most familiar version of the tale serves as an introduction and a baseline for comparison of the cross-cultural tales students encounter throughout the module. Brown’s award-winning adaptation of Charles Perrault’s well-known French classic features the familiar hallmarks of the glass slipper and the fairy godmother. While this version has some unfamiliar vocabulary and complex sentence structures, the clear message, sequential organization, and clear problem and resolution make the book accessible. This adult directed text is best shared aloud with young readers, and that is how the story is presented in Module 4.

Title

and Author

Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella, Robert D. San Souci

Description of Text This West Indian version of the Cinderella story, illustrated by Brian Pinkney, is uniquely told from the godmother’s point of view and includes French Creole words and phrases.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD670L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Of the module’s many versions, this may be closest to the traditional Perrault Cinderella story, but it is told from a different perspective.

Structure: This sequential story with a clear problem and resolution follows the traditional fairy tale structure. Vibrant illustrations help tell the story.

Language: The author uses some French Creole words, which are defined in the book’s glossary.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from knowledge of the geography of the Caribbean, the characteristics of West Indian culture, and the islands’ relationship to France.

Readers begin to compare Cinderella stories with this text. This humorous version of the tale provides a chance to discuss point of view in a narrative; the story is told from the godmother’s perspective. The author captures the musical intonations of Caribbean speech and includes some French Creole words, which can be defined for students by using the book’s glossary.

Each new version of Cinderella in this module creates an authentic opportunity for students to compare story elements and characters. Students identify what is unique about each version, while recognizing the common elements present in the versions.

Title and Author The Rough-Face Girl, Rafe Martin

Description of Text

This text is a stunning Algonquin Cinderella story, illustrated by David Shannon, that features few traditional elements and emphasizes nature as a strong presence. The character of the Rough-Face Girl takes a more active role in her transformation and reinforces the message that goodness lies within.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD540L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Title and Author

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This version offers one of the more different variations of the classic Cinderella tale, with an emphasis on nature and inner beauty.

Structure: The story is presented sequentially and with detailed illustrations.

Language: The text includes several complex metaphors about nature, which are supported by the illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from some knowledge of the geography of Lake Ontario, the characteristics of American Indian culture, and nature as a character.

Students continue to identify and analyze the story elements and pinpoint similarities across the versions. The particularities of this version are also discussed. Unique to Martin’s telling of the Algonquin tale is the characters’ connection to the natural world. Students analyze the illustrations to reveal this connection and to describe the central character.

If sensitive topics arise in the class about the presentation of female beauty in this text, teachers can welcome the opportunity for dialogue and encourage open discussion.

This unique, haunting tale offers an alternative telling for students’ further comparison.

Bigfoot Cinderrrrrella, Tony Johnston

Description of Text This text offers readers a funny twist on the classic Cinderella story, illustrated by James Warhola, with nontraditional characters, humor, and an underlying environmental message.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

660L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This humorous version of a Cinderella story features nonhuman characters and opposite values placed on beauty.

Structure: The story is structured sequentially and supported by humorous illustrations.

Language: Some figurative language can be challenging, but most dialogue is simple.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from basic knowledge of northwestern North American forests, including specific trees, plants, insects, and wildlife.

Students may enjoy this humorous version of the tale that mixes the Bigfoot legend with environmental concerns and includes a glossary of plants and animals. Students begin by reviewing the Knowledge Journal to activate their prior knowledge before they read this new version and continue with many of the same routines as with the previous stories, including completing a story map and retelling the story.

This modern, imaginative tale offers students a fresh, humorous take on the Cinderella story and involves a Bigfoot Ella and prince. The text provides ample material for comparing and contrasting with other module texts.

Title and Author Adelita, Tomie dePaola

Description of Text Set in a Mexican village, this variation on the familiar fairy tale by a well-known author is told in English with some Spanish dialogue.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD660L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Told without the typical magical fairy godmother and the lost slipper, the tale offers another variation on the classic for comparison.

Structure: The story is told sequentially, with a lengthier backstory that creates a context for the familiar tale. Illustrations support understanding and enhance the setting.

Language: Spanish phrases and vocabulary are defined in the context and in the book’s helpful glossary of Spanish phrases and pronunciations.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from some knowledge of Spanish words and phrases and of Mexican culture.

To engage with this story, students repeat many of the now-familiar routines, including completing a story map and retelling Adelita to their partners.

This version of the Cinderella story is set in Mexico. As a result, the author includes Spanish words and phrases, beginning with the book’s opening: Hace mucho tiempo. Spanishspeaking students may find this version particularly engaging, given their familiarity with the vocabulary. For non-Spanish speakers, the Spanish glossary with the pronunciation key can be useful for Read Aloud and student fluency work.

This visually engaging version offers yet another point of comparison for students.

Title and Author The Korean Cinderella, Shirley Climo

Description of Text Vividly illustrated by Ruth Heller, this Korean story provides another variation on the Cinderella tale, in which Pear Blossom gets help from magical creatures.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

700L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: In this variation on the classic Cinderella story, a mistreated daughter receives magical help from creatures to complete her impossible chores and is rewarded for her honesty and perseverance.

Structure: The fairy tale is presented sequentially, with the illustrations as an integral part of the storytelling. Informative notes from the author and illustrator provide additional cultural background on the story and art.

Language: The story includes some challenging vocabulary and Korean words and names. Young readers may be confused by the three names for the same character: Pear Blossom, Little Pig, and Pigling.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will benefit from a basic sense of world geography, including the locations of Korea and China.

In this version, helpful notes from the author and the illustrator illuminate some of the story’s cultural references. Korean words help emphasize the setting of this tale, as do the rich illustrations, which are the result of the illustrator’s extensive research into traditional Korean techniques and images.

With yet another version of the tale, students continue to build appreciation for the uniqueness of each story, as well as an understanding of the common elements that connect the stories.

Grade 2 Module 1: A

Season of Change Text Complexity

WIT & WISDOM

G2 Module 1 50

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author “Weather,” Eve Merriam

Description of Text This beautifully crafted poem draws students in with its engaging, playful description of a rainstorm.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

N/A (poetry)

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the structured pattern of the poem helps readers follow the rhythm and development of the rainstorm, many of the words will challenge readers.

Structure: Structure is somewhat predictable and grade-level appropriate. There is an irregular rhyming pattern that repeats throughout the poem.

Language: The use of onomatopoeic words and unfamiliar vocabulary may challenge students at first.

Knowledge Demands: Nonsense words will be unfamiliar to students. Some of the descriptive words may be challenging for students.

“Weather” requires readers to juggle a complex combination of alliteration, onomatopoeia, and challenging words—real and nonsense—while offering opportunities to discuss changes in nature and to develop fluency. The relative brevity of the poem as well as its extended treatment across several lessons allows students to access this complex text.

Analysis of “Weather” establishes themes of change in relationship to the weather, which students continue to explore throughout the module.

Title and Author How Do You Know It’s Fall?, Lisa

M. Herrington

Description of Text This basic informational text details characteristics of fall in a series of short, straightforward chapters with relevant photographs, and features an index and word list with accompanying photographs.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

520L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text is deceptively complex (hence its nonconforming Lexile rating) as it uses challenging vocabulary and complex sentence structures to detail characteristics of fall.

Structure: While the organization and graphics are predictable, there are few signposts, such as headers or subheadings, to organize the text.

Language: Students will recognize the general information and content.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of fall, especially for students in geographic regions with subtle or no shifts of season, will be helpful.

Students investigate key terms and details to determine the meaning while also identifying the main topic of the chapters in this text. Students build knowledge about fall and synthesize their learning before moving to the next section of the module. Students may enjoy the opportunity to try the suggested science experiment, included in the back of the text.

This text provides students with information on seasonal changes in weather and traditional fall activities, knowledge essential to the subsequent module learning. Transitioning to an informational text after their work with a poem allows students to draw connections between different types of texts.

Title and Author The Little Yellow Leaf, Carin Berger

Description of Text The beautiful illustrations and precise descriptive language of this story communicate a powerful theme of bravery with company, which resonates with Grade 2 students.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: N/A

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the story is straightforward, readers may be challenged by the complex sentences spread across pages. The brief dialogue between the leaves requires students to infer characters’ intent.

Structure: The narrator is reliable, however a switch from narration to dialogue may provide a challenge for students.

Language: The various iterations of “not ready yet” will support readers interpreting the message of the story.

Knowledge Demands: At this point in the module, some of the fall-specific words will be familiar to students; however, many of the rich descriptive words will be unfamiliar to readers.

Students apply their knowledge of fall to understand the narrative of The Little Yellow Leaf Repetition throughout the story supports students’ exploration of story structure while developing their content knowledge of change and fall.

The Little Yellow Leaf provides students the opportunity to apply what they have learned about fall from Herrington’s text to a work of literary fiction and continue to develop that knowledge.

Title and Author A Color of His Own, Leo Lionni

Description of Text This classic Lionni tale about friendship and identity entices students with bright watercolor illustrations and elegant language.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD640L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While seemingly simple, there are some complex sentences that will challenge students.

Structure: Strong illustrations support the text, and the simple structure of problem and resolution will help readers follow the storyline. The relatively lengthy introduction about animals’ colors will provide opportunity for discussion and analysis.

Language: While some sentences are complex, the language is grade appropriate.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of fall, chameleons, and camouflage will strengthen students’ understanding of the text.

Students recount the narrative, building skill with sequencing story events and identifying a central message. Students also continue to develop their understanding of problem and resolution within a text and identify evidence independently to use in their analytical writing.

A Color of His Own echoes the theme of The Little Yellow Leaf, underscoring the power of friends to help us through change. After they have read both texts, students draw connections between them.

Title and

Author

Why Do Leaves Change Color?,

Betsy Maestro

Description of Text This Let’s Read and Find Out Science book focuses on leaves and their importance to deciduous trees. The text begins with a broad view of leaves and then details the complex biology of leaves and their life cycle, returning at the end to leaves beyond deciduous trees.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

580L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: There is an abundance of information on every page and in every illustration of this text. While most of the information in the text centers around the importance of leaves and their life cycle, the text also details different types of leaves, where to see foliage, and activities to do with leaves.

Structure: The text switches between a variety of structures and rich descriptions. Most illustrations support the text, some with labels; however, some do not.

Language: Some of the content-specific language, especially around the complex process that causes leaves to change color and separate from trees, will be challenging for students.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of the science of seasonal changes in fall will be very helpful.

Over the course of several lessons, students analyze key details in order to determine how and why leaves change color. This highly accessible text also provides an opportunity to assess students’ independent reading skills through a New-Read Assessment.

This informative text explains and illustrates an iconic and important autumn change and provides students an opportunity to synthesize their learning from the module thus far.

Title and Author Sky Tree, Thomas Locker

Description of Text This Seeing Science Through Art book depicts the seasonal changes of one tree. This lovely text captures the cyclical nature of seasonal changes in nature, detailing the many multifaceted changes in fall.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD560L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The dual narrations of the tree and the illustrations require readers to attend to multiple purposes in the text.

Structure: While the story of the tree is appropriately leveled for secondgraders, the dual narrations, coupled with complex sentences will challenge readers.

Language: Some of the descriptive language may be unfamiliar to students.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of seasonal changes will support students’ comprehension of the text.

Students apply all they have learned about change and story structure to this last text in the module. The illustrations, coupled with questions about the feeling and mood the images evoke, encourage students to attend to the choices the artist made with color and composition.

This final text in the module provides students an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the role of art within narrative storytelling as they read Sky Tree and return to their work with Eve Merriam’s “Weather.”

Grade 2 Module 2:

The American West

Text Complexity

WIT & WISDOM

G2 Module 2 57

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author The Buffalo Are Back, Jean Craighead George

Description of Text This narrative nonfiction book, written in four sections, details the fate of the buffalo during the westward expansion of American settlements and the buffalo’s comeback under the oversight of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

800L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This informational text, told in a narrative style, shows the many layers of interrelationships among the buffalo, the American Indians, the settlers, the grass, the government, and President Theodore Roosevelt. This look at historical events emphasizes the profound effect one change can have on the world.

Structure: This book is narrative nonfiction—a hybrid of a narrative story and informational text. There are four distinct sections highlighted by clear headings. Told chronologically with words and watercolor illustrations, the text and artwork provide a succinct narrative of the American prairies from the 1800s to recent times.

Language: Heavy use of topic-specific vocabulary, as well as many similes and metaphors used to explain historical events, may present challenges to students. However, some language is supported with in-text explanations and illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: The reader would benefit from nuanced knowledge of the Westward Expansion during this period in history.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Building on the Module 1 foundation of observing and questioning, students record observations about the rich text and beautiful illustrations of The Buffalo Are Back. Students develop an understanding of how the environment of the American prairie changed over time, using the text to illustrate important events, to capture the details on a class timeline, and to examine topic-specific vocabulary. Students listen to this complex text read aloud, and are further supported in their comprehension by text features.

This work of narrative nonfiction serves as a bridge from Module 1 to Module 2 and prepares students for their work with both informative and literary texts in this module.

Title and Author Plains Indians, Andrew Santella

Description of Text This informative text details the history and culture of the Plains Indians through short chapters and text features that extend the text. Every page features an abundance of information, much of it in rich graphics that include photographs, paintings, and drawings that strengthen understanding.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 970L Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: This text provides the reader with a glimpse of the Plains Indians’ way of life and reveals how the expansion of the settlers westward changed the way of life for the Plains Indians in unfavorable ways.

Structure: This informational book contains many text features such as a table of contents, photographs, paintings, maps, section headings, a timeline, a glossary, and an index.

Language: This dense text contains many topic-specific words along with complex and varied sentence structures.

Knowledge Demands: Some knowledge of Native American culture would be beneficial to understanding the text.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students build their knowledge of the United States’ past and determine key points, main ideas, and details in an informational text. Multiple text features throughout Plains Indians support student comprehension.

Plains Indians builds essential content knowledge that prepares students for their reading of subsequent module texts. This informational book also builds on information presented in The Buffalo Are Back.

Title and Author Journey of a Pioneer, Patricia J. Murphy

Description of Text Journey of a Pioneer is a tale of a family moving to the Oregon Territory in the time of the Westward Expansion. Told from the perspective of a little girl writing in her diary, the text shares with its readers the new experiences and challenges the family has traveling in a covered wagon to their new home.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 750L Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: The text’s meaning about new experiences and challenges falls within the appropriate complexity band for Grade 2.

Structure: This narrative nonfiction text is a hybrid of informational text that is told through a narrative diary format. The story proceeds chronologically and in a straightforward fashion. The book contains informational text features such as photographs with captions, an index, and a page with pioneer facts.

Language: The book is written in first person and uses some topic-specific vocabulary. Most words are appropriate for this grade level.

Knowledge Demands: Understanding of the growth of the United States westward in the 1800s would be beneficial.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students work to retell, organize, and record events from the text onto a timeline. Students also deepen their work with hybrid genre texts, exploring how the combination of narration and information build their knowledge of life during settler-colonialism times. Students collect evidence of challenges and characters’ responses to those challenges, developing their own skill of identifying problems and resolutions within texts.

Journey of a Pioneer establishes knowledge necessary for students to access subsequent module texts. This text also allows students to further their analysis of hybrid works as the way that it combines information with a narrative structure is like that in The Buffalo Are Back

Title and Author The Legend of the Bluebonnet, Tomie dePaola

Description of Text This book tells the story of the Comanche Nation and a young Comanche girl who decides to sacrifice her most important possession to help her tribe survive. This legend is retold with careful detail to historical accuracy in representing the Comanche people, a Native American tribe.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 680L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: This story is moderately complex with multiple levels of meaning including sacrificing for the greater good of the tribe and finding personal courage.

Structure: The story is clear and chronological. Simple illustrations complement the text.

Language: The text contains some topic-specific words.

Knowledge Demands: Cultural knowledge of Native Americans and their legends would be beneficial to students.

Students apply what they have learned in this module about Native American life to The Legend of the Bluebonnet to make connections to build their knowledge. Students continue to develop their skill of sequencing events and analyzing problems and solutions within a narrative before discerning a life lesson from the text.

The Legend of the Bluebonnet shifts instructional emphasis to a fictional narrative, transitioning from the narrative nonfiction texts students have been reading to their work with American legends and tall tales.

Title and Author The Story of Johnny Appleseed, Aliki

Description of Text This story is based on the real-life John Chapman who helped settlers by planting apple trees. The book describes how he gained the nickname Johnny Appleseed because of his generosity in taking care of people through the apples.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

610L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: While the story is straightforward and grade-level appropriate, there are sections in which the symbolism and language may need explanation. The illustrations are simple but full sketches.

Structure: The narrative voice and story structure are consistent, and events proceed chronologically. The sentences are mostly short and simple with some compound sentences interspersed.

Language: Vocabulary and language use is typical and appropriate for Grade 2.

Knowledge Demands: Some explanation of the relationship between settlers and Native Americans will support students. Knowledge of legends and how they are different from the real person would be beneficial.

Students apply their skills recounting and organizing events in a story to this accessible text. They also practice discerning a life lesson from a narrative, building on their work with The Legend of The Bluebonnet.

This more accessible retelling of the legend of Johnny Appleseed provides the basis for students’ work with Steven Kellogg’s more complex version of the same legend.

Title and Author Johnny Appleseed: A Tall Tale, Steven Kellogg

Description of Text Johnny Appleseed, thought to be the legendary counterpart of real-life John Chapman, travels west during the period following the Revolutionary War. As he plants apple seeds for settlers, he shows his respect for nature and people. This legend is told in vivid prose and through detailed illustrations that paint a picture of the fantastical figure considered to be an American hero.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

920L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: This is a straightforward story of the generosity and kindness of the legendary Johnny Appleseed.

Structure: The story is told chronologically from Johnny’s birth to his death. The detailed illustrations support interpretation of the text.

Language: The text consists of primarily simple and compound sentences with some complex constructions, as well as some abstract and figurative language.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of the Westward Expansion would be beneficial to readers. Understanding of the exaggerated nature of legends would be useful to comprehension.

Students compare Kelloggs’s and Aliki’s versions of the Johnny Appleseed legend to deepen their understanding of the story’s central message. Students extend their knowledge of John Chapman through comparison and consider what information stories can teach us.

Kellogg’s Johnny Appleseed provides students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned throughout the module about early America, literary text analysis, and what lessons legends can teach us.

