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Something Beautiful is a book that I read to second and fourth graders when I taught those grades. It was also in our classroom library. Although I currently teach 5th grade science, I appreciate the lesson to learn in the book. I teach at an inner city school and this is a great story for students to see that they can find beauty, even when it seems that it is nowhere to be found.

The readability graph that I chose to conduct on this book was Fry Readability Graph Assessment. The Average # of sentences per 100 words is 8.7. The Average # of syllables per 100 words is 141. The grade level was right at third grade. Each year I have students that are on a wide range of reading levels. Since this is more of a character education book, I am not extremely alarmed. However, I believe that this is a great tool for future purposes.

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I am currently a 6th grade ELA teacher, and I read this book with my students during the third quarter.  I loved this book because I love reading about science and I enjoyed sharing my science knowledge to help students understand the true state of our oceans.  After completing the reading, many of the students said they enjoyed the book because they liked the activities that I included in the unit.  The students used this informational text to create a consumer guide discussion fish depletion.
I chose to conduct the Lexile assessment on this book and found that the reading lexile level was 1160.  Based on the information in the chart (pg. 108), the book's  actual lexile band is 11th, but when looking at the stretch lexile band is slightly above 8th grade level.
This is a book that I would definitely read with my students because some of the vocabulary is more difficult than any of the other novels we read this year.  I think that students gravitated to this book because I was excited about the topic, and it was evident in my lessons and the extension activities and reading articles that we completed in class.  Students were willing to dig into the vocabulary so that we could have round table discussion about what could happen in  the future with our oceans.

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Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich and Listening to Crickets: A Story about Rachel Carson by Candice F Ransom

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Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich and Listening to Crickets: A Story about Rachel Carson by Candice F Ransom

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I chose two books to compare for a couple of reasons.  First, I have limited experience selecting or reviewing text for elementary level science classes, which is a skill on which I need to focus (and what lead me to take ECI 541), so I thought it would be useful to look at two books that were listed for different grade levels to  see if I found comparable readability scores.  I am also organizing a week long summer camp in August for a group of Latinx families as part of a local church's tutoring program.  I am designing the activities to engage all members of the families, and there will be a wide range of ages and English proficiencies, so I would like to have different leveled books available as part of the resources.  Rachel Carson is the author of the book Silent Spring, which brought awareness to the public of the detrimental effects pesticides on the environment  in the 60s.  Her work as a scientist is relevant to the theme for the science camp, and since Vacca and Vacca recommended picture books as an effective practice for aiding comprehension, I want to include them as part of the resources at the camp in August.  I found Rachel:The Story of Rachel Carson on Cooperative Children's Book Center, which was listed in Vacca and Vacca for finding multicultural books, and then discovered Listening to Crickets in the NCSU libraries.   I had initially thought prior to reviewing the books that I would be using one for younger grades and the second for older grades, but based on my reviews, I have to rethink my strategy.

I used the Fry Readability formula and Graph to evaluate both books.  I chose 3 100-word passages from separate chapters of each book and followed the recommendations in the expanded directions for determining number of sentences and syllables for each passage.  The average number of sentences and syllables per 100 words was 130 and 7.9, respectively, for Rachel: The Story of Rachel.  According to the Fry Graph this would fall within the 5th grade range.  The average number of sentences and syllables per 100 words was 136 and 7.2, respectively, for Listening for Crickets: A story about Rachel Carson.  According to the Fry Graph this would be the upper limit for 6th and lower limit for 7th grade.
However, as I read the passages in the two books, I noticed a difference in the vocabulary used, as well as the figurative language, which would not be reflected in just counting syllables and sentence numbers.  Rachel: The story of Rachel, which was listed as a lower readability used words such as elongated and paramecium, as well as figurative phrases such as " her thoughts turning like waves."  I looked up the Lexile scores for each book and Listening to Crickets is rated at 930L (grade band 6 to 8), which is consistent with my Fry score, however the Rachel:The Story of Rachel Carson has a Lexile level of 1010, which is the upper level of grade band 6 to 8, and in the range of grade band 9 to 10, much higher than the Fry readability score of 5th grade.  Based on my personal reading of the text, the Lexile score is a more accurate representation of the appropriate grade level to target with each book.