Title and Author John Henry: An American Legend, Ezra Jack Keats

Description of Text Winner of the Caldecott Medal, this is the story of an African American folk hero who is legendary among the tales of the railroad expansion across America in the 1800s. This story of a hardworking man who perseveres while building the railroad and challenges a machine and wins will resonate with all who value hard work.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD670L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning and Purpose: This chronological tale with many fantastical elements demonstrates how exaggeration helps form a legend. The legend of John Henry was inspirational to other newly emancipated African Americans as well as to all people who value hard work. The text also shows the underlying importance of man’s struggle to be more powerful than machines.

Structure: The narrative voice and story structure are consistent, and events proceed chronologically.

Language: Frequent use of onomatopoeia, similes, and metaphors, as well as the inclusion of song lyrics in the text, may pose a challenge for some students.

Knowledge Demands: While the story is grade-level appropriate, background knowledge of formerly enslaved people and the expansion of the country through the Transcontinental Railroad would be helpful. Knowledge of the Industrial Revolution could be beneficial although not necessary. Comprehension of a legend would help students understand the fantastical elements.

Students apply their skills recounting and organizing story events to this accessible text. They also practice discerning a story’s life lesson with this text, building on their work with the texts about Johnny Appleseed and The Legend of the Bluebonnet.

Students transition from the legend of Johnny Appleseed to the legend of John Henry. This more accessible retelling of the John Henry legend provides a basis for students’ reading of Julius Lester’s version as the culmination of the module.

Title and

Author

John Henry, Julius Lester

Description of Text This legend from the African American oral tradition recounts the momentous accomplishments of John Henry, which are brought to life by vibrant illustrations by Jerry Pinkney. The author builds the legend along with the narrative structure and the illustrations. The story is based on three versions of the African American folk ballad referred to by Julius Lester. The commonality found in all three is the famous contest between John Henry and a steam drill in the building of Big Bend Tunnel in the Allegheny Mountains.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD620L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The tale is told in a straightforward manner with fantastical elements depicting the life of an American hero. The underlying meaning of the text presents John Henry’s indomitable spirit, hardworking nature, and ability to overpower a machine.

Structure: The chronological order of the story follows John Henry’s life from birth to death.

Language: Julius Lester’s uses of anthropomorphism, lyricism, African American dialect, and cultural references can make the text challenging for readers. Unfamiliar vocabulary words could be challenging.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of African American culture and dialect would make comprehension easier. Background knowledge about the Industrial Revolution could help students understand the importance of the competition. Students should understand the nature of legends and their importance in people’s lives.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Though this text is relatively complex, students have had practice with routines and work independently recounting story elements and organizing story events. Students extend their knowledge of John Henry through comparison and consider what information stories can teach us about life in the early American West.

The legend of John Henry culminates students’ work with early America and the power of myth, providing an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned in this module to a new historical context, transitioning to their work with the civil rights movement in Module 3.

Grade 2 Module 3: Civil Rights Heroes

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G2 Module 3 67

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative criteria outlined in both the Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated CCSS Appendix A guidance on text complexity (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text complexity details for each core text in order of module appearance. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge build and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

For ideas to support multilingual learners see the Wit & Wisdom Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington, Frances E. Ruffin

Description of Text This informational text describes the March on Washington and the events leading up to the march, and includes excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. The book ends with a description of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the message that powerful words can affect change. The text makes clear that King made a difference in the world through his words.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

550L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text provides concrete information about the March on Washington, the reason for the march, and the results of the march. The purpose is clear and explicit, as the text focuses on the March on Washington and its impact on the world.

Structure: The chronological order of the march provides the structure for the text. Text features in the main text are nonexistent, but the photographs and illustrations add interest to the words and add valuable, complementary information.

Language: Vocabulary is accessible for young readers, but the content load for young readers adds to the complexity of the text. Sentences are short, fact-filled, and often are structured with a question/answer format.

Knowledge Demands: The text demands a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about King and the Civil Rights Movement.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students are introduced to a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement by reading Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington. They notice and wonder about the photos, illustrations, and text, and learn about life in the south and the impact of segregation. Work with photographs and other text features supports student comprehension.

This accessible text provides foundational knowledge for the module’s topic: the Civil Rights Movement.

Title and Author I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King Jr.

Description of Text This informational text is an excerpted, picture book version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, with stunning illustrations by Kadir Nelson. The complete speech, delivered in August 1963, is provided, along with a CD-ROM of the speech.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

1030L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of the text is clearly stated and rich with meaning: it is King’s hope for equality in American society. While the purpose of the text is clear, it is delivered through complex figurative language and historical references.

Structure: This excerpted version of the speech focuses on King’s articulation of his vision for the future of the country. The thesis statement “I Have a Dream” gets returned to again and again as he offers examples of the changes he hopes for in the country. Repetition is key to the structure of this speech.

Language: The vocabulary in this text is complex, with both rich academic language (transforms, oppression, creed) and figurative language that brings the words alive on the page.

Knowledge Demands: While meaning can be made without a significant amount of prior knowledge, true understanding of the significance of King’s words demands a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about King and the Civil Rights Movement.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students first encounter this famous speech through a read aloud, before exploring the concept of speeches and the text’s illustrations. Students consider the relationship between the illustrations, historical photos, and the text, and organize key details to determine a central message. Students also explore the repetitious structure of the speech; analyzing the speech’s repetition supports students’ comprehension of King’s ideas. While King’s speech in its entirety is above grade-level complexity, this text excerpts key passages from the speech and pairs them with illustrations to support student meaning-making.

I Have a Dream introduces students to one of the most important political speeches of the last century and provides a framework for students’ learning in this module. Students compare how the texts Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington and I Have a Dream approach the topic of the March on Washington.

Title and Author Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story, Ruby Bridges

Description of Text

This informational text is an autobiography of Ruby Bridges’s experience integrating William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in the 1960s. Ruby Bridges, the author, tells her experience as a young child. The photographs of Ruby, her teacher Mrs. Henry, and the painting of Ruby by Norman Rockwell add to this rich text about a young girl who did a very brave thing and taught an important message.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 470L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The autobiography provides concrete information about the conditions in the South during segregation through photographs and simple, predictable, repetitive language accessible to most young readers. The focus of the text is clear, with matching photographs that add to the depth of information for the reader and add to the impact of the content.

Structure: The chronological order of Ruby’s year in first grade provides the structure for the text. Text features include photographs from the actual event that add interest and valuable complementary information. There are no other text features in this book to support young readers as they navigate informational text.

Language: Vocabulary is accessible, but the content load for young readers adds to the complexity of the text. Sentences are short, repetitive, and contain some vocabulary that might be challenging for a few readers.

Knowledge Demands: Some discipline-specific knowledge about Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights Movement will add to the comprehension of the text.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students analyze the text’s use of first-person point-of-view, considering how this perspective develops their understanding of Ruby’s experience. Students also continue to practice the skill of identifying problems and resolutions within a text. Students compare Ruby’s first-person point-of-view to a documentary film that tells her story from a third-person point-of-view. The familiar concept of a child going to school makes the text more accessible and allows students to make personal connections to the module’s larger context.

Work with this narrative autobiography builds on students’ work with narrative nonfiction texts in Module 2. Students encounter this text in the first lesson of the module to introduce them to the module’s key figure: Ruby Bridges. However, work with this text begins in earnest after students have built foundational knowledge through their reading of Ruffin’s informational text and King’s speech. Students’ work with this autobiography prepares them to engage with Coles’ more complex informational text about the same topic.

Title and Author

The Story of Ruby Bridges, Robert Coles

Description of Text This is a story about Ruby Bridges and her experience integrating William Frantz Elementary School in the 1960s. To write the story, Coles, a psychologist, interviewed Ruby Bridges during that year and was moved to write this true story about this incredible child. Rich watercolor illustrations temper the harsh realities of the story. The story begins with Ruby’s family moving to New Orleans for a better life. Ruby is ordered to attend the William Frantz Elementary School and learns to read and write with Mrs. Henry despite the hardships she endured. The author ends the story with Ruby’s prayer for the mob of people who want to kill her, and an author’s note that explains how the school was eventually integrated.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD730L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The meaning of the text is to show how Ruby handled the order to integrate the William Frantz Elementary School. The angry mob is ever-present, yet Ruby is calm and continues to pray for the people in the mob twice a day.

Structure: The story structure follows the chronology of Ruby’s year, but the final solution is recounted in the author’s note.

Language: Vocabulary is challenging for young readers, and the content load for young readers adds to the complexity of the text. Sentences are long, complex, and sophisticated. Students will need support navigating this text.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about Ruby Bridges.

Students identify story elements and recount this new version of the historical events that occurred in Ruby Bridges’ early life, comparing it to Ruby Bridges Goes to School. Students analyze dialogue in The Story of Ruby Bridges in order to write dialogue in their own narratives and identify and analyze the text’s essential meaning.

This narrative nonfiction text continues students’ work with narrative nonfiction and its ability to convey factual information. Students deepen their understanding of Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights Movement through reading Coles’ text and comparing it to Bridges’ autobiographical narrative.

Title and Author Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation, Duncan Tonatiuh

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

This informational text is an example of an extremely well-researched picture book that tells the story of a real family’s fight for desegregation in the schools. Author Duncan Tonatiuh uses articles, interviews, and real court transcripts to write the story of Sylvia Mendez: a young girl in Westminster, California, who was forced by the school district to attend the Mexican school across town. The Mendez family, unable to get any real answers for why their daughter cannot attend the school of their choice, organizes a lawsuit to challenge the school district. Their efforts helped bring an end to segregation in the schools in California in 1947. The text is an inspiring story of a family that has the courage to question the way things are and fight for true justice for their daughter and many others.

Quantitative:

AD870L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of the text is to chronicle the three-year battle between the family of Sylvia Mendez and public schools to end segregation in California. The text is clear yet complex requiring some unpacking of the layers of significance.

Structure: The story is chronological from 1944 to 1947 apart from the first two pages and the last two pages, which both take place at the end of the court case when Sylvia attends the Westminster school for the first time.

Language: There is complex vocabulary specific to schools and court cases and references to locations in California and organizations of people. The glossary in the back is extensive.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires general knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement and integration of schools to provide context, although this text takes place twenty years prior to the March on Washington.

Students build on their work connecting images with text, as they examine the illustrations in Tonatiuh’s book and consider how they develop understanding. Students recount the character, setting, and problem elements, applying the skills they have been developing throughout the module. Students also make connections among the texts they have read and this final module text. Direct instruction in lessons 25 through 28 support students in working with both Spanish and English language portions of this multilingual text.

In this culminating text of the module, students examine the impact of the Civil Rights Act in a new context: Californian desegregation. This shift in setting allows students to apply what they know about the Civil Rights Movement, as well as expanding their understanding of where and how the Movement had effect. Ultimately, students reflect on different ways people fight injustice and affect change.

Grade 2 Module 4: Good Eating

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G2 Module 4 73

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Good Enough to Eat: A Kid’s Guide to Food and Nutrition, Lizzy Rockwell

Description of Text This informational text explains how the foods we eat help us stay healthy. Starting with how food helps our bodies stay active and alert, the text goes on to explain the nutrients in foods, how nutrients are released through the digestive process, and finally, what kinds of foods contain nutrients.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Quantitative: AD740L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This book provides excellent information about nutrition for young readers through the text and the illustrations. The purpose is clear and consistent throughout and focuses on how the foods we eat provide the nutrition we need to stay healthy.

Structure: The structure of the text goes from the big idea of how food helps us, to the idea of nutrients in food, and then narrows the focus to foods that contain specific nutrients. The text ends with tips and recipes for healthy eating. There are no text features to support readers in their understanding of the structure of the text, so supports may be needed.

Language: A dense technical vocabulary load for young readers adds to the complexity of the text. Sentences are fact-filled and about the same length throughout.

Knowledge Demands: The text covers a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about healthy eating and the nutrients in food.

While the content is dense and uses terms that students may find challenging, the illustrations are whimsical and engaging. Text features including captions, speech bubbles, interesting page layouts, charts, and recipes further support readers. Students may need additional support, however, as this text lacks common text features such as chapter headings, a glossary, and an index.

Rationale for Placement

Good Enough to Eat opens the module to introduce students to key concepts of Module 4. Students return to Good Enough to Eat later in the module to support their work with research sources.

Title and Author The Digestive System, Jennifer Prior

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

This informational text explains how the digestive system works and some of the problems associated with the digestive tract. This engaging text, illustrated with photographs, includes varied supportive text features.

Quantitative:

660L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This book provides excellent information about digestion for young readers through the text, text features, and illustrations. The purpose is clear and consistent throughout and focuses on individual aspects of the digestive process.

Structure: The structure of the text is a well-crafted procedural essay. The opening dialogue hooks the reader before the focus is stated, and the steps of the digestive process follow. The text ends with a discussion of digestive problems, and the conclusion restates and extends the information in the text in a way that makes the central message clear to the reader.

Language: The text is fact filled, and sentences contain a high volume of technical vocabulary that may challenge young readers. However, the inclusion of a glossary and other supportive text features aids comprehension.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about digestion and the problems with digestion.

The content is dense and includes terms that may be unfamiliar but varied well-designed text features support young readers. Students may recognize children like themselves in the photographs, which depict a variety of children involved with food in a positive way.

Paired with Taylor-Butler’s text of the same name, The Digestive System builds content knowledge about how the food we eat turns into nutrients in our bodies. This scientific information is essential to students’ understanding of module concepts.

Title and Author The Digestive System, Christine Taylor-Butler

Description of Text

This informational text, like the other text of the same name, explains how the digestive system works and some of the problems associated with the digestive tract. This engaging text is illustrated with photographs and labeled diagrams that depict the digestive process.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

750L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of the text is straightforward: It offers information about the digestive system and problems that can occur if people do not eat food that is healthy for their body.

Structure: The structure is straightforward with chapter titles and subheadings to help navigate the subtopics. The author engages young readers by starting with a chapter about gas and then details the steps of the digestive system before sharing information about digestive disorders. The text ends with a chapter on how to be “fit for life.”

Language: The text has a dense technical vocabulary load for young readers. Sentences are complex and fact filled.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires a high level of discipline-specific knowledge about the digestive system.

The content is dense and includes content-specific vocabulary, but many text features, including diagrams, vocabulary in boldface type, a glossary, a thorough bibliography, an index, and pictures with captions, support young readers.

Paired with Prior’s text of the same name, The Digestive System builds content knowledge about the way the food we eat turns into nutrients in our bodies. This scientific information is essential to students’ understanding of module concepts.

Title and Author Stone Soup, Marcia Brown

Description of Text Stone Soup is a folktale about three hungry soldiers who come to a town wanting a place to sleep and some food to eat. In that village they find healthy peasants who will not share with them. To meet their needs, the soldiers work together to trick the peasants into making soup by using special stones and thereby capitalizing on the peasants’ natural curiosity. At the end, the soldiers have befriended the townspeople, celebrated a delicious meal with them, and found comfortable beds for the night. The townspeople find something they were not even looking for: a greater camaraderie with their neighbors.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD550L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of sharing and working together is clear to the reader, if not the peasants, in this accessible story.

Structure: The story structure is clear, with a beginning, middle, and end and all the basic story elements. The illustrations are an excellent match for the story. When studied closely, the illustrations provide more information about the villagers and their reactions to the soldiers.

Language: The vocabulary is accessible for most Grade 2 students.

Knowledge Demands: Basic knowledge of story structure and some discussion of the setting will help make this text accessible to all students.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Title and

Author

With Stone Soup, students are encouraged to wonder how food can nourish a community. Students first listen to and read the folktale, with the goal of independently making observations and generating how and why questions. Then later Stone Soup is used later in a New-Read Assessment. The text’s accessibility makes it an appropriate text for assessment of students’ reading skills.

This accessible text serves as a transition from students’ work with informational texts about food and the digestive system toward work with literary texts that engage these topics. The concept of “health” in Stone Soup is thematic and emphasizes the community and social aspects of eating, connecting to students’ work with Aubrey Davis’s Bone Button Borscht.

Bone Button Borscht, Aubrey Davis

Description of Text Another version of the Stone Soup folktale, Bone Button Borscht is a wonderful story about a hungry beggar who comes to a expecting food, a warm fire, and a place to sleep but instead finds a town that is shuttered and populated by villagers who will not share with anyone. The beggar thinks of a way to trick the villagers into making “miracle” soup together by using the buttons from his coat, capitalizing on the natural curiosity of the people to meet his needs. In the end, the villagers realize buttons are not needed to bring people together. They learn the message the beggar brought to the town: When we share with others, we all benefit.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

300L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of sharing with others is clear in this beautifully written and illustrated text about people in a small village who learn an invaluable lesson. This text is well crafted and can be appreciated on many levels.

Structure: Inventive illustrations and deliberate use of color add to the richness of this story and complement the plight of the main character. The story progresses chronologically and has a touch of a cumulative tale in the pictures as the townspeople gradually come together while making the soup.

Language: A dense cultural vocabulary load needs to be addressed if young readers are going to fully appreciate the text. The book is full of humor that even young readers will appreciate.

Knowledge Demands: Basic knowledge of story structure will help make this text accessible to all students. Some background information about the cultural references and the setting of the story may be needed.

Students listen to the story, independently generating questions, and demonstrate independence in recounting a story, taking ownership of routines they have practiced all year. Students reread specific passages to discover how the author’s words reveal characters and how illustrations add to the story before distilling the story’s essential meaning.

This accessible text allows students to apply what they have learned about food to a literary context and to apply skills they have practiced throughout Grade 2. Work with Bone Button Borscht also connects to students’ analysis of Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup, supporting their success on the New-Read Assessment.

Title and Author The Vegetables We Eat, Gail Gibbons

Description of Text This informational text is a straightforward explanation of the six different parts of a plant that can be a vegetable: the stem, leaves, roots, bulbs, fruit, and flowers. Most of the text is composed of colorful illustrations that show students the different types of vegetables, with scientific facts spread throughout. The second part of the book, distinct from the first half, gives students a closer look at how and where food is grown, comparing a small home garden to a large produce farm.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

660L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose of this text is twofold in that it teaches students the different categories of vegetables based on the parts of the plant they come from, and, more importantly, it helps students understand the process of how food is grown and transported to stores and ultimately to their plates.

Structure: The structure is not typical informational text structure. The illustrations, labels, and sidebars provide a significant amount of information with the text simplistically explaining the concepts presented.

Language: The text names many vegetables that may be new to students, and the vocabulary specific to farming/gardening may also be new; however, all the vocabulary is generally accessible.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of a variety of vegetables may be useful.

Students apply their understanding of how illustrations reveal meaning in an informational context. Students also examine text features such as headers and labels to further their understanding and to discern the author’s purpose. A vocabulary game and supplementary materials, such as a student-created rap, support students’ understanding of the complex vocabulary in this text.

Students’ work with The Vegetables We Eat prepares them to return to the complex text Good Enough to Eat as they synthesize knowledge from the texts they have read throughout the module. The Vegetables We Eat also provides content information that students use in their opinion writing.

Grade 3 Module 1:

The Sea Text Complexity

G3 Module 1 79

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Amos & Boris, William Steig

Description of Text Engaging and resourceful characters, poetic descriptions of setting, heroic rescues, and unlikely but undying friendships will keep students turning pages in this narrative about a small mouse and an enormous whale.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD 910L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The sea, beautifully depicted in words and images, is the backdrop for a lovely tale of friendship and courage. The story introduces students to the elements of fiction. At the same time, it uses poetic language to describe the beauty and immensity of the sea, which is the focus of this module.

Structure: This picture book uses a straightforward narrative. This story contains multiple problems and solutions, and some students may struggle with the subtle solution to the animals’ final problem of how to maintain a friendship under difficult circumstances. However, William Steig’s masterful artwork supports students’ understanding.

Language: Grade 3 students may need support with the complex Tier 2 vocabulary.

Knowledge Demands: The book demands little prior knowledge.

The rich and complex vocabulary of Amos & Boris makes it a challenging text for Grade 3 students, but their work reading and analyzing this narrative is supported by the teacher reading aloud, group work, and graphic organizers that help students understand plot, character, and setting.

This text was selected because of its superb literary quality and engaging content. Amos & Boris provides an opportunity for students to consider how works of art, including works of literature, can develop their understanding of a topic such as the sea. They will take this understanding into their ELA work throughout the rest of Grade 3.

Title and Authors

Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas, Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

Description of Text Coauthored by Caldecott award–winning Molly Bang and MIT professor Penny Chisholm, the luminous illustrations and poetic language of this informative text offer an engaging introduction to the ocean.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

670L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This informational text provides a detailed look at phytoplankton, a critical part of the ocean ecosystem and the planet’s health. Through clear prose and eye-catching illustrations, the text also depicts the layers of the ocean and the complex food chains that support life there.

Structure: The Sun, as narrator of the text, invites the reader to “[d]ive into the sea” and proceeds to explain how “[a]ll ocean life depends” on the Sun. The book begins by explaining how plants on land use sunlight to create food. Next, the book explains how ocean plants also use the sunlight to create food. A series of questions and answers organizes some of the information, including facts about food chains at different depths of the ocean. Detailed information and illustrations in the back matter supplement the information in the main text.

Language: The language is both lyrical and informational. Context definitions and clues explain most of the domain-specific vocabulary in the text, making the book accessible to students of varying levels of proficiency.

Knowledge Demands: The book assumes very little prior knowledge of the ocean, food chains, or photosynthesis. Each of these important topics is described through clear language that is supported by the illustrations.

Students identify key details and the main idea of this rich text which includes a wealth of supportive text-features. Students analyze illustrations to organize information in the text and reread to clarify facts and to identify the text’s central message.

This informative text introduces students to a scientific understanding of the sea’s diverse and complex ecosystem. Building on their introduction to the module topic with Amos & Boris, students deepen their knowledge of the sea with this book.

Title and Author The Fantastic Undersea Life of

Jacques Cousteau, Dan Yaccarino

Description of Text Colorful illustrations, lively language, and judicious use of Jacques Cousteau’s own words make this book an ideal introduction to one of the world’s most famous explorers of the sea.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD 840L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purpose—to describe Cousteau’s love of the sea—is clearly evident. The book explains both why and how Jacques Cousteau explored the sea.

Structure: The book provides a simple, chronological account of important events in Jacques Cousteau’s life. Information in the back matter adds more detailed information, including dates and locations. The layout of this text is detailed and intentionally crafted with seamlessly integrated illustrations and quotations in callout bubbles.

Language: The language moves in and out of narrative and explanatory styles, relying heavily on short vignettes and bold illustrations to carry the meaning. Some domain-specific and Tier II vocabulary appears throughout the text; the language of Jacques Cousteau himself is more complex and features figurative language.

Knowledge Demands: The book demands little prior knowledge. The text uses some domain-specific and Tier II vocabulary, but the context provides scaffolding to support student understanding.

Students consider how an author uses sequence to organize ideas, taking into account the chronological organization of this text, and examine text features such as bubble quotations to support their understanding of key details and the text’s main idea. Ultimately, students learn how Cousteau developed and shared his lifelong love of the sea. While the Lexile level is high for Grade 3, text features and illustrations support students’ understanding of this rich text.

Previously students developed their understanding of the sea with the literary text Amos & Boris and the informative text Ocean Sunlight. Yaccarino’s informative text focuses students’ analysis of the sea on a single important historical figure told in a narrative fashion. The combination of informative and narrative text allows students to apply skills in both literary analysis and in reading informational texts.

Title and Authors Shark Attack, Cathy East Dubowski

Description of Text This informative text mixes compelling narrative with relevant facts to demystify sharks and the reasons scientists study them. The text includes a combination of illustrations, photographs, and other text features to support comprehension.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

890L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This informational text provides a detailed look at sharks, including how and why scientists study sharks to benefit humans.

Structure: The book contains many features of an informational text: pictures, captions, an index, a table of contents, a glossary, maps, diagrams, and more. The text is organized into sections that present a wide array of information about sharks and how and why scientists study them.

Language: The text uses a combination of simple and compound sentences, and the vocabulary includes both Tier II and Tier III words that will require support.

Knowledge Demands: The text assumes little prior knowledge of sharks. The mix of information about sharks and accounts of actual shark attacks is supported with pictures, photos, and other graphics. There is some discipline-specific content knowledge that is explained well in the text.

Shark Attack provides an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge of the sea to a new informational text. Students ask and answer questions and gain basic information about sharks. Students also analyze how authors structure informative texts and apply this work to their own informative writing. This text has a Lexile score at the top of the Grade 2–3 span, but the rich array of text features, including a glossary, support student comprehension.

With Shark Attack, students transition their focus from one historical scientist to focus on one compelling sea creature: sharks. Students synthesize the understandings they have been building of scientists such as Jacques Cousteau with their knowledge about the sea as a natural environment and a site of scientific research.

Title and Authors Giant Squid: Searching for a Sea Monster, Mary M. Cerullo and Clyde F. E. Roper

Description of Text This engaging, highly informative book tells the story of Clyde Roper, a scientist who searched for giant squids. Cowritten by science writer Mary M. Cerullo and Clyde Roper himself and supported by the Smithsonian Institution, this award-winning and richly researched text includes a wealth of photographs and other images to engage readers in Roper’s search for this elusive creature.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

NC 1090L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This book presents detailed information about the giant squid, as well as the history of scientific efforts to understand the sea creature that remains largely mysterious. As students examine the main focus of the book—Dr. Roper’s search for a living giant squid—they simultaneously consider the purpose of his search and the degree to which he succeeds at meeting his goals of finding giant squids.

Structure: The book relies on a wide range of text features to organize information: a table of contents, an index, a glossary, photographs, illustrations, captions, titles, subtitles, and sidebars. The text discusses information about the animal itself, early efforts to describe and understand it, and provides a chronological account of Dr. Roper’s efforts to locate a live giant squid in its natural habitat.

Language: The language demands of this book are more complex, both in terms of sentence structure and vocabulary, than the language demands of other module texts. Students may benefit from some direct instruction as they manage a wide range of domain-specific vocabulary and Tier II words.

Knowledge Demands: This book is slightly more accessible to those students who have some prior knowledge of the past and of scientific terms, but the book’s many text features provide ample support for students without that prior knowledge.

Students continue to practice identifying key details and main ideas in this informational text. While the text is complex for Grade 3, students’ module-long focus on text features allows students to access this text, which includes a high volume if supportive text features. Students’ growing knowledge of the seas offers crucial background knowledge to support their comprehension. Students build confidence in analyzing informative books and apply knowledge gleaned through reading and watching supplementary material, which builds the knowledge necessary to access this text.

Students use the knowledge they have been building throughout Grade 3 Module 1 to analyze this informational text. They culminate their work by bringing together their knowledge of the sea, the creatures that live there, and the scientists that study them.

Grade 3 Module 2:

Outer Space

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G3 Module 2 85

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Peter Sís

Description of Text Peter Sís’s Caldecott award–winning biography of Galileo provides a brief yet rich introduction to the life and work of a pivotal figure in the history of science. Carefully designed page layouts that combine text and images put Galileo’s contributions into their historical context and describe how his work forever changed how people learn about space and understand their place in the universe.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 830L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text builds important background knowledge about how people learn about space and highlights Galileo’s courageous efforts to share new information with a world unwilling to abandon tradition. Beginning with a brief introduction to the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories of the universe, Starry Messenger introduces students to Galileo’s use of technology to make observations that support and prove a scientific theory.

Structure: Events are related in simple, chronological order. Illustrations and text work together to support the reader. Young readers, however, may find the page layouts challenging. The author weaves together his basic narrative, intricate illustrations, and handwritten passages to create a complex text about the celebrated astronomer and about the evolution of scientific ideas. When directly quoting others, such as Galileo, William Shakespeare, and the Bible, Sís employs the use of handwritten cursive fonts that sometimes appear in circular notes or sideways.

Language: The basic text uses language appropriate for the grade, though students may need support with some complex vocabulary and figurative language. The language in the script passages that Sís uses as design elements is quite challenging. Because of the complexity of this language, which includes excerpts from primary documents, the core lessons may refer to this language in student responses, but they do not rely on this language for building basic knowledge.

Title and Author Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Peter Sís

Knowledge Demands: The book assumes little to no historical or scientific prior knowledge. Sís describes and illustrates both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems and explains how Galileo used the technology of the time to develop a deeper understanding of space.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students work in small groups to ask and answer questions that set the stage for learning in subsequent lessons. Students are encouraged to monitor their own questions and to set their own purpose for reading and learning, which are important skills for students as they enter the upper elementary grades and begin to assume more responsibility for their learning. While the ideas in this text are complex, instruction focuses on aspects such as Galileo’s biography that students can access with support from text features and their teacher.

Building on their work examining famous, important scientists in Module 1, students’ work in this module opens with a compelling illustrated biography of Galileo to establish the module topic and to build students’ interest in studying outer space.

Title

and author

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, Brian Floca

Description of Text Through engaging illustrations and lively text, Brian Floca describes the events of the Apollo 11 mission of July 1969. The book explains how the astronauts learned about space through their daring firsthand experiences of space travel and walking on the Moon.

Complexity ratings Quantitative:

780L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Dynamic language and detailed illustrations bring to life the experiences of the Apollo 11 astronauts from the moment they stepped out to the launchpad until their safe return to Earth. The front and back endpapers provide additional details and context for the historic events of the mission. As students read about the astronauts’ flight to the Moon, the dangerous landing of the Eagle, and the walk on the Moon that captivated the world’s attention in 1969, they gain important knowledge about how people have continued to learn about space since the time of Galileo.

Structure: The informational narrative, told in the present tense, begins as the astronauts suit up and approach the launchpad and concludes with the splashdown. Much of the text focuses on the astronauts’ approach to the Moon, the dangerous descent of the Eagle, and the experiences of the astronauts as they walk on the surface of the Moon. The front endpapers use detailed illustrations to provide more technical information about the mission, while the back endpapers provide a short essay that puts the mission into its historical context. The essay is more appropriate for the adult readers who will guide students through the text though Grade 3 students who welcome a challenge may also benefit.

Language: Most of the vocabulary is clear and age appropriate. Domainspecific language (ignition sequence, liftoff, orbit, etc.) is explained in the text and supported by illustrations. The author combines fact with rich figurative language (e.g., “a monster of a machine: it stands thirty stories”) to create a poetic description of the astronauts’ experience.

Title and author Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, Brian Floca

Knowledge Demands: The text does not require any prior knowledge. Early on, the text emphasizes the historical and scientific significance of the event as it explains that the astronauts are preparing to go “where no one has been,” page 6. The text explains the launch procedure, the rocket stages, the linking of the Columbia and the Eagle, and the final descent of the Eagle. The accompanying illustrations clarify the descriptions, as do the illustrations on the front endpapers.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Teachers first read aloud this text to students as they build knowledge of the famous Apollo 11 spaceflight and the astronauts who flew to the Moon. Students deepen their understanding of how informational writers use sequence and repetition to present events and to emphasize a central message in a text by examining Floca’s structure and use of language. Students also examine text features, including the text’s endpapers, to independently glean information about this historic event.

This teacher-supported text provides a wealth of knowledge for students about Apollo 11 that allows them to independently understand the more accessible One Giant Leap in subsequent lessons.

Title and author One Giant Leap: A Historical Account of the First Moon Landing, Robert Burleig

Description of Text This book is a beautiful tribute to the astronauts of the Moon landing, written on the 40th anniversary of this iconic event. Burleigh’s accessible retelling of the Apollo 11 mission will engage readers as Mike Wimmer’s accompanying paintings of the events of the mission captivate them.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

470L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text recounts in a short, simple way the adventure of the flight crew of Apollo 11 and then concludes by describing the comfort of home (“A place called Earth: fragile, beautiful, home”). By beginning the narrative with the descent of the Eagle and a description of the dangers of the lunar liftoff, Burleigh creates an account that differs slightly from Moonshot and provides students with an opportunity to examine how different authors describe the same events.

Structure: Events are related in verse in simple, chronological order. Pages alternate between rich illustrations and text to support the reader.

Language: Burleigh’s language is largely clear and accessible. He combines fact with rich figurative language (“Together the astronauts go moonwalking … They twirl like slow-motion tiptoe dancers”). Vocabulary is mostly familiar but includes some domain-specific words (altitude, orbits, and lunar).

Knowledge Demands: The book assumes little prior knowledge. The lack of a diagram to illustrate the parts of the rocket may pose a challenge for some readers. There is a mix of recognizable ideas (the astronauts having a plan to “land somewhere safely” among the craters) and challenging abstract concepts (e.g., “This world is not theirs. Not their own”).

Title and author One Giant Leap: A Historical Account of the First Moon Landing, Robert Burleig

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students consider how literal and nonliteral language add meaning and beauty to a text by examining the language Burleigh uses to describe the Apollo 11 mission. Students continue to build on the skill of identifying a central meaning in a text before synthesizing their understanding of Apollo 11 by engaging in a discussion of Floca’s and Burleigh’s texts.

Students build on the knowledge they gained while reading Moonshot and develop a deeper appreciation for the events of the Apollo 11 mission. Burleigh’s text also builds important cultural and historical knowledge as students work with Neil Armstrong’s famous quotation.

Title and author Zathura, Chris Van Allsburg

Description of Text This long-awaited sequel to the Caldecott award–winning Jumanji takes two brothers on an intergalactic journey as their house ends up in outer space. Black-and-white illustrations ground the fantastic elements of the story as readers move through time, space, and perspective along with the two brothers.

Complexity ratings Quantitative:

540L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This short example of science fiction tells the story of two brothers whose relationship changes dramatically as a result of their adventures in outer space. Combining real and pseudoscientific terminology, Van Allsburg’s story demonstrates how space continues to pique our imaginations and test our ability to meet new challenges.

Structure: Van Allsburg uses a graphic picture-book style to tell his story. He incorporates the blocks of text into his bold, black-and-white illustrations. Dialogue breaks up the description of the action and creates a lively pace that will keep students interested throughout the story.

Language: The vocabulary, while descriptive, is pitched well for a young elementary audience. Scientific and pseudoscientific terms may occasionally challenge students, but these terms are either not essential to comprehension or supported by the actions and illustrations. Sentence structures are predictable and easy to follow.

Knowledge Demands: Readers can easily approach this book with the most basic understanding of space terminology and narrative story structure.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students apply the knowledge they have gained about outer space from reading memoir and informational text to this engaging work of science fiction. Students organize their understanding of plot by identifying the central elements of the story and analyze the shifting relationships between characters. Students apply the skill they have been developing throughout the module in determining the central meaning in a text. Visual and textual references to Jumanji are made throughout the text but familiarity with Van Allsburg’s previous work is not necessary to students’ comprehension.

The science fiction adventure demonstrates how fiction offers yet another means of considering space by using the imagination rather than science to contemplate its mysteries and challenges. Students’ work with this text supports their engagement with works of myth and visual art that deepen their understanding and appreciation of outer space and culminate their work in Module 2.

Grade

Home

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G3 Module 3 90

3 Module 3: A New

Text Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Grandfather’s Journey, Allen Say

Description of Text Say won the Caldecott award for his exquisite, photo-realistic watercolor paintings that combine landscapes with images modeled after a family scrapbook or photo album. Simple, lyrical text tells the story of Grandfather’s love for two places at once.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD 650L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story is narrated by the grandson, who relates the grandfather’s experience and the difficult choices immigration presents.

Structure: The narrative voice is consistent, and events and the story proceed chronologically. However, time is compressed.

Language: Language demands in this relatively brief text are appropriate for instructional reading, with illustrations supporting some complex language.

Knowledge Demands: Students may require some background knowledge of World War II and the countries involved. They may also need support to understand why the war may have affected the grandfather’s desire to return to California.

This adult-directed text is first read aloud to students. Students continue to develop skills they have been building in previous modules, such as identifying elements of a story and organizing its plot by charting a sequence of events. Students explore point of view, examining both the grandfather’s and the narrator’s perspectives. Students also consider how word choice and repetition develop a character and they work to identify the central message of the text. As this module focuses on immigrant experiences from a variety of cultural contexts, care should be taken to consider students’ personal experiences with this and each of the subsequent texts.

Rationale for Placement

Grandfather’s Journey opens students’ work in Module 3 with literature focused on the experience of immigrants. Paired with Tea with Milk, students can compare how Say treats immigration themes and family stories in two different texts.

Title and Author Tea with Milk, Allen Say

Description of Text Tea with Milk is the story of Masako, the daughter in Grandfather’s Journey, who as a young adult immigrates with her parents when they return to their homeland in Japan. While Grandfather had missed the landscapes and friendships of his youth, the independent and strong-minded Masako misses the freedom afforded to women in the United States and has no desire to wear a kimono, drink green tea, and become the “proper Japanese lady” her parents envision. While Grandfather’s Journey focuses on feelings of longing and homesickness, this text bustles with Masako’s energy and decisiveness as she adapts to a different and challenging culture.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD 630L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story follows a chronological path and is appropriate for the grade level. Most students will appreciate Masako’s difficulties as a young American woman adapting to her parents’ ideas of traditional Japanese culture, as well as to Joseph’s and Masako’s efforts to make a home for themselves.