Interestingly, the Cooperative Children's Book Center listed Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson as appropriate for ages 5 to 9, which a review by Robach, Brown and Britton from 2003 in Publishers Weekly also listed as the target age.  However, even though the book has lovely watercolor illustrations, its vocabulary and figurative language doesn't seem appropriate for a younger audience.  I prefer the book Listening for Crickets because it illustrates the nature of science, showing Rachel's curiosity and exploration, as well as struggles she had to identify as a scientist and her family's financial struggles to help her realize her academic goals.  The early chapters better illustrate her life as a child and adolescent in a way that is relatable to a student of that age.

So I will likely be using the Listening to Crickets this August for my middle school and older participants and will continue to search for other texts related to the science camp activities, which are more appropriate for younger grade levels

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Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne W. Houston and James D. Houston

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Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne W. Houston and James D. Houston

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I read this book in world history in my sophomore year in high school. This is one of those books that have a large impact on you stick with you throughout time. One thing that I think is overlooked in history classes (especially when looking back in US history) are dark phases in humanity. The US likes to pretend a lot of the time that we were perfect from day 1. This book highlights one of the dark phases of US history when the US government implemented Japanese internment camps on US soil. This book is a first hand account of a Japanese-American family who lived during WWII and were stripped of everything they owned and placed into one of those camps.
I have only read it once, but ever since I decided I wanted to become a history teacher, I wanted to incorporate this book into my curriculum. I remember it being an easy read with the only difficulties being the foreign Japanese words that were incorporated into the text. It is also relatively short (188 pages).
I conducted the Fry assessment on FTM. My average number of syllables were 142.7 and the average number of sentences were 5.5. According to the Fry graph on page 109 in the textbook, FTM falls under the 8th grade reading level. This does not surprise me in the slightest. I remember thinking that this was an easy read when I was in the 10th grade and these results explain why. Hopefully my students will have the same or similar experience or enjoyment of the book as I did but I know that everyone has their difficulties (especially after reading this unit). This might be a good book to incorporate into my curriculum because of its low reading level... thoughts to keep in mind for the future.

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Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare (Original text vs. No Fear Shakespeare)

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Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare (Original text vs. No Fear Shakespeare)

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I taught Romeo and Juliet earlier in the year with my English I students. We started off reading the entire play with the original script for our drama unit. According to the FRY readability test, the original works of Shakespeare is at about a 6th grade reading level based on the average number of syllables and sentences per 100 words.

I think, interestingly, this doesn't take into account the language of middle English, the student's experience of 1600s England and what Shakespeare used as far as thematic and character ties into the language (like the use of motifs and puns that would have been commonalities of the time).
About half way through the script, it was clear there was a direct language and vocabulary barrier, and we switched to No Fear Shakespeare version that our school has as texts printed out. This version, using the same scene (Act II, Scene ii- Balcony scene) with the FRY test is actually at a higher (8th) grade reading level. This may be in part that the translated phrases make for longer sentences?

I chose Shakespeare for this test mainly because I was interested in seeing firsthand how it is comparable to what I observe in the classroom. Many of my students cannot put together the vocabulary to make sense and understanding of the text, but as a whole it is theoretically easier to comprehend. When I had them start to perform out loud the parts and roles, using the modern translation made everyone in the classroom more comfortable with the plot of the story. This allowed all of my students, even those comfortable with reading Shakespeare in middle English, to be on a level playing field to act out the scenes.

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Ten True Tales: Heroes of Hurricane Katrina

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Ten True Tales: Heroes of Hurricane Katrina

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This year has been the first year of a new literacy curriculum for our fourth and fifth grade teachers: Expeditionary Learning. As an instructional support team member my focus is primarily AIG students at our school. Overall, our school has always had high proficiency but not always strong growth. We are unsure how much of the cause of this lies in the data and structure of testing itself and how much of it is a reflection of a lack of rigor in our instruction. Nonetheless, I have spent time this year trying to work with grade levels to increase the rigor of our current work. This book also caught my eye because the school already has 30 copies of the book, the lexile level according to the Lexile Framework for Reading is 1080 and the content directly aligns with fifth grade module 4: Natural Disasters. Furthermore, the content at the plot of the story from the hurricane could help reinforce weather concepts from fifth grade earth science standards.