Structure: The narrative voice is uniform and consistent, and events proceed chronologically.

Language: Language is appropriate for the grade level. Some Japanese cultural terms such as kimono may need to be defined or illustrated.

Knowledge Demands: Students may need support understanding elements of traditional Japanese culture, such as the arts of matchmaking, calligraphy, flower arranging, and tea ceremonies.

Students examine story elements and identify a central conflict in this adult-directed but student-accessible narrative. Students continue their examination of character through considering how Masako is described and how she appears in illustrations, and they continue their work with perspective before comparing Tea with Milk with Grandfather’s Journey. Note that the character of Masako resists traditional expectations of women in Japanese culture in ways some students may find empowering, and sensitivity may be required to consider whether students’ families may have similar expectations about the role of women in marriage and society.

Paired with Grandfather’s Journey, students can compare Say’s treatment of immigration themes and family stories in two different texts. The interconnected nature of Say’s two narratives supports students’ comprehension of these texts separately and together.

Title and Author Coming to America, Betsy Maestro

Description of Text Maestro’s book provides an overview of immigration to America from the first settlers crossing the Beringia land bridge to immigrants arriving at the end of the twentieth century. Her sophisticated writing is supplemented by vivid, detailed illustrations.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD 890L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text follows a linear presentation of information on immigration to the Americas. The illustrations support the text and provide a broad introduction rather than a specific individual’s perspective.

Structure: The book combines words and illustrations to convey information. There is extensive focus on dates and cause/effect relationships. Students might need help organizing events and explaining how they relate to each other.

Language: The text includes immigration-specific vocabulary, some of which may be new to students (e.g , immigrant, nomad, descendent, native, refugee).

Knowledge Demands: Students have likely had exposure to the concept of immigration in earlier grades but may need support with geographic locations.

Students continue to practice their skill of identifying the essential meaning of a text and use information from Coming to America to deepen their understanding of Grandfather’s Story. Students are supported in their reading of this relatively complex text by engaging with supplementary texts, which include images and interviews, and by completing deliberately scaffolded group activities such as creating a timeline in Lesson 17 that they add to across several lessons.

After engaging with the module topic by reading two interconnected literary narratives, students build knowledge of immigration through engaging with this content-rich informational text. Students continue to draw on this knowledge throughout the module.

Title and Author The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award presented by the Association of Jewish Libraries, The Keeping Quilt recounts the story of a Russian Jewish family’s arrival and assimilation in the United States. Polacco uses a quilt that is created and passed down through the generations to explain how traditions and customs link generations as they adapt to new situations.

Quantitative:

830L

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story traces the history of a quilt, which was created from the well-loved clothing of the author’s great-grandmother, over several generations. As the quilt is passed from generation to generation, young readers are able to recognize the values that remain unchanged over time, even as the customs and events evolve.

Structure: Told in the first person, the narrative presents the events in chronological order.

Language: Language demands of this relatively brief text are appropriate for instructional reading, with illustrations supporting some complex language. Some Russian cultural terms such as babushka, which are treated in the lessons as loanwords, may need to be defined or illustrated.

Knowledge Demands: Students may benefit from additional background knowledge of the process of arriving at Ellis Island and of the challenges facing immigrant families at the turn of the twentieth century.

Students analyze the basic elements of this relatively complex text and create a character chart to track the various characters they encounter in this generational narrative. Students track repeated events through the narrative as they consider how repetition develops their understanding of the family’s traditions. Students work with the concept of loanwords (words that English has borrowed from other languages) in Lesson 29. Care should be taken with the framing of this activity, particularly with multilingual learners.

Building on their work with Say’s two interconnected narratives, students read and analyze this single narrative that interconnects generations of the same family and reinforces the ways in which immigrant families creatively maintain their cultural traditions in new cultural contexts.

Title and

Author

Family Pictures, Carmen Lomas Garza

Description of Text A Pura Belpré honor book, Family Pictures is a collection of Carmen Lomas Garza’s artwork and memories. Garza’s work has appeared in numerous galleries and museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Garza, a renowned Mexican American artist, combines text and images to depict the warmth and dignity of her childhood home in Kingsville, Texas.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD660L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Short vignettes of the author–illustrator’s memories of home accompany each full-color illustration. The text and illustrations work together to depict a warm appreciation of the Mexican traditions and values that suffuse the family and community of Garza’s childhood memories.

Structure: Each vignette can stand independently; however, taken together, they create a rich portrait of the author’s family and community.

Language: The language is simple and direct. The book presents text in both English and Spanish, emphasizing the author’s continued connections to her childhood home and language.

Knowledge Demands: The author clearly explains each scene so the book demands very little prior knowledge. Some students may recognize cultural and religious references in the illustrations, adding to the layers of meaning.

Students primarily encounter Family Pictures through two New Read Assessments, in which they independently read accessible selected portions of this collection of vignettes before coming together to determine the text’s central meaning. These carefully selected portions of the text provide opportunities for students to read and analyze independently.

Family Pictures is threaded throughout the module, providing a space for students to apply what they have learned from reading the other module texts in a new context. While the cultural context of Lomas Garza’s story is distinct from that of the other module texts, the themes of family, immigration, and tradition are richly connected.

Grade 3 Module 4:

Artists Make Art

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G3 Module 4 96

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Emma’s Rug, Allen Say

Description of Text Emma’s Rug is the beautiful story of a girl who realizes her artistic abilities and her love of art are not tied to an object but are found within her. The reader is drawn to her quiet personality, understands her frustrations, and celebrates her achievements.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

450L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This fictional account of a young artist introduces the questions of what it means to be an artist and how artists find their inspiration.

Structure: The narrative voice is consistent and events proceed chronologically.

Language: Say’s language is deceptively simple. Students who can comprehend the narrative events may still benefit from support in making inferences to understand the author’s messages about inspiration and creativity.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires little to no prior knowledge.

Students begin with a visual exploration of the text before listening to it read aloud; these activities emphasize the focus on visual art in this and other module texts. Students apply their skill in identifying the central idea of a text and organizing story elements. Exploring the content of the text presents an opportunity for deep thinking by students. The question of inspiration is not answered directly in the text, so students are required to make inferences beyond the events in the plot.

This text opens Module 4, introducing students to ideas of art, innovation, and inspiration through the story of a young girl with whom students may identify. Students will relate to this story and find entry to the world of art, allowing access to narratives about famous artists such as Jackson Pollock and Alvin Ailey.

Title and

Author

Alvin Ailey, Andrea Davis Pinkney

Description of Text Andrea Davis Pinkney brings to life the excitement and joy of Alvin Ailey’s dance in this vibrant picture book biography of the choreographer. The biography provides a chronological account of Ailey’s development as a choreographer, noting significant influences on his work and his contributions to the arts and our society.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

AD 880L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text highlights Ailey’s contributions to the world of dance and his use of African American culture as an inspiration for his work.

Structure: The text is divided into short chapters providing information about important events within specific timeframes. The text incorporates the lyrics of the spiritual “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” preparing students for a similar use of lyrics in When Marian Sang. Back matter provides additional biographical information.

Language: Careful word choices help convey the range of motions that contribute to the beauty of Ailey’s choreography. Pinkney’s use of figurative language adds to the beauty and meaning of the text.

Knowledge Demands: The text requires little to no prior knowledge.

Students begin by watching a clip of Ailey’s famous dance work Revelations before listening to Pinkney’s biography read aloud. This emphasis on viewing the dance before hearing the text structures students’ work with dance in much the same way their visual exploration of Emma’s Rug framed their engagement with visual art. Students notice how information is organized in the biography and analyze nonliteral language and verbs to explore nuances in word meaning. Finally, students conduct research into what inspired Ailey, developing the knowledge they gained from reading this biography.

Transitioning from their work with Emma’s Rug, students engage with another form of artmaking: dance. Ailey’s source of inspiration is more directly treated in this biography, making this text a complimentary pairing with Say’s inferential story of Emma’s inspiration.

Title and Author A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, Jen Bryant

Description of Text This biography of William Carlos Williams describes his boyhood, adolescence, and adulthood as well as the influences that shaped his development as a poet. The collage style of the award-winning illustrations by Melissa Sweet underscores the idea of truth and beauty in everyday objects, which is prevalent in Williams’s poetry. The figurative language in the title is a metaphor that recurs in the text. The biographer’s mention of Williams’s peers—H.D., Ezra Pound, and Charles Demuth—provides a segue to the Charles Demuth paintings students study in this module.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

AD 820L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This biography shows that while artists may earn a living in a nonartistic career, they are still driven to make time for creating art. The book also reinforces the idea that artists can have distinct individual styles and that these unique styles are rooted in deep knowledge of their art form. The endpapers of this text are important because they feature Williams’s poems.

Structure: Several features, such as the historical timeline, the poetry interspersed in the narrative, and the author and illustrator notes, make the text challenging. The visual information is worth the time spent connecting it to the poetry and the narrative. Offering a short biography of Williams might offer a scaffold for students who are confused by the artistic organization of the text.

Language: Written in a lyrical, sparing manner, the multimedia illustrations and free-form drawings invite readers into the text to make meaning.

Knowledge Demands: A familiarity with elements of traditional poetry, such as meter and rhyme, will help students appreciate Williams’s fresh approach to poetry.

As they read this narrative nonfiction text, students work in groups to practice and record one of Williams’s poems to explore the relationship between sound, form, and meaning. Students connect events in Williams’s life to his art making. They explore his relationship with the painter Charles Demuth before examining Demuth’s painting of one of Williams’s poems. This relatively complex text also includes some of Williams’s poetry, which, as nonprose, is not indexed with a Lexile rating. While the included poetry is straightforward, students may need the additional support described in Lesson 11 to access the genre.

This biographical text provides an opportunity for students to engage with works of literary and visual art and to consider the ways in which artists’ lives and friendships can offer inspiration. This work provides students with a bridge between the visual art of the fictional character in Emma’s Rug and the work of historical artists such as Alvin Ailey, leading students to similarly investigate Jackson Pollock and Marian Anderson.

Title and

Authors

Action Jackson, Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Description of Text This book interweaves a fact-based imagining of the days during which Jackson Pollock painted Lavender Mist with biographical details and quotations from the artist himself. The energetic, motion-oriented style of the illustrations is an apt choice for a biography of Pollock, and the specific details about the creation of one of his paintings will help readers understand what made Pollock’s work unique and groundbreaking.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Quantitative: 750L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: A book of process, this text presents an opportunity for students to try the art. The text explores the relationship between art and music, challenging students’ thinking. The idea of inspiration as introduced in Emma’s Rug is revisited.

Structure: The simple narrative of a process makes this book accessible, but the pioneering of an art form makes it mysterious. Scenes are painted with words in the text, and the watercolor and pen illustrations retell the story of the mystery behind Pollock’s drip paintings.

Language: The vocabulary is simple yet highly descriptive and often metaphorical, painting a scene in the reader’s mind.

Knowledge Demands: While students with knowledge of art history may have a deeper understanding of the shocking nature of Pollock’s abstract approach, the text clearly captures the ideas of artistic inspiration, influence, process, and approach through vivid images and accessible words.

This text is accessible yet challenges students with its combination of biographical facts, quotations, imagination, and artistic prompts. Students consider how the authors use research and make logical connections within the text; this analysis supports students’ own research. As they read Action Jackson, students watch a video of Pollock at work, analyze his paintings, and engage in their own process-painting projects. The biographical notes in the back of the book tell of Pollock’s struggle with alcoholism and depression. Teachers should read this section aloud to students with discretion.

Rationale for Placement

At the end of grade 3, students will be able to independently analyze this accessible work and apply what they have learned from other module texts to their understanding of Pollock. This greater level of independence is well earned after students’ work with more challenging module texts. The inviting, participatory nature of Greenberg and Jordan’s text provides students with a deeper level of understanding and appreciation for art making.

Title and Author When Marian Sang, Pam Muñoz Ryan

Description of Text This beautifully illustrated biography of Marian Anderson depicts the singer’s lifelong development of her immense talent as well as her determination to achieve her goals despite obstacles. The text conveys that even though Anderson was born with an incredible gift, she was not content to simply perform; rather, she strove tirelessly to improve and refine her craft. The book’s award-winning illustrations by Brian Selznick enhance the beauty of the text and show both what inspired Anderson and how she inspired others.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

920L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text reinforces students’ understanding of artists’ unyielding commitment to improving their craft, no matter how much talent they possess. It also highlights the importance of an artist’s intrinsic drive rather than reliance on public response, given that public response is affected by political, social, and other factors. The back matter in the book is written at a higher Lexile level than the core text.

Structure: The chronological telling of Anderson’s story from childhood through adulthood will support all readers, while more sophisticated structural elements provide opportunities for deeper exploration. The text is organized in word and image using the structure and visual metaphor of a musical performance. The opening and closing pages reveal a stage with open curtains, while terms such as libretto, staging, and encore in When Marian Sang reinforce the conceit. Another interesting structural choice is Ryan’s decision to intersperse lines from spirituals with the main text to emphasize critical moments in Anderson’s life.

Language: While the language and some vocabulary may be somewhat challenging, the story is well illustrated and supports the text. The notes from Ryan and Selznick in the Encore section are written at a higher reading level; teachers may want to use this part of the text as a Read Aloud.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge of the Jim Crow laws, and the opera world will be helpful as students consider Marian’s plight in the mid-1900s. The figurative language used throughout the book challenges young readers to think of how the imagery effectively describes the times.

Students begin by listening to an audio recording of Anderson singing before listening to the text being read aloud. Students have, at this point, a good deal of experience reading and analyzing biographical texts. They apply their skills identifying central ideas and understanding the author’s structure and organization. While the text emphasizes Anderson’s talent, it does not shy away from the injustices she faced as an African American woman. Lesson 27 addresses the text’s historically specific use of the terms Negro and colored to refer to African Americans.

Students bring together their understanding of artists’ inspiration with historical knowledge, connecting their work with Anderson’s biography to the Black choreographer Alvin Ailey as well as other modern artists such as William Carlos Williams and Jackson Pollock. The creative conceit of the text as a musical performance provides a productive challenge for students as they conclude their work in Grade 3.

Grade 4 Module 1:

A Great Heart

Text Complexity

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G4 Module 1 102

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author The Circulatory Story, Mary K. Corcoran

Description of Text This book combines informational text with comic illustrations by Jef Czekaj to explain the basics of the circulatory system—the systemic, pulmonary, and coronary circuits. Readers follow a red blood cell on its journey through the body and in the process learn how the body combats disease, performs gas exchanges, and fights plaque in the arteries.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the narrative is straightforward, it provides a complex account of interrelating systems in the human body.

Structure: The narrative is structured as a journey through the inside of the human body. Several sections employ repeated structure (e.g., the book’s introduction and conclusion) while shifting perspective. Detailed illustrations include diagrams and figurative cartoons that illustrate and add to the information in the text.

Language: Heavy use of domain-specific vocabulary, as well as many similes and metaphors used to explain scientific concepts, may challenge students. However, some vocabulary and figurative language is supported with in-text explanations and illustrations.

Knowledge Demands: The book demands nuanced knowledge of the human body; some jokes use potentially unfamiliar cultural references.

The text is full of rich, scientific information about the heart and the circulatory system. Students unfamiliar with the anatomy of the human body will have a steeper learning curve but will be supported in their comprehension through active listening work, sequenced questions, explicit instruction to identify main ideas and details, and their study of morphology and content-area vocabulary.

Quantitative: 850L

Rationale for Placement

In Grade 4, students are ready to dive deeper into literal and figurative uses of language. Integrated work with literary and informational texts—alongside rich examples of poetry—sets the stage for Grade 4 students’ deepening understanding of text structures and genres.

Title and Author Love That Dog, Sharon Creech

Description of Text Love That Dog depicts an event that will be familiar to many children—the loss of a beloved pet—by requiring readers to infer conclusions about events that are too painful, at first, for the narrator to discuss openly. He finally begins to come to terms with his pain through poetry.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

1010L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This literary text is written in the form of a journal interspersed with the narrator’s poetry. The text provides students with an opportunity to compare poetry and prose and to examine the structure and organization of poetry.

Structure: The narrative is structured as a journal, interspersed with poetry, written by a boy named Jack.

Language: The poetic language in this text provides students with an opportunity to explore rich vocabulary and a unique text structure.

Knowledge Demands: This book features multiple layers of meaning as the narrator’s relationship with poetry evolves. It also involves complex references to poems that the narrator reads in his class. Understanding the narrator’s mood requires students to understand what the narrator is reading.

Students will likely find it easy to connect to the experiences of the narrator of Love That Dog as the first-person journal entries build that sense of connection. As students continue to read the book, they summarize what happens each month in ongoing evidence organizers, allowing them to clearly track the arc of Jack’s development as a writer and his experiences in class with his teacher, Miss Stretchberry.

Students begin Grade 4 by reading a wide range of text types of varying complexity. In this first module, students develop an understanding of the difference between the literal and figurative uses of words, specifically the words heart and greathearted and more largely the varied uses of figurative and poetic language they encounter in Love That Dog. These nuanced and abstract concepts prepare Grade 4 students to understand and analyze complex ideas, such as the struggle to survive in extreme settings, the causes and consequences of war, and the origin and purpose of myths across cultures, later in the year.

Grade 4 Module 2: Extreme Settings

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G4 Module 2 105

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author “All Summer in a Day,” Ray Bradbury

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

This classic science-fiction story takes place on the planet Venus. A group of schoolchildren anxiously awaits the arrival of the Sun, which appears for only one hour every seven years. The schoolchildren are jealous of a newcomer named Margot who remembers the warmth and brilliance of sunlight from her time on Earth. The children act on their jealousy and lock Margot in a closet, denying her the opportunity to enjoy the brief time in sunlight. The story ends abruptly and without resolve when the children realize what they have done.

Quantitative:

950L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This short science-fiction story has a driving plot and relatively straightforward story line shaped by the extreme setting. The story illustrates how desperation can lead to unkindness.

Structure: The narrative is structured chronologically, with the backstory woven seamlessly into the plot.

Language: The story features varied sentence lengths, including long sentences with multiple phrases and clauses. The author uses some descriptive figurative language and challenging academic vocabulary.

Knowledge Demands: Students may benefit from a cursory understanding of the planets’ order in relation to the Sun and the impact this order has on a planet’s climate. However, this science fiction story does not hold strictly to the way a day is measured on Venus.

While the setting is in some ways unfamiliar to students, in other ways the setting—the classroom, the students, the teacher—is very familiar to them. Students are guided through purposefully sequenced questions and short written responses to analyze the story’s narrative elements and the author’s use of figurative and descriptive language to develop characters and sensory detail.

Rationale for Placement Bradbury’s classic story offers an engaging, relatable introduction to an extreme setting and how such a setting can affect people’s choices and actions. The story offers an opportunity to foster the crucial reading-writing connection, as students use the text as a model for developing some of their narrative skills that they will employ throughout Module 2.

Title and Author “Dust of Snow,” Robert Frost

Description of Text This Robert Frost poem seems like a simple read with only eight lines. However, its many layers of meaning make it engaging and worth reading many times. The speaker has a change of heart, which encourages readers to speculate about all the possibilities that affect him.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: N/A

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This short poem by Robert Frost illustrates the importance of mindfulness, small moments, and positive thinking.

Structure: This short poem has two stanzas, each using an alternating rhyme scheme.

Language: The rhythm and rhyme of the poem make it fun to read. Readers will need to know the meaning of the word rued to understand the poem.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from some knowledge of country life and winter. The poet’s symbolism of hemlock and a crow may require more explicit instruction.

While the poetic form may challenge some readers, most will have deepened their skill with poetry through their work in Module 1. In addition, purposeful work with the poem fosters their deep understanding. In Lessons 7 and 8, students retell the poem as a story and analyze the poem’s language and meaning.

Including two poems by Robert Frost in this module introduces Grade 4 students to well-known classics of the English language, as well as offers a unique insight into the module’s topic of the human experience in extreme settings. The poems continue with the work of Module 1, building students’ familiarity with varied genres and specifically with poetry. In Module 2, the poet’s economy and precision of language serve as a model for students, who are building skill with using words and phrases precisely in their own descriptive writing.

Title and Author “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

This iconic poem captures the beauty of a natural setting. Readers can clearly envision the scenes the speaker recalls with fondness and can relate to his longing for simpler times. The secrets of the speaker invite readers to watch and wonder with him, while the word choice, structure, and resulting rhythm create a melodic tone.

Quantitative:

N/A

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This short poem by Robert Frost describes the thoughts of a busy, responsible man who has stopped to watch snow fall in the isolated woods. He feels the beauty and pull of the woods but realizes he must keep moving to meet his obligations.

Structure: This poem has four stanzas with an interesting rhyming pattern. The first, second, and fourth lines in each stanza rhyme, while the third line sets up the rhyme for the next stanza. The sentence structure does not follow familiar oral language patterns, and students may need support to understand the poetic organization of the words within each line. An example of this is found in the first line of the first stanza, “Whose woods these are, I think I know.”

Language: Except for the word queer—connoting strange rather than the more common modern reference to sexual identity—vocabulary is grade appropriate.

Knowledge Demands: Readers must understand the meaning of the word queer to recognize the significance of the man’s decision to stop and watch the snow fall in the woods. They must ponder why he takes the time to do something that does not make sense if he is so busy and has so many “miles to go” and “promises to keep.”

While the poetic form may challenge some readers, most will have deepened their skill with poetry through their work in Module 1 and with this poem specifically, which is featured in Love That Dog and is the focus of deeper study and fluency practice in that module. As such, Module 2 assumes some prior knowledge and builds on that assumption to explore the impact the setting has on the poem’s speaker.

These two poems by Robert Frost introduce Grade 4 students to well-known classics of the English language, as well as offer a unique insight into the module’s topic of the human experience in extreme settings. The poems continue with the work of Module 1, building students’ familiarity with varied genres and specifically with poetry. In Module 2, the poet’s economy and precision of language serve as a model for Grade 4 students, who are building skill with using words and phrases precisely in their own descriptive writing.

Title and Author Mountains, Seymour Simon

Description of Text Mountains is a beautiful picture book that teaches information about mountains. It begins by describing what they are, how they form and change, and what makes them extreme environments. The book contains exquisite photographs of mountains from around the world, as well as illustrations and diagrams. The book also discusses how it is challenging to live on mountains and what animals and people have done to adapt and survive there.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1080L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The book is a complex account of what mountains are, how they compare to other mountains, how they form in different ways, how they weather and erode, the varieties of life in mountain regions, and the challenge to human habitation.

Structure: New topics are signaled with a blue uppercase letter at the beginning of a page of text. Illustrations include breathtaking photographs, a topographical map, a color-coded map, and mountain-formation diagrams. The text is organized logically but without the aid of headings.

Language: The text features ample content-specific vocabulary. Readers are supported in understanding key terms through in-text explanations, illustrations, and diagrams.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from knowledge of rock formation, weather, and erosion. It will also be helpful for students to know about the plates and how their movement forms mountains.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students’ work with genre and informational texts, which was a focus with The Circulatory System in Module 1, continues with explicit work to use the book Mountains to identify and describe informational text characteristics, features, and structures. Intentionally structured questions and evidence-collection methods guide students’ reading of this text and their deepening knowledge and skills.

Mountains builds students’ deep factual knowledge of a mountainous environment, which benefits them in their reading of Hatchet and serves as the setting for their End-of-Module Task response, in which they write a survival narrative set in a mountainous environment.

Title and Author SAS Survival Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere, John “Lofty” Wiseman

Description of Text This outdoor manual was originally written by an instructor for the Special Air Service (SAS) of the British military to provide information on how to survive in any situation in the wilderness. It is an easy-to-follow reference book divided into chapters and subsections. It includes every possible scenario a person might encounter while trying to survive alone in different wilderness settings, such as the desert, mountains, and at sea.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This best-selling reference text provides information on survival techniques for a variety of extreme settings and situations. The sheer volume of information pushes readers to search and sample multiple sections to identify information most relevant to their needs.

Structure: The vast information is well organized with multiple levels of headings. Illustrations and diagrams are clearly labeled and add clarity to text descriptions.

Language: The author’s heavy use of domain-specific and sophisticated vocabulary offers opportunities for new language acquisition. Text concepts are supported with illustrations and diagrams.

Knowledge Demands: Students’ comprehension will benefit from knowledge about challenging settings and situations as well as survival techniques.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

While listed as a core text in the module, the text excerpts are used more in a targeted, supplementary-text fashion to purposefully support building factual knowledge at key points in the module.

Selected excerpts from SAS Survival Handbook are used throughout the module as a reference tool to build knowledge of actual survival techniques.

Title and Author Hatchet, Gary Paulsen

Description of Text Newbery Honor Book Hatchet is a fictional story of a thirteen-year-old boy named Brian who is traveling on a bush plane when the pilot suddenly has a heart attack and dies. Brian manages to keep the plane level for a while, until it crashes into a lake. He survives the crash, but that is just the first obstacle he faces. Brian must find a way to survive the wilderness of the Canadian forest. His hope of survival and ultimately his belief in himself keep him going despite overwhelming setbacks. Hatchet is an adventure story that shows self-reliance and determination are the keys to survival and success.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

1020L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The novel features a straightforward story line with a driving, motivational plotline and a familiar survival theme.

Structure: The novel follows a conventional structure with chapters mostly in chronological order but interspersed with a few flashbacks of the protagonist’s memories.

Language: The style and structure of language is consistent and accessible throughout the novel. Some possibly unfamiliar vocabulary is well supported in context.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from their knowledge-building work with Mountains, as the novel details the geography of the Canadian wilderness and the vegetation and animals in the taiga biome.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Paulsen’s descriptions of a plane crash and Brian’s thoughts of the challenges of his homelife are presented briefly but realistically. Exercise judgment in sharing the book with families and in reading aloud and addressing students’ questions regarding the opening scenes. However the opening chapters are approached, students will likely get quickly into the heart of the novel and its central events, which take place in the wilderness setting.

Award-winning author Gary Paulsen is best known for his young-adult wilderness survival stories. Hatchet is a favorite of students and plays a key role in this unit on human responses to extreme natural settings.

Grade 4 Module 3:

The Redcoats Are Coming! Text

G4 Module 3 112

Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author George vs. George: The American Revolution as Seen from Both Sides, Rosalyn Schanzer

Description of Text Schanzer’s book is filled with interesting facts and historical relevance, which helps readers explore important events of the American Revolution from the perspectives of two opposing leaders, George Washington and King George III. Readers experience an unbiased presentation of facts, which they can use to interpret a variety of other primary and secondary sources. The text introduces each leader and the components of the British government (both in England and the American colonies). It then covers the causes and rationale of the American Revolution and most of the major battles. The culmination of the entire text illustrates that both George Washington and King George III were great leaders.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: 1120L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text is dense both in terms of overall scope of the information covered (twenty-plus years of history) and specific details, which elaborate on concepts and events. The descriptions of government both old and new, philosophical differences, and the volume of references to important historical figures generate a lot of information to recall and integrate. The overall purpose of the text, however, is explicit, and important ideas are often marked and restated for readers.

Structure: Transition words and phrases, along with headings that state main ideas, create a coherent and organized text. The illustrations and captions further help organize information and support the details in the text.

Language: The language is straightforward. Longer sentences provide elaboration of shorter main sentences. In the section “A New Nation,” the Declaration of Independence is translated into modern language.

Knowledge Demands: Background knowledge and vocabulary demands are high, and some words represent complex ideas that may be difficult for this age group. Sometimes unfamiliar labels or words may represent familiar concepts.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Title and Author

Description of Text

Given the many embedded supports and supporting text structure and features, this text may be easier for students to access than some texts with a lower Lexile score. All the reading takes place in class as students process the reading material through a series of teacher-supported, textdependent questions.

This is the first social studies–focused module in Grade 4, and this text serves to build a crucial knowledge base of the American Revolution and the events leading up to it. The book’s explicit focus on perspective builds students’ understanding that there is always more than one side to a story—and that all sides must be considered to understand the causes and effects in any situation.

Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak, Kay Winters

Free-verse vignettes and beautiful illustrations by Larry Day introduce important political views held by Patriots, Loyalists, and those in-between. The inclusion of colonists from various trades, businesses, and servitudes help readers understand the connection between a person’s occupation and their views on the acts leading up to the American Revolution.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

640L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Readers must infer complex ideas by integrating background knowledge and the text. As they read like historians, students must interpret beyond the facts to gain a deeper understanding, such as the irony that the Patriots are fighting for liberty, yet the blacksmith’s slave will not be granted his freedom.

Structure: The readers must recognize frequent shifts in narration and viewpoints as each new vignette is presented. Text features such as headings, font changes, and bold words help readers attend to and infer important ideas.

The use of vignettes rather than a conventional storyline provides a challenge. The author builds anticipation of the secret that is revealed at the end, but the introduction of the plot is subtle and could be easily missed by readers.

Language: Unfamiliar, or historical, syntax is found in a few of the vignettes (e.g., “who comes” and “I never want for work”). Readers also frequently encounter symbolism and metaphors that explore critical ideas in the text.

Knowledge Demands: Demands on readers extend past personal experiences and require an understanding of life far removed from today. Some characters’ specific vocabulary connects to their trade or business; the context clues and glossary clarify meaning, and often these words do not carry the primary meaning of the text. Knowledge of opposing political views, historical figures, and the events of the Boston Tea Party help readers maintain the gist of the text.

The historical notes contain helpful background information, but readers may need support with words such as indignation

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Title and Author

The language used in this book is deceptively simple, as indicated by the relatively low quantitative Lexile measure. But in fact, the concepts may be challenging for students, given the detailed historical context of each person’s story. The engaging stories support students’ persistence with these concepts, however, and the module’s structured questions and evidence collections support students in making crucial connections as they read.

This fictional text offers a great counterpart to the informational text that opened the module. The structure of the fictional text continues to explicitly emphasize the importance of understanding all sides of a story. The fictional text offers insights into the experiences of everyday citizens affected by the events of the time—enabling students to realize how life experiences and occupations can shape perspectives on controversial topics.

The Scarlet Stockings Spy: A Revolutionary War Tale, Trinka Hakes Noble

Description of Text The Scarlet Stockings Spy is an American Revolution tale about a brave, young Patriot named Maddy Rose, beautifully illustrated by Robert Papp. Through Maddy’s story, readers experience the personal sacrifice, devotion, and determination that helped the American colonies defeat the most powerful country in the world.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1020L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This text illustrates how important even the smallest citizen was to the birth of a new nation. Historical facts come alive as Maddy and her brother use a childhood game to rise above suspicion and provide important information to the American Army about the British forces. Maddy’s determination to honor and remember her brother reminds us of the ultimate human cost of liberty and freedom.

Structure: The narrative structure opens by describing the setting and context of Philadelphia in 1777. The story quickly moves to the main character, Maddy Rose, and introduces her Patriot perspective and role in the American Revolution. The story takes place over a year of fighting but is clearly marked with transitions and dates. The final page strays a bit from a traditional ending, and young readers may need help to comprehend the author’s final message.

Language: The text contains unfamiliar, older English sentence structures that may challenge young readers. Some vocabulary will be unfamiliar as it describes items that were common in colonial households and commerce. The text also contains frequent use of figurative language.

Knowledge Demands: Students will need to understand the purpose of the American Revolution and the different perspectives of the Patriots and the Loyalists. Students will need to have some sense of the commerce and trade of the colonies. The illustrations will help readers visualize colonial Philadelphia.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

The exciting, suspenseful events described in this book will likely engage and motivate readers. The lessons challenge students to consider the role of storytelling in building an understanding of historical events. Group discussions and writing-to-learn opportunities deepen students’ ability to differentiate between historical fact and fiction and to examine the concept of perspective.

Rationale for Placement

As they continue to explore the idea of perspective in the context of the American Revolution, students have the opportunity to dive more deeply into a single experience to determine how the war influences Maddy’s thoughts and actions.

Title and Author

Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen

Description of Text Woods Runner is a historical fiction novel portraying the personal tragedy and horrific truths of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a young boy named Samuel. Set in the context of the frontier, the book helps readers develop an understanding of what it was like to be a colonist during a defining time in American history. Through this poignant story of war, Paulsen creates heroes out of everyday people, crafting a true picture of patriotism.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

870L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the plot and theme of the text are easy to identify, the beginning description of the forest and Samuel’s family is full of symbolism and complex ideas that readers must infer.

Structure: The narrative structure is straightforward, and the historical inserts placed at the end of some chapters do not interfere with the flow of the story. They offer background knowledge necessary to understand the text. The frequent use of unidentified dialogue can be confusing.

Language: Some nonstandard language demands and colloquialisms in the dialogue may present a challenge for readers. However, the context support is high.

Knowledge Demands: Readers will need background knowledge on the American Revolution to understand some of the events in the story. The historical sections provide necessary content information to help readers recognize the significance of specific events. Yet the text requires limited vocabulary demands.

Students are familiar with Paulsen’s engaging writing style, having read Hatchet in the previous module. Some teachers may decide to read sections of the book aloud as a group to support students with processing and comprehending the situations described.

With its integration of historical fact and fiction, Woods Runner enables students to synthesize much of their module learning—differentiating fact from fiction, analyzing perspective, seeking diverse perspectives, deepening knowledge of the historical period, and thinking critically about how facts shape fiction and perspective shapes understanding.

Grade 4 Module 4:

Myth Making Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G4 Module 4 117

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech

Description of Text Walk Two Moons is a narrative fiction story told from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old girl, Salamanca Hiddle, on a journey with her paternal grandparents to see her mother, who has left home to travel across the United States. While they travel by car on the same route the mother took by bus, the girl tells of her friend, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose life story mirrors the protagonist’s own story and trials.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

770L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Walk Two Moons has multiple important themes, which are revealed as the three storylines weave and finally fuse together. The author provides several idioms that highlight these themes, allowing the reader and the characters to uncover meaning together. It is a perfect text to illustrate how much can be learned from myths, tales, and stories.

Structure: The novel features a narrative structure that tells multiple stories at the same time. The stories are connected by a commonality that becomes clear as the story progresses.

Language: The text includes varied sentence lengths. The vocabulary is accessible for most students.

Knowledge Demands: A cursory understanding of myths, both Greek and Native American, will benefit readers. Teachers may want to display a map of the United States to show the places Sal and her grandparents visit on their journey.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

The novel features a fictional character close in age to the Grade 4 students who read this text in Module 4. Students will learn from how Salamanca faces her life’s challenges, including a complicated friendship and the loss of her mother. The module addresses these situations in grade-appropriate and sensitive ways. Use discretion in facilitating discussions of these situations in the novel and take these opportunities to build students’ empathy.

In Module 4, students explore how different cultures use myths and stories to explain natural phenomena and to reinforce societal morals and norms. Walk Two Moons, winner of the John Newbery Medal, offers the perfect opportunity for students to synthesize these ideas, through the text’s reliance on Greek and Native American myths to link ideas, characters, and situations. The novel’s many messages provide a backdrop for understanding how authors teach through stories and why storytelling has always been essential to the human experience.

Title and Author

Understanding Greek Myths, Natalie Hyde

Description of Text This informational text covers a variety of topics on Greek mythology and life in ancient Greece. Illustrations and pictures of actual relics and architecture provide important information to supplement and support the text. Several important myths are summarized that reflect the polytheistic beliefs captured in both morality and creation myths.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 970L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The purposes of this text are clearly outlined and highlighted with the use of many text features. The text builds students’ knowledge of myths and ancient Greece and shows how mythology affected every part of daily life.

Structure: The text uses a predictable informational text structure that includes summaries of important myths; small boxes with additional details; and many photographs of Greek works of art, maps, and drawings.

Language: The author uses mostly complex sentences with dependent clauses. The vocabulary is domain-specific and academic but is well supported by a glossary; bold words in the text are defined in the glossary. The brief summaries of myths are accessible to most students.

Knowledge Demands: Students will benefit from understanding aspects of culture, including religious beliefs.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Greek myths have been read and told for centuries. In myths, the lines of good and evil are clear, and courage, wisdom, and fairness are rewarded. Students will likely find the stories engaging. Students’ work throughout Grade 4 will support them in the challenge of reading an informational text with multiple components. They will develop their writing skills through their purposeful evidence collection and responses to intentionally sequenced questions, through discussion and writing-to-learn opportunities.

Students read excerpts from Understanding Greek Myths, using the book as a reference to offer context throughout the module. The text provides information on Greek mythology and life in ancient Greece that will be foundational to students’ work throughout the module. Students also learn that many of our words in science and our phrases in literature come from myths— connections students continue to explore through the module’s other texts.

Title and Author Gifts from the Gods: Ancient Words & Wisdom from Greek & Roman Mythology, Lise Lunge-Larsen

Description of Text Gifts from the Gods is a collection of Greek and Roman myths that illustrate how ancient words and themes have traveled through time and remain important to our collective knowledge. Each myth is introduced with an excerpt from contemporary literature and closes with an informational section that provides facts about the Greek and Roman civilizations.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: N/A

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text presents rich vocabulary through brief and compelling stories of the myths associated with the words that have roots in Greek and Roman words. These complex ideas may challenge students.

Structure: The text follows a distinct structural pattern that is easy to follow, and the illustrations by Gareth Hinds illuminate the narrative in ways that help enliven and clarify ideas.

Language: The style and structure of the language is consistent throughout the text. Hinds’ illustrations clarify the text. Throughout the text vocabulary is accessible with some brief definitions provided.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of ancient Greek culture and polytheistic beliefs is helpful to gain a full understanding of this text.

Myths have been told and read for centuries. This collection of Greek and Roman myths illustrates how ancient words and themes have endured over time. Students may already be familiar with some of the myths and the characters or situations these myths describe. In the module, students read and analyze selected myths, learning, for example, the stories of Achilles’s heel, Pandora’s box, Arachne, Echo and Narcissus, and others. Students will likely enjoy reading the myths and knowing that the events depicted are from fictional stories told by people who lived long ago.

The book helps students contextualize the impact of Greek mythology on modern cultures through the lens of language. The author traces the origins of common words and expressions and builds students’ understanding of how language evolves.

Title and Author Pushing Up the Sky: Seven Native American Plays for Children, Joseph Bruchac

Description of Text Pushing Up the Sky is a collection of Native American traditional tales adapted into simple plays for students to perform. The tales are filled with heroes and tricksters and share important traditions that represent the various Native American tribes included in the collection. Before each play, a section includes information about each tribe’s location and sets the context for the tale.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

N/A

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: These traditional tales deal with themes and patterns of events that are like those found in Greek mythology. The tricksters and heroes entertained young children while explaining the natural world and teaching the tribes’ morals.

Structure: Each play starts with the cast of characters and ideas for props or scenery and costumes. Each scene is well marked, and all lines are tagged with character names.

Language: The sentences and vocabulary are simple—almost too simple. In some parts of the text, the simplicity of the language leaves gaps that may cause confusion for the reader.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge of Native American traditions and the characteristics of traditional tales is helpful to gain a full understanding of the plays in this text.

Students compare across texts in this module, building their skills at making comparisons and synthesizing ideas. Through their comparative study of myths from the Greeks and the Native American tribes, students discover that stories from different cultures can share similarities in themes and purposes.

This collection of lively plays written for young people contributes to the module on mythology by offering traditional tales that deal with themes and patterns of events like those found in Greek and Roman mythology. By reading a book of plays, students also are introduced to a new genre of text: dramatic text. This continues their wide-ranging work with genre throughout Grade 4.

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

Grade 5 Module 1: Cultures

in Conflict

Text Complexity

GREAT

G5 Module 1 122

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core Module Texts

Title and Authors Thunder Rolling in the Mountains, Scott O’Dell and Elizabeth Hall

Description of Text The historical novel Thunder Rolling in the Mountains by Newbery medalist Scott O’Dell and Elizabeth Hall spotlights the conflict between the US government and the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce after the tribe resisted forced removal from their ancestral lands. The tribe’s fate is recounted through the poignant voice of Sound of Running Feet, daughter of Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph. The novel’s unique perspective allows readers to understand Chief Joseph as a respected father, a man of deep values, and a leader who faced impossible decisions about his tribe’s fate. The authors’ thorough research—including eyewitness accounts, recollections from Nez Perce survivors, and the authors’ own travels of the trail the tribe was forced to take from Oregon to Idaho—lends authenticity to this tragic, moving story.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

680L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The plot and setting of this work of historical fiction invites readers to experience a pivotal period in United States history and to deepen understanding of how the country’s westward expansion disrupted the ways of life that Native Americans, including the Nez Perce, had established over generations. Through the novel, students explore concepts such as culture, justice, beliefs, and values, as they experience the anguish of a proud tribe with a rich cultural life and history that lost everything in conflict with settlers and the U.S. Army.

Structure: The text is organized chronologically with a first-person narrator— Sound of Running Feet, daughter of Chief Joseph. The novel’s events span June through October 1877. The book contains a foreword, an afterword, and a map of the trail the Nez Perce traveled as they fled the US Army, en route to Canada.

Language: The authors use authentic language (e.g., chieftain, ten snows, and reservation) and American Indian expressions, many of which are used figuratively (e.g., “The Earth is my mother,” “The settlers had broken their word,” and “The bullets sang like bees”). Nez Perce idioms and folktales add another layer of interest and complexity to the language.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Knowledge Demands: Students must understand the context of US westward expansion and its negative effect on the Nez Perce way of life to derive full meaning from the real-life events of this historical novel. Part of the pleasure—and the difficulty—of reading the novel involves seeing the world through the eyes of a character whose life is significantly different from life in the twenty-first century.

Knowledge of the historical period will support students’ work with this novel. Accordingly, the module’s diverse supplementary texts—film, informational texts, maps, photos and paintings, and folktales—build students’ knowledge base. Descriptions of cultural practices and tragic or violent events illustrate aspects of the Nez Perce culture and historical experience. While some of these novel details may challenge some students and educators, these elements are not the main storyline or the focus of instruction but, instead, establish context. Teachers will want to review the novel before instruction to anticipate reader considerations specific to their students.

Each Wit & Wisdom® text plays a role within the larger module’s body of knowledge and journey. The novel, Thunder Rolling in the Mountains, builds important content knowledge in the context of Grade 5 Module 1, taking students deeply into the Nez Perce culture and building their emotional connection with this group. The module topic is appropriate for Grade 5 students, who are ready to deepen and broaden their knowledge of the human experience. Their year, in part through this novel, begins their exploration of culture, how cultural beliefs guide people’s actions, and what can happen when cultures come into conflict.

Title and Author Excerpt from “Lincoln Hall Speech,” Chief Joseph

Description of Text In his iconic 1879 “Lincoln Hall Speech,” Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe addressed members of Congress after his people lost their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley and were confined to a reservation far from their homeland. In his speech, Chief Joseph makes his case for his people to return to their homeland in the Wallowa Valley. In eloquent, straightforward language enhanced by repetition and metaphor, Chief Joseph constructs his plea for justice and equality for the Nez Perce people. His feelings of loss, confusion, and anger over the deliberate destruction of his people and their ways of life are palpable in his words. Chief Joseph’s speech leaves a deep and lasting impression, reminding audiences of the immeasurable losses suffered by American Indian cultures in the name of European American expansion. As a primary source, the speech brings Chief Joseph’s words and tone directly to the listener or reader.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

950L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: In his speech, Chief Joseph asks US government officials to return the Nez Perce homelands to his tribe. He expresses his purpose in the beginning—he wants the White people to respect his people and treat them fairly. But Chief Joseph also poses more complex questions. He wants to know why the White men “break their word,” why all people cannot be treated fairly, and why the Nez Perce cannot be free to live as they wish.

Structure: This excerpt features two paragraphs from the beginning of Chief Joseph’s long speech to members of Congress and seven paragraphs from the end of the speech. Paragraphs are short and have self-contained, but related, main ideas. Sentence length varies from very short to complex, long sentences made up of multiple short clauses. Repetition of patterns creates tone and rhythm and lends itself to Choral Reading.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Language: Rhetoric in this speech is eloquent, yet straightforward. The text employs repetition and sophisticated figures of speech but simple vocabulary, such as “My heart is heavy” and “Good words do not last long if they amount to nothing.”

Knowledge Demands: Knowing the history (that is, both the events leading up to Chief Joseph’s surrender and what happened to the tribe subsequently) is essential to a full understanding of this powerful speech.

By the time students encounter Chief Joseph’s speech in Lesson 29 of this module, they have already built deep, foundational knowledge of the historical context of the speech and of the speaker himself. To analyze the text itself, students reread it, analyze its figurative language and use of repetition, identify central ideas, and engage in a Socratic Seminar to discuss key ideas. Scaffolds are embedded in the lessons to support students in successfully annotating, collecting evidence, and participating in collaborative academic conversations. Teachers will want to approach the content with sensitivity and awareness of the emotional power of Chief Joseph’s experiences and eloquence.

Grade 5 students build important foundational skills and strong habits of mind as they work with a wide range of texts in Module 1, including this historic speech. So many historic texts use challenging vocabulary and syntax that make them inaccessible to younger scholars; Chief Joseph’s speech conveys his complex ideas and powerful emotions in remarkably accessible language. Analyzing this primary source document and building fluency with it gives students a chance to experience history firsthand.

Grade 5 Module 2: Word Play

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G5 Module 2 126

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core module texts:

Title and Author The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Description of Text

First published in 1961, this imaginative novel follows a discontented and purposeless young Milo on an unexpected journey to the Lands Beyond, where he encounters unusual settings and characters whose names describe their behaviors. Milo forms unlikely friendships and attempts to return the princesses Rhyme and Reason to their rightful place in the Kingdom of Wisdom.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1000L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: On its surface, the book is a story of a young boy who embarks on a fantastical journey. Beneath this surface are many life messages about the value of time, the possibilities of life, and the joys of learning.

Structure: The structure is straightforward and grade-level appropriate. The narrative voice is consistent and events proceed chronologically.

Language: While the story appeals to a wide range of students and is grade-level appropriate, it is a fantasy, rich in challenging vocabulary, which may need explanation and explicit instruction. As Juster himself said, “To kids, there are no difficult words, there are just words they have never come across before.” Character and place names, idioms, adages/proverbs, puns, and complex vocabulary may be challenging to some, particularly multilingual learners and those reading below grade level.

Knowledge Demands: Many students will identify with Milo’s attitude toward school and learning and with his responses to the situations in which he finds himself.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

The story provides an excellent opportunity for students to analyze how authors play with words to create meaning and engage readers. As Milo’s experiences transform him, so too do students discover both the importance of using precise language and the positive impact of taking responsibility for their own learning and experience of the world. To understand and appreciate wordplay, students must understand English homophones, homographs, and idioms; multilingual learners will need tailored support.

After the emotionally charged first module, Grade 5 students will be ready for a more lighthearted reading experience. Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, a modern classic that pulses with clever puns and playful use of words, offers the perfect focus for an examination of wordplay Experiencing this fun of language and internalizing Juster’s themes about the joy of learning are perfect messages for Grade 5 students preparing to move beyond elementary school learning.

Grade 5 Module 3:

A War Between Us

Text Complexity

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G5 Module 3 129

Appendix A: Text Complexity

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core Module Texts

Title and Author The Boys’ War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk about the Civil War, Jim Murphy

Description of Text The nonfiction text The Boys’ War by Jim Murphy illustrates the Civil War experiences of Confederate and Union boy soldiers through rich primary sources—diary entries, personal letters, and poignant archival photographs. These firsthand accounts, interspersed with Murphy’s historical narrative, capture war’s harsh realities and provide a unique perspective of its impact on these underaged soldiers, all boys sixteen years of age or younger. From endless drilling to scavenging for food and from the front lines of battle to primitive Civil War medicine, The Boys’ War uses varying perspectives of both Southern and Northern boys to provide a comprehensive and vivid account of the constant challenges these young soldiers faced.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1060L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The author of The Boys’ War gives voice to an oftenunheard perspective—that of young, enlisted soldiers—regarding the horrors of war. Murphy helps the reader understand the grim realities of the Civil War and develop empathy for these young soldiers’ experiences.

Structure: The text follows a loose chronology of the Civil War. Each chapter delves into a different topic, such as the beginning of the war, enlisting, being far from home, later battles, and the end of the war. The book contains a table of contents, an introduction, an afterword, a bibliography, and an index. Additionally, the author’s use of vivid photographs further enriches the ideas in the text.

Language: Chunks of narrative-style writing from both the author and the primary sources help bring the dense historical story to life. Terms specific to the battles, such as ball, volley, and batteries, provide students with many opportunities to determine the meaning of vocabulary in context. Academic words, such as analytical and retool, also populate the text, exposing students to words they will likely encounter in other texts and disciplines. The primary-source letters and diary entries preserved in their original nineteenth-century English add further interest and complexity.

Knowledge Demands: Students must have a general understanding of the Civil War, its causes, and its impacts. Adequate background knowledge includes terms specific to this war, such as Union and Confederate; knowledge of which states fought for the North and which fought for the South; and terms related to geographic and political divisions in the United States, such as Southern interests and States’ rights

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

The book contains graphic text and visual depictions of the experiences of youth during wartime. While the module approaches the ideas thoughtfully and with clear learning goals, readers who have experienced war firsthand may be particularly sensitive to these depictions. Teachers may want to communicate to parents about the book’s content and will want to monitor students’ reactions to the material during instruction.

This text serves a crucial role in the module, enabling students to answer the Essential Question: “How did the Civil War impact people?” The opportunity that this text presents for students to read, view, and interpret primary-source documents is critical and builds key academic skills that will serve them as they continue with higher-level study in social studies and English language arts. On a broader scale, with this module Grade 5 students continue to build important foundational knowledge of American history and democracy.

Title and Author The River Between Us, Richard Peck

Description of Text National Book Award finalist and winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, The River Between Us by Richard Peck is a masterfully composed and well-researched historical-fiction novel rich with context and character. Through rich figurative language and well-crafted prose, Peck invites readers into the lives of the Pruitt family and their small town on the banks of the Mississippi River in Illinois at the start of the Civil War. The setting creates a tenuous atmosphere as people rush to take sides in this divisive war and is complemented by a shroud of mystery that hangs over the Pruitt family. Bookended by a different character’s perspective, the novel is mostly told from Tilly’s, the eldest Pruitt daughter’s, point of view. Ultimately, readers develop deep empathy for the Pruitt family and learn how the Civil War changed people’s lives in profound ways by both tearing families apart and at the same time bringing strangers together.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

740L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The River Between Us depicts life in the throes of one of the bloodiest and most difficult times in American history, the Civil War. Through this story, Peck weaves in information and history about the free people of color of New Orleans, a group with which students may be unfamiliar. While the time and setting are likely removed from the experiences of many contemporary students, Peck tells a haunting and universal story about humanity. Students gain different perspectives and build empathy as they learn how war affects the characters, their families, and the choices they make.

Structure: This book, while written in engaging narrative prose, takes twists and turns through time, switching narrators and employing flashback. Most of the novel takes place in 1861 while the first and final chapters take place in 1916. The book ends with “A Note on the Story” that explores the author’s research into the Civil War and the free people of color of New Orleans.

Language: The text is peppered with dialect and idioms, and the large amount of domain-specific vocabulary, specifically some military words and nineteenth-century slang, increase the complexity of the book’s language. Sentence structure is fairly simple, and dialogue throughout the novel helps develop the plot’s momentum.

Knowledge Demands: While students would benefit from opportunities to consult and explore other sources to build the background knowledge needed to access this story with depth, the structure of the novel and the perspective of its narrators allow students with little background knowledge immediate access to its content.

This work of historical fiction is rich with context, character, and imagery; students will likely find the plot, setting, and characters engaging and will want to uncover the plot’s secrets. That said, the novel also includes topics that may be uncomfortable for some readers with its realistic depiction of American society during the Civil War. Varied themes and topics are incorporated into the novel to help readers understand the period, the story, and different cultures and ways of life. Teachers will want to preview the novel and consider how best to address any specific situations or topics in consideration of their specific student population.

Rationale for Placement

In Module 3, students continue to deepen their knowledge of American history and literature and their understanding of what it means to be human. This module’s focus builds on students’ Module 1 work, analyzing the historical consequences of cultures and values coming into conflict. In this module as well, students continue to extend their close reading skills with varied text genres, including this complex work of historical fiction. The novel serves as an important counterpoint to the module’s other core text, which is a detailed, informational account of the time. With Module 3, students continue to encounter varied points of view and to analyze how these points of view affect the way that events are described. Together, this growing body of knowledge and skills serve Grade 5 students, who are ready to read more complex texts and develop more nuanced understandings of events and situations.

Grade 5 Module 4: Breaking Barriers

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G5 Module 4 134

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative criteria outlined in both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS ) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated CCSS Appendix A guidance on text complexity (http://witeng.link/0093).

For ideas to support multilingual learners, see the Wit & Wisdom® Multilingual Learner Resource.

Core Module Text

Title and Author We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, Kadir Nelson

Description of Text

Complexity Ratings

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Non-Violent Social Change and the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, We Are the Ship is a masterful telling of the history of the segregated baseball leagues. These leagues fostered social change throughout the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century and ultimately led to the integration of professional baseball. Through conversational, informative text and sumptuous oil paintings, Nelson reveals an America filled with beauty, pain, and hope. Nelson’s accessible, wellresearched text examines the lives of the ballplayers in the Nego Leagues and all that they endured: racism, segregation, appalling conditions, and little compensation.

Nelson lays bare information about what it was like to live and travel in segregated America while at the same time sharing the joy that many found in playing baseball for a living. The quotation “We are the ship; all else the sea” shares Negro National League Founder Rube Foster’s view of the collective sense of unity within the league. Foster kept the league organized, professional, and solvent. Because of his leadership, many African American men had opportunities that would have otherwise been unavailable to them.

Ultimately, Nelson reveals the physical and emotional sacrifices Jackie Robinson made when he integrated the “Major Leagues” by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers and how integration led to the end of the Negro Leagues.

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: We Are the Ship brings history to life through an informative narrative and multiple large-scale oil paintings. It depicts the life of African American baseball players during the first half of the twentieth century—the age of segregated baseball. While Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, the book provides a broader context and more inclusive narrative to explain his roots in segregated baseball and to credit the many men upon whose shoulders he stood.

Structure: Chapters are divided by innings, including “Extra Innings,” and relate the history of the Negro Leagues in the collective voice of its

Quantitative: 900L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

players. The paintings that illustrate the book are outsized, rich portrayals of players and games, offering opportunities for inference.

Language: The voice of the narrator is an accessible “everyman,” a ballplayer who lived through the era and can tell the history in a plainspoken, conversational manner. Some vernacular language may be unfamiliar to students. As expected, given the subject, the book includes baseball vocabulary and references.

Knowledge Demands: Prior knowledge of the rules and language of baseball is helpful but not required. The book is set in the context of world events during the racial discrimination of the period and World War II; a sense of the broad timeline of American history will be supportive.

Nelson’s well-researched and well-structured text and paintings provide students with an example of research in action and an important source text for reflecting on the importance of using multiple sources and direct quotations when researching a topic. Scaffolds and supports embedded in the lessons’ structure and activities support students’ deepening comprehension and analysis.

Rationale for Placement

This informational text is a powerful source for answering this module’s Essential Question: “How can sports influence individuals and societies?” To respond, students use their understanding from previous modules about causes and consequences and events and their impacts, to consider how sports can affect not just individuals but society as a whole. The book and the module’s topics ensure that students end Grade 5 with a positive message, analyzing how sports can bring people together, challenge injustices, and offer hope and inspiration.

Grade 6 Module 1:

Resilience in the Great Depression

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G6 Module 1 137

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Bud, Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis

Description of Text Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as several other awards, this poignant novel tells the story of an African American orphan searching for his father during the Great Depression.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 950L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the story is straightforward and grade-level appropriate, there are sections in which the symbolism and figurative language may need explanation.

Structure: The narrative voice and story structure are consistent, and events proceed chronologically.

Language: Non-standard English elements (maxims, colloquialisms, and non-standard language) may be unfamiliar to students.

Knowledge Demands: The cultural knowledge could present a challenge for students not familiar with the Great Depression. The novel incorporates attitudes and experiences specific to this period, including homelessness (“Hoovervilles”), racism, and the development of jazz as a form of African American cultural expression. The text has limited academic vocabulary demands.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students analyze characters’ reactions and the author’s figurative language to deepen their understanding of fictional characters. As they read, students build an understanding of how characters transform over the course of a text. Students also apply knowledge from informational texts to understand the historical context of this literary work, integrating multiple sources into their analytical writing.

Bud, Not Buddy introduces students to the Great Depression and the module-long focus on resilience during times of hardship. The novel offers a compelling opportunity for students to think rigorously and philosophically about the process of growing up. Paired with a series of knowledge-building informational texts, the novel provides an excellent opportunity for students to build cultural knowledge of the Great Depression and to understand how an individual’s experiences and challenges differed because of their particular identity.

Title and Author Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse

Description of Text This Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse captures the heart-wrenching, coming-of-age experiences of Billie Jo, a teenager living in the Dust Bowl era of Oklahoma. Billie Jo’s story offers readers a different perspective on life during the Great Depression; dust storms and tragedy threaten her family’s survival, and Billie Jo questions whether this is the life she is meant to live.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

N/A (poetry)

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text’s meaning and purpose fall within the appropriate complexity bands for this grade level but some uses of symbolism may need further exploration.

Structure: The novel-in-verse format may be less familiar to students, but the chronological structure and rich descriptions help support comprehension.

Language: The language is vivid and accessible for Grade 6 readers.

Knowledge Demands: The contextual knowledge needed to access this text may challenge readers who are unfamiliar with the experience of those who lived during the Dust Bowl. The novel addresses experiences unique to this time, including weather phenomena, farming, and survival. The text has limited academic vocabulary demands.

Students continue to apply historical knowledge to a literary text as they read this novel-inverse. Students consider the relationship between character and setting and further their analysis of character through work with figurative language, particularly symbolism. Students also consider how formal choices in Hesse’s poetry reveal characters’ reactions, thoughts, and feelings. While the narrative is straightforward, students may need additional scaffolding to access the richness of Hesse’s poetry.

This novel provides students with unique insights about nature’s role in the Great Depression and how tragedy transforms individuals and families. The significant and masterful use of imagery, symbolism, and metaphor in this novel-in-verse provides students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned about character and what they know about the Great Depression to interpret and make inferences from a complex text.

Grade 6 Module 2: A Hero’s

Journey

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G6 Module 2 140

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and

Author

Ramayana: Divine Loophole, Sanjay Patel

Description of Text In Ramayana: Divine Loophole, Sanjay Patel retells the epic Hindu story of Rama through prose and vivid illustrations. The bright images bring the story to life as readers follow Rama’s quest to overcome his flaw and rid the world of a powerful demon. Along the way, Rama encounters traditional character archetypes and follows the stages of a hero’s journey.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

N/A

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text’s purpose is clear and easily tracked throughout Rama’s journey to overcome the powerful demon and fulfill his quest.

Structure: The chronological format and three-act structure of the text make the story easy to follow.

Language: The text includes names, locations, and terms from the original Sanskrit (e.g., vanaras, rakshasas) that may challenge student comprehension. Some, but not all, of the terms are defined parenthetically or in context.

Knowledge Demands: The character glossary and map at the end of the story help build much of the cultural knowledge needed to understand the story. Because the domain-specific language originates in Sanskrit, students must rely on context and illustrations to decode word meanings.

Students establish the context for the story and build knowledge of the hero and mentor archetypes. Students also work to understand the structure and stages of the hero’s journey and analyze how the stages work to develop the story’s themes. Students analyze how the hero develops as a result of his journey. Text features, including a map and a glossary, aid comprehension. After reading both Ramayana and The Odyssey, students compare different translations of Ramayana and analyze how the text’s illustrations support their understanding; they also compare characters in the two stories.

Following Rama’s journey allows students the opportunity to explore a text genre while engaging with this complex retelling. Their work with Ramayana provides students a basis from which to analyze subsequent module texts. Students ultimately use their knowledge of Ramayana to consider how its present-day implications.

Title and Author The Odyssey, Gillian Cross

Description of Text Cross’s retelling of The Odyssey, illustrated by Neil Packer, is presented alongside captivating illustrations by Neil Packer, enlivening the most exciting aspects of Odysseus’s heroic journey.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

740L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: This timeless story offers several thematic concepts, such as perseverance and hubris, which work together to expose the heart of the hero’s journey.

Structure: Cross retells Homer’s epic poem in prose. She stays true to the cyclical structure of the hero’s journey, but she focuses on more than one hero. Cross interweaves three separate narratives into one story and expands the myth to focus not only on Odysseus’s journey but also on Penelope and Telemachus’s triumph over hardship.

Language: Cross includes some of the original language made famous by Homer, including descriptive phrases such as “wine-dark sea” and “rosyfingered dawn.” She includes words such as wily to describe Odysseus, just as Homer did, to help cement a certain image for the epic hero.

Knowledge Demands: Students benefit from knowing the myths and deities of Greek mythology and gaining an understanding of the pervasiveness and purpose of archetypes.

Students deepen their examination of the purpose and phases of the hero’s journey, which is harrowing and replete with struggle and ultimately transformative. Unlike Ramayana, Homer’s myth unfolds cyclically, requiring students to work to organize the chronology of events. Students also work with word choice; plot progression; and concepts of arete, failure, and struggle within Homer’s myth, thus embedding an understanding of these sophisticated concepts within their knowledge of myth before writing narratives of their own. Finally, students compare the central characters from both classic tales and different translations of The Odyssey, analyzing how the text’s illustrations support their understanding.

Following Odysseus’s journey in an illustrated version of this classic myth allows students to access the archetypes and themes of classical mythology. Students apply what they have learned about the hero’s journey and its archetypes from reading Ramayana to their reading of The Odyssey before comparing the two texts and ultimately considering how the genre of the monomyth persists into the present day.

Grade 6 Module 3:

Narrating the Unknown

Text Complexity

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G6 Module 3 143

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Blood on the River, Elisa Carbone

Description of Text This engaging novel tracks a young, indentured servant’s journey to the New World as the page of Captain John Smith. The story includes information about the period, especially the hardships faced by settlers in the Jamestown colony. The novel’s emphasis on multiple perspectives, including those of Powhatan tribe members, English gentlemen, and John Smith and other commoners who emerge as leaders, begets a complex story of colonial history.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 820L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story has many perspectives about Jamestown, but they are presented through the accessible lens of the eleven-year-old protagonist. Ideas about class conflict, relationships between natives and colonists, and clashing leadership styles are not always directly stated.

Structure: The novel is broken into many small chapters. Epigraphs from seventeenth-century primary sources appear at the start of each chapter. The language of the epigraphs and their connection to the chapters may be challenging for students.

Language: The narrative and epigraphs include some archaic words.

Knowledge Demands: The novel has references to historical events and figures connected with the Jamestown colony.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students examine the actions, speech, thoughts, and most importantly, interactions of the characters to build a deeper understanding of the colonists and the conflicts that divide them. Students focus particularly on social and environmental challenges to build knowledge about Jamestown and the people who lived there. Students also consider the multiple perspectives presented in the novel, though students may need additional support to discern and infer the larger context of these perspectives and the conflicts that arise from them. This work with multiple perspectives prepares students to take their own perspective as they write argumentative paragraphs in response to the novel.

Students apply what they know about resilience and journey narratives from Modules 1 and 2 to this work of historical fiction. Beginning the module with this engaging, knowledgerich work of fiction sets the stage for students’ work with the more challenging nonfiction anthropological text, Written in Bone.

Title and Author Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland, Sally M. Walker

Description of Text Written in Bone details ways artifacts reveal compelling stories of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century life in the Jamestown and Maryland colonies. The author’s detective-like curiosity combines with descriptions of forensic methods.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

1140L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The detailed discussions of forensics, anthropology, archaeology, anatomy, and technology are dense but are aided by precise definitions of difficult concepts.

Structure: Diagrams and photographs provide essential information and understanding about the excavation of artifacts.

Language: The specialized scholarly language may be unfamiliar to students.

Knowledge Demands: The references to historical cultures and scientific investigations may extend well beyond students’ cultural experiences. The scientific vocabulary is demanding but definitions are provided.

Students summarize and paraphrase the central ideas of this complex informational text, applying their understanding to what they know about Jamestown. This text is difficult for Grade 6 students, so all reading of Written in Bone is completed in class in pairs or groups. Students deeply analyze selected sections of the book. When they complete their reading, students compare the presentation of information in the two core texts.

Written in Bone introduces students to forensic anthropology and shows students how excavation can provide answers—and raise new questions—about American history. The text provides students an opportunity to build cultural knowledge of the early colonies and to understand the various hardships of colonists’ lives.

Grade 6

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G6 Module 4 146

Module 4: Courage in Crisis Text Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance, Jennifer Armstrong

Description of Text Winner of the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award® for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, this extraordinary nonfiction text tells the captivating story of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and how he led his entire crew to survive in the hostile Antarctic climate after their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by glacial ice.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1090L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the story is straightforward, it is dense and complex. Students will need to make connections across chapters and text structures. The text has sections in which the figurative language may need explanation and students will need to make inferences.

Structure: Sophisticated graphics (maps, blueprints, and photographs) are essential to understanding the text; while events proceed chronologically, informational sections interrupt the narrative voice periodically.

Language: Unfamiliar vocabulary, as well as complex and varied sentence structures, may be challenging for students.

Knowledge Demands: Knowledge about Antarctica, polar exploration, and popular or well-known explorers, while helpful, is not essential, as the author explains much of the knowledge needed in the first several chapters.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

While this text is a work of nonfiction, the historical events are presented as a narrative, allowing students to apply what they have learned about analyzing both literary and informational texts in previous modules to their analysis of this text. Students consider how a combination of narration, historical detail, and rich text features (such as photographs and maps) work together to build their understanding of Shackleton and his voyage. The complex characters and themes depicted in Armstrong’s text capture students’ imaginations and help them sharpen their analytical skills as they define what it takes to be a leader.

As a culmination of the year, students compare two texts that are unified thematically but differ greatly in context and setting. Beginning their work in Module 4 with the story of Shackleton establishes themes of heroic action in extreme circumstances, giving students a basis from which to analyze the same themes in a very different context in I Am Malala.

Title and Authors I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World, Malala Yousafzai and Patricia McCormick

Description of Text This powerful memoir recounts a Pakistani girl’s defiance of injustice and her pursuit of education despite efforts to intimidate and silence her. When the Taliban comes into power in her community, Malala speaks out against the laws that limit girls’ access to education. This act of bravery almost costs her life. Malala’s autobiography written with Patricia McCormick answers the question her Taliban assassin put to a group of terrorized school children before shooting his victim: Who is Malala? Malala’s story reveals both an ordinary girl, one who fights with her brothers and loves to win contests, as well as an extraordinary young woman who does not flinch in the face of fear. Her courageous demand for universal access to education is a powerful one that crosses cultures and ages.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

830L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the story is straightforward, it covers several complicated events that create a complex plot.

Structure: The story’s prologue describes Malala, now in England, recalling the events of the day she was shot and the moment that changed her life forever. The book is then structured into five parts that chronologically capture Malala’s story, eventually returning to her being shot, and closing with Malala’s new role as an international activist for girls’ education. Photographs, a timeline of important events, and a glossary provide essential information about what life was like for Malala in Pakistan.

Language: Specific Pashto and Urdu words are used throughout the text, and a glossary is provided to help students process this unfamiliar vocabulary. This is the young readers’ edition, and so the language is targeted toward preteen and teenage readers. Because it is written in an authentic voice, the narration may jump in sections.

Knowledge Demands: The references to historical and political events may extend well beyond students’ knowledge, but a detailed timeline of the events is provided. The young readers’ edition provides more information about Malala’s thoughts and experiences and focuses less on the violence of the times and her family’s reactions to world events.

Students begin by building knowledge of Malala’s story through reading and analyzing the book’s prologue. Students then analyze the structure of the memoir as well as the setting and the challenges faced by Malala and her community. Some of these challenges, particularly acts of violence depicted in the text, may be difficult and potentially upsetting for young readers. Instruction focuses on select chapters in order to emphasize Malala’s resilience and activism.

The text provides students with an opportunity to build cultural and political knowledge of Pakistan and to understand the impact that limited opportunities for education have on society—on girls in particular. I Am Malala provides an inspiring, contemporary, age-appropriate example of heroism to conclude students’ work in Grade 6.

Grade 7 Module 1:

Identity in the Middle Ages

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G7 Module 1 149

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess, Richard Platt

Description of Text Platt’s Castle Diary is an engaging, firsthand, fictional account of the life of a young page during the Middle Ages.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: 1010L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text’s meaning and purpose fall within the appropriate complexity bands for this grade.

Structure: The daily, chronological diary structure will be familiar to students, as will the clear, first-person narration.

Language: Some of the inverted structures Platt uses to mimic medieval speech (e.g., “Today returned my uncle” or “It is he who”) may cause students to pause but should not hinder their comprehension.

Knowledge Demands: While this work of historical fiction addresses some unfamiliar aspects of medieval life and times, it does so in a supremely accessible manner.

Students begin their work with the concept of identity and use the diary to understand the social dynamics and daily goings-on of the people living in the Middle Ages. Structured questions and academic conversations guide students to gain insights into key ideas in the book. Students also use the text as a straightforward model of narrative writing to build their skill with aspects of creative writing such as character, setting, and plot.

This day-to-day account of medieval life provides an excellent opportunity for knowledge building so that students can gain new knowledge of the Middle Ages. Castle Diary opens the module and introduces students to the Middle Ages through an accessible narrative form. Students employ the knowledge they build from reading Castle Diary in their work throughout the module and in their own medieval narratives.

Title and Author The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, retold by Geraldine McCaughrean

Description of Text Written in modern English, this is a lively retelling of one of the most famous works of English literature. McCaughrean’s retelling adds clarity and concision to many of the more well-known tales while remaining faithful to Chaucer’s vision and insights as well as the entertaining bawdy humor of the time.

Complexity Ratings

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Quantitative: N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Because of Chaucer’s frame story, students will have many different stories, characters, and plots to follow while maintaining focus on the pilgrims on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each tale follows its own structure and genre, employing various literary elements and techniques to varying degrees

Structure: The structure of the narrative may present some challenge for students because of the frame having a set of stories told within another story.

Language: The vocabulary load is high, with descriptive and contentspecific, formal, and archaic words related to the medieval characters and settings.

Knowledge Demands: The historical and cultural knowledge (of the medieval church, pilgrimages, various trades, and so on) may also pose a challenge to students.

The Canterbury Tales provides an excellent opportunity to build students’ cultural knowledge of the Middle Ages and to develop skills analyzing literary elements and narrative techniques. The language and concepts of the text are not easy; students read intentionally selected tales, engaging in whole group reading and taking time to notice and question what is happening. “The Miller’s Tale,” which students read in Lesson 11, includes sexual innuendo and earthy humor.

Rationale for Placement

Students apply their understanding of social hierarchy from Castle Diary to consider Chaucer’s subversion of that hierarchy with his diverse group of pilgrims. Students also engage with Chaucer’s innovations in narrative storytelling, which are culturally significant and support students in writing their own narratives.

Title and Author The Midwife’s Apprentice, Karen Cushman

Description of Text This engaging work of historical fiction tells the story of one girl’s quest for identity within the rigid social order of her time.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative: 1150L

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Engaging young characters and the coming-of-age theme make the meaning and purpose accessible.

Structure: A clear, sequential narrative structure, with chapters organized around specific episodes in the protagonist’s life, supports students’ reading.

Language: Some specific vocabulary related to the medieval practice of midwifery and life in a medieval village may be unfamiliar to students.

Knowledge Demands: The experiences of a medieval midwife will extend beyond students’ personal life experiences, as will references to life in a medieval village, but students will have built up their knowledge of medieval life at this point in the module so these demands should not be too high for students.

Students advance their understanding of the relationship between society and identity and explore figurative language, the author’s techniques, and effective storytelling. Helpfully, Cushman’s chapters constitute complete narratives in and of themselves, allowing students to understand the protagonists’ transformation within portions of the text and across the entire narrative.

As the final narrative in the module, The Midwife’s Apprentice allows students the opportunity to apply what they know about medieval life from Castle Diary and what they have learned about narrative structure from The Canterbury Tales to this accessible text.

Grade 7 Module 2:

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G7 Module 2 153

Americans All Text Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two, Joseph Bruchac

Description of Text Code Talker tells the story of a Navajo man’s experiences as a World War II code talker, part of a group of military intelligence operators who used the Navajo language to transmit secret messages that could not be intercepted, or if they were, could not be decoded.

Complexity ratings Quantitative: 910L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text is accessible and engaging, bringing World War II history to life for students—specifically the role that code talkers played in winning the war for the Allied forces. The central ideas of the importance of culture and identity, as well as the power of patriotism, are presented clearly and developed fully.

Structure: The novel is narrated in the first-person point of view as a story that the protagonist tells his grandchildren. The introductory chapter may challenge students with its many references to Navajo culture and World War II history, but the rest of the novel is presented as a straight chronology of events, following the protagonist’s journey from the reservation, to boarding school, to the US Marines, to the war in the Pacific, and finally home again.

Language: The text includes numerous words specific to the military context of the story.

Knowledge Demands: The book could present a challenge to students unfamiliar with the United States history of American Indian oppression, World War II, and the concepts of cultural assimilation. However, the engaging nature of the first-person narration and the deep reliance on the historical facts and details of events make the story accessible.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Code Talker provides students with a rich base of knowledge about American Indian history and the essential role that code talkers played during World War II. Supplementary informational texts in the module provide deep background understanding to support students’ comprehension. The novel and the work students engage in collaboratively in the corresponding lessons provide students with the opportunity to reflect on forming an identity in times of challenge and how historical events and settings deeply affect individuals.

Rationale for Placement

Students are introduced to the World War II era and start their module-long work developing an understanding of historical context and applying that knowledge to historical fiction. Through the accessible text Code Talker, students are also introduced to module-long concepts of identity and community, concepts that bridge their work from Module 1.

Title and Authors Farwell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

Description of Text Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of a Japanese American’s lifelong struggle to understand and accept herself, reconcile her identity as Japanese and as an American, and maintain family connections after a childhood in captivity in Manzanar, a World War II internment camp. The novel offers the story of one individual while illuminating the experience of a family and a people during a challenging episode of American history.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative:

1040L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: As an adult, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalled her experiences living in the Manzanar internment camp. This is her powerful first-person account. Students will be able to connect with the story as it is told through the eyes of a child. The central ideas of racism, forming an identity, feeling torn between two worlds, struggling to understand one’s own family, and coming-of-age will resonate with a middle-school audience. On the other hand, because this is a true story, the central ideas and themes are complex and not as neatly resolved as they may have been in a fictional work.

Structure: The memoir is a series of Wakatsuki Houston’s childhood recollections. Events do not always proceed chronologically and are filtered through the lens of Jeanne’s adult understanding. Because students read excerpts from the novel, readers working below grade level may need support to keep the chronology of events clear.

Language: A few Japanese words are used but are clearly defined, either explicitly or in context.

Knowledge Demands: The memoir could present a challenge for students unfamiliar with the World War II relocation camps for Japanese Americans. The sequence of texts in the module will ensure that students, through reading Code Talker, have background knowledge of the Pacific front of World War II and the war’s impact on Japanese Americans.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students continue to develop their understanding of the impact wartime had on individuals through examination of the facts, key details, and personal narrative that Wakatsuki Houston shares in this memoir. Students also consider Wakatsuki Houston’s informative writing techniques, applying their understanding of her rhetorical awareness to their own informative writing. This memoir describes the challenging experiences Wakatsuki Houston’s family faced during internment, including food scarcity. Depending on students’ personal contexts, care should be taken in addressing this material.

Students apply the skills they developed reading Code Talker and their knowledge of the World War II era to this more challenging but still accessible text. Farewell to Manzanar also supports students’ development of their End-of-Module Task, an informative essay.

MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

Grade 7 Module 3: Language and Power

Text Complexity

GREAT

G7 Module 3 156

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module text:

Title and Author Animal Farm, George Orwell

Description of Text Few works of twentieth-century literature have had the international impact of Orwell’s Animal Farm. An immediate bestseller when it was published in 1945, Animal Farm has remained in print ever since. The novel’s deceptively simple style and animal characters recall classic children’s books or fables, but all comparisons end there. Orwell’s tale is intended neither to amuse nor to soften the harsh realities of tyranny. Having witnessed firsthand the atrocities perpetrated by Stalin under the guise of socialism, Orwell penned a biting indictment of societies that allow tyrannical leaders to lie, cheat, and oppress the trusting, obedient masses. While written as an allegory of Stalin and the rise of the Soviet Union, the book remains relevant today and is a warning for all times.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1170L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the story is straightforward and grade-level appropriate, the themes and layers of meaning on an allegorical and symbolic level will pose a challenge to uncritical readers.

Structure: The structure is straightforward and grade-level appropriate. The narrative voice is consistently objective, but students may miss Orwell’s occasional use of irony in describing the animals’ general reactions to the development on the farm. The novel’s events unfold chronologically.

Language: The novel uses a simple style. While students will encounter unfamiliar vocabulary, in general, that vocabulary and the sentence structures are only moderately complex for middle-school students.

Knowledge Demands: The historical context of the novel’s publication could present a challenge for students who seek to read the book on an allegorical level but are unfamiliar with Stalin’s rise to power in the former Soviet Union.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Through their work with Animal Farm, students analyze the logic and validity of arguments, consider the perspectives of differing sources, and learn to recognize language’s potential for both inspiration and manipulation. Through their work with the novel and the module’s supplementary texts, students realize the persuasive and potentially dangerous power of language—and understand the need to think critically and to recognize when others attempt to control them through faulty reasoning and manipulative use of persuasion.

A major work of cultural importance that is accessible for Grade 7 students, Animal Farm warrants a module-long focus as students work to develop their own argumentative writing and consider the power of language.

Grade 7 Module 4:

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G7 Module 4 159

Fever Text Complexity

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative text-complexity criteria outlined in both Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated supplement (http://witeng.link/0093).

This Appendix provides text-complexity details for each core text in order of appearance in the module. The analysis supports teachers and administrators in understanding the texts’ richness and complexity, and the module’s knowledge building and goals. Alongside the Family Tip Sheets, this information can also support conversations with families about texts.

Core module texts:

Title and Author Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

Description of Text In the heat of the summer of 1793 in Philadelphia, Mattie Cook is concerned mostly with the buzzing mosquitoes, trying to avoid her chores and escape to the market, and making time to daydream of the future. Little does she know that a yellow fever epidemic has already begun. As the disease spreads, and panic with it, Mattie Cook, a teenage girl whose family operates a coffeehouse close to the river where the epidemic is centered, finds that she and her family will never be the same.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 580L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The text chronicles one character’s journey as a means to understand the impact of the epidemic. Central ideas and themes include human responses to crises; the will to survive; a society divided by race, class, and gender; personal growth in adversity; and the effect limited scientific knowledge had on the severity of the epidemic.

Structure: The structure is straightforward and chronological, following the progression of the epidemic. The character Mattie provides first-person narration. Each chapter begins with a primary-source epigraph that sets the central idea or theme for the chapter.

Language: Anderson uses mostly literal language and an accessible, conversational style. The novel has some figurative language and at least one instance of symbolism. The syntax may be unfamiliar because of arcane language, colloquialisms, and historical references.

Knowledge Demands: The story explores themes with varying levels of complexity. The themes involving personal growth are likely familiar to students by Module 4; they will find parallels between the protagonist in this novel and those in other coming-of-age novels read over the year. Similarly, students have seen the societal divisions by race, class, and gender revealed in different ways in novels such as The Midwife’s Apprentice and Code Talker as well as the memoir Farewell to Manzanar. Other themes, such as the incapacity of the new government to adequately respond, may be less familiar. Allusions to historic events and individuals are contextualized and do not interfere with comprehension. Knowledge of the Revolutionary War and early American government and geography will facilitate comprehension.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students analyze aspects of setting, character, and plot as they work to understand the social and historical context that underpins Fever 1793. When the book is read alongside An American Plague, students practice applying historical knowledge to this literary account of a historical period.

Building on work from previous modules applying historical knowledge to historical fiction, Fever 1793 provides students with an opportunity to apply their skills from throughout Grade 7 to a highly accessible text. The Lexile level is relatively low for this grade level, allowing students to engage more independently as readers and, ultimately, researchers.

Title and Author An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, Jim Murphy

Description of Text Published in 2003 and awarded the Newbery Honor in 2004, An American Plague details the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, the new capital of the new nation. Murphy skillfully brings the story of the epidemic to life, weaving in primary sources and using narrative techniques to make this work of historical nonfiction an edge-of-your-seat thriller. The political, social, historical, and geographical contexts of the crisis are described so that readers understand how an outbreak of disease became a public-health disaster.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1130L Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: Murphy’s purpose is straightforward: to examine the context, causes, events, and effects of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. Murphy clearly intends to make history come to life for students as it would in any compelling account, so he employs narrative techniques and elements to tell the story of the crisis. Murphy connects the crisis to events contemporary to the book’s publication, prior to 2020, but students do not read those chapters as part of their work in Module 4.

Structure: While the structure is generally chronological, Murphy includes so much detail about the broader political issues, societal divisions, and key historical figures that students may at times lose track of the sequence of the disaster. Throughout, excerpts and images from primary-source documents, maps, and illustrations reveal key individuals and events and provide details about the context of the crisis. As in the novel Fever 1793, this work employs primary-source epigraphs to open each chapter and to focus on a particular aspect of the epidemic.

Language: Murphy uses engaging, storylike elements and language as well as sensory and figurative description. He also employs ample complex, and at times archaic, content-specific and academic language to convey the history of the epidemic.

Knowledge Demands: A lack of historical knowledge of the founding of the United States and the Revolutionary and Colonial periods could present a challenge for middle-school readers; readers who persevere will build knowledge of the period. The engaging presentation is likely to motivate readers and encourage further study and research.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students read An American Plague in tandem with Fever 1793 They synthesize understanding of both Murphy’s text and Anderson’s novel as they consider how historical research is used in each book. Students use this understanding of historical research to conduct their own research projects.

Building on work from previous modules applying historical knowledge to historical fiction, An American Plague provides students with an opportunity to apply knowledge about yellow fever to the literary narrative Fever 1793. While the Lexile level is relatively high compared to Anderson’s novel, the two texts complement one another as students build their understanding of this compelling historical period.

Grade 8 Module 1:

The Poetics and Power of Storytelling

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G8 Module 1 163

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so that students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative criteria outlined in both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483)and the updated CCSS Appendix A guidance on text complexity (http://witeng.link/0093).

Core Module Text

Title and Author The Crossover, Kwame Alexander

Description of Text This Newbery Award-winning novel in verse tells the story of Josh Bell, a middle school boy who is also a skilled poet, star basketball player, son of a retired NBA player, and twin to his brother, JB. The novel chronicles a challenging and transformative time in Josh’s life as he struggles to understand the ways his world is changing—his father grows ill, his brother gets a girlfriend and stops spending time with him, he is suspended from the basketball team. Throughout all these challenges, Josh turns to language to help him make meaning of these experiences.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: While the narrative is straightforward, it provides a complex account of a young boy’s experience of familial relationships, conflict, and loss.

Structure: This novel in verse is built as a single narrative divided into discrete poems that are further sectioned into four quarters, like those of a basketball game. The novel can be studied at both a macro and micro level, analyzing individual poems or the full narrative.

Language: The language is straightforward, with some slang and vocabulary specific to basketball. More challenging words are often defined in the text. Ample descriptive, figurative, and sensory language creates a rich depiction of Josh Bell’s experience.

Knowledge Demands: Understanding some situations and references could be challenging for students unfamiliar with basketball or with rap, hip-hop, and jazz.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

This novel provides an accessible entry for students’ exploration of how stories help humans make sense of themselves and the world around them. Students will likely find the work engaging, appropriate, and easy to comprehend, and will likely enjoy using the text as a model for their own work as storytellers.

750L

Rationale for Placement

Module 1 launches students’ exploration of the power of storytelling as a way of making sense of personal experiences, the complex emotional and social lives of others, and the world. This work serves as a catalyst to ignite Grade 8 students’ deeper understanding of the power of language and narrative as they embark on a year of tackling big questions around abstract concepts such as sense of self, empathy, estrangement, love, agency, and personal and social advocacy. Winner of the John Newbery Medal, this novel is a strong, accessible, and engaging work to open the year.

Grade 8 Module 2:

The Great War Text Complexity

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Appendix A: Text Complexity

Core Module Text

Title and Author All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque

Description of Text Translated from German, All Quiet on the Western Front is a rich and evocative journey into the madness and horrors of World War I. Beautifully written, even if horrific, the novel details, through its narrator, Paul, the experience of fighting on the front line. Paul reflects upon others’ actions and responses to the war and describes daily life on the front as an absurd combination of the mundane and brutal. Halfway through the novel, Paul takes a leave, and his record of his own personal thoughts and experiences increase as he wrestles firsthand with the profound estrangement he feels and his inability to convey the true cost of the war to those around him.

Complexity Ratings

Quantitative:

830L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The meaning and purpose in this text is directly stated at the outset of the novel. While the novel centers on a specific character, time, and place, the text also feels ephemeral and timeless—as if the suffering of war continues regardless of when, where, and who is doing the fighting.

Structure: The author conforms to the conventions of a novel set in first person. At the outset of the text there are many flashbacks, which could be a bit disorienting, but the only major structural shift occurs on the last page.

Language: The author uses detailed, vivid, poetic descriptions and figurative language to convey the experiences of being on the front. This translation includes words common in British English, a lot of military vocabulary, and some idioms that may be unfamiliar. The novel is told in the present tense. Because of the many references to places, objects, events, and ideas unfamiliar or archaic or foreign, the text demands a lot from a reader, even as the storyline itself is not complicated.

Knowledge Demands: References to military equipment and groups, German culture, historical events, and medical terminology will likely be unfamiliar to students and, thus, may pose challenges to comprehension not conveyed by the quantitative complexity level.

Text-ReaderTask Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Remarque illuminates the physical and psychological effects of war; students will have a real sense of war’s devastating impact on Paul and his peers. While historical fiction offers a pathway for students to explore difficult subjects, some situations may be disturbing, particularly for students who may have lost loved ones to war. The novel’s realistic, poignant look at wartime requires a sensitive approach by the teacher. In addition, lessons focus on chapters which contribute to students’ exploration of themes of camaraderie and resilience.

All Quiet on the Western Front is an enduring classic war novel that shines a light on the horrors of war—rather than celebrating the glories of war. Written in the first person, the novel feels like an eyewitness account of the trauma of battle that helps students imagine the experiences of individual soldiers in war. Students’ work with All Quiet on the Western Front is an important part of the Grade 8 set of module topics that represents a culmination of students’ work begun in the early elementary grades exploring the effect on humans of conflicts that have shaped world history.

Grade 8 Module 3:

What Is Love?

Text Complexity

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Appendix A: Text Complexity

Core Module Texts:

Title and Author A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

Description of Text Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers a compelling and humorous way for students to think about love. Magic and confusion abound in the play as the fairies interfere with the humans’ activities. In addition to mirth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers opportunities for deep rereading and commenting on the roles of agency and choice, and of gender and class.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: N/A

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: In this play, love transforms characters in unexpected ways. The characters introduce multiple, conflicting perspectives on love. One of Shakespeare’s most popular works, this play engages and entertains the reader or viewer, while providing ample food for thought.

Structure: The five-act structure of a play may need to be explained to students, particularly if this is their first encounter with the genre. The structure of the narrative is often straightforward, but the many characters, fantastical situations, and play-within-a-play structure may pose challenges.

Language: Figurative language, personification, metaphors, and wordplay contribute to the density and complexity of this Shakespearean comedy. Students will need to reference the notes and use strategies for reading the text to unpack the language. The text contains archaic word usage and words students may find familiar but that have different modern-day meanings. Additional challenges include altered sentence structures that highlight rhythm and rhyme.

Knowledge Demands: The play poses historical and cultural knowledge demands. The play references Greek tragedies and myths, which are addressed in the explanatory notes. The roles of the characters and references to occupations and positions, as well as archaic English expressions, present an additional challenge.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Because most students will need support in comprehending Shakespearean language, teachers can define or put into context specific words or phrases as appropriate to their school communities. As with all Shakespeare’s works, the play gives students an opportunity to explore the English language and discover the origin of well-known phrases and idioms, which, in this case, include fancy free and the course of true love never did run smooth

Teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers a bridge from students’ middle school study to their high school study and is a perfect entry point for students into the Shakespeare canon. The play provides an opportunity for students to deepen their understandings of narrative and dramatic structures. In addition, the play offers students the chance in this module to examine a question that has vexed humans for centuries: What is love?

Grade 8 Module 4: Teens as

Change Agents

Text Complexity

GREAT MINDS® WIT & WISDOM

G8 Module 4 172

Appendix A: Text Complexity

Great Minds® carefully selects content-rich, complex module texts. Module texts, especially the core texts, must be appropriately challenging so students develop their literacy skills and progress toward meeting Anchor Standard for Reading 10 by year’s end. Great Minds evaluates each core module text using quantitative and qualitative criteria outlined in both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (http://witeng.link/0483) and the updated CCSS Appendix A guidance on text complexity (http://witeng.link/0093).

Core module texts:

Title and Author Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, Phillip Hoose

Description of Text A Newbery Honor Book, this compelling account tells the story of Claudette Colvin, who was arrested as a teenager for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The incident happened nine months before Rosa Parks made her well-known stand. This text offers a complex, nuanced picture of injustice during the civil rights movement and affords a compelling way for students to think rigorously about what it means to take a stand for justice.

Complexity Ratings Quantitative: 1170L

Qualitative:

Meaning/Purpose: The story of Colvin is straightforward, and the meaning of the text is explicitly connected to the struggle for justice in the civil rights movement and Colvin’s role in the Montgomery bus boycott.

Structure: Hoose structures his account of Colvin’s story linearly. The text is divided between narration and direct transcripts of interviews with Colvin. Text features, such as photos and text boxes, provide additional background information.

Language: The language is grade appropriate and accessible, except for specific legal language and terms. The few instances of sensitive language are addressed in context within the text and as the language arises in the lessons.

Knowledge Demands: The book is engaging and accessible. The text offers frequent asides and rich text features that are designed to build content knowledge of key issues of the time. Even so, some additional background knowledge may be needed regarding the civil rights movement and its major figures.

Text-Reader-Task Considerations

Rationale for Placement

Students will likely be engaged and motivated to read this account of one young person who took action to promote social change. The opportunity to engage in research on a teenage change agent offers students an application for their growing knowledge; the module’s work supports students in building and executing specific research skills. Students who have experienced injustice firsthand may find resonance with this text and the module’s topic; teachers will want to consider their school context and students’ backgrounds.

Grade 8 students are of an appropriate age to consider the complexities and challenges of social change. The book and module topic also provide an excellent opportunity for students to build historical knowledge of the US civil rights movement. This work continues students’ ongoing work, which started in the early grades of Wit & Wisdom®, to explore human rights and resilience and the development of personal agency in the face of injustice. Hoose’s historical account of Colvin is an inspirational story of individual action that resulted in meaningful, lasting social change.