I was surprised that the textbook suggested that students would be unfamiliar with the cloze assessment because it is part of the mClass assessment program from third grade on up. When administering this test, students seemed comfortable and familiar with the structure.

The results indicate an almost perfectly even distribution of the ranges of correct answers in this fifth grade homeroom. Ten students had above 60 percent correct, five students had between 40 and 60 percent correct, and 10 students had below 40 percent correct.

Interpreting these results shows that the book could be read competently by part of the class. I am fortunate to have flexibility in my position. When planning extensions for future fifth grade cohorts, I could group students across the grade level to work with this complex text that is relevant to the fourth module. It can be difficult for the average classroom teacher to prioritize finding and implementing resources for students who need a challenge beyond the core curriculum, especially in the same year that a new curriculum is being implement. Hopefully my findings can support classroom teachers as they work with students who have demonstrated proficiency and need rigorous text and coursework to continue growing.

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I choose this book because i read it in my Honors English class during my Freshman year of high school. This book can be difficult for some because some of the words used are Indian words. However, the definitions of these words can be found on the bottom of the pages or in the glossary at the back of the book. Nectar in a Sieve follow an Indian women as she struggles through her marriage, changing times, and the caste system. This book is important because it shows different cultural aspects of India in a literary work.
I decided to test this book using the  Fry Readability Graph. From the three random sections, I found an average of 130.66 syllables per 100 words and 4.86 sentences per 100 words. This translates to a 7th grade reading level.
I was surprised by the approximate grade level because I assumed that it would have been closer to 8th or 9th grade. This could have something to do with the samples I took.

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I first read this book, which is made up of excerpts from the diary of a woman living in Berlin during the Russian occupation, in a class on interwar Germany. It was assigned in tandem with historical monographs and scholarly articles on Germany during World War II. The class was an undergraduate course but I felt that it was an easy, enjoyable read that earlier grade levels could comprehend. This book had an impact on me because it was the first time I had read about Germany during World War II from the perspective of a German citizen, as well as from the perspective of a woman. While I am not currently teaching, and won’t be for a little while, I would like to use this source or at least sources similar to this due to the unique perspective it provides on world history.

I decided to use the Fry Readability assessment, and I found that this text had between a 10th and 11th grade reading level. I feel that is an accurate assessment of the reading level for this text, depending on the students and their prior knowledge. The only drawback I find when considering using this text or at least excerpts of it, possibly in a high school history course, is that there are discussions of sexual assault from the perspective of the protagonist, but not in my opinion, particularly graphic discussions. I am not sure what the stigma is surrounding this kind of subject or whether it is appropriate for a high school classroom. I do know that when I was in high school (five years ago) we did read books that featured some elements of sexual assault (To Kill A Mockingbird), but I don’t know if that is a reasonable point of comparison for A Woman in Berlin. Any text used in the classroom should be thoroughly considered beforehand by the teacher, as the reading level may not correlate to the actual thematic content of the book.  Nonetheless, I think it is an interesting read from a female perspective that highlights the causes of World War II, the opinions of people alive during this time period, and the impacts of war on civilian populations and soldiers.

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I chose this text because I had it on hand, but also because I read it previously in high school and again in undergrad. I remember finding the text challenging when we read it in 9th grade, but I enjoyed it when I revisited it five years later. I was curious to see if the readability had anything to do with my struggle with it in high school!

I used the Fry Readability Graph to assess this text. The results of this test positioned The Scarlet Letter directly on the line between 11th and 12th grade with an average of three sentences per 100 words and an average of 150 syllables per section. I was not surprised about this result, considering Hawthorne's affinity for very long sentences. This is definitely a more challenging text to read in a classroom because of the sentence length and diction, but I think there are definitely ways to supplement the learning of this text so that students don't have to rely solely on reading for comprehension!

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Fry Readability Test - The Scarlet Letter

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A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School

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A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School

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This is a book that I think would be great to use in its entirety.  While I was student teaching the students read a selection from this book in the ELA class.  Most of the students really enjoyed the selection, and I feel would not only like reading the book, but would benefit from it.  Being a social studies teacher, I often look for ways to link multiple subjects together, and this book would be a great vehicle for that since its already partially used in ELA, and can be used in Social Studies during the Civil Rights unit.
I conducted the Lexile assessment on this book. The reason I chose this assessment is that I wasn't sure if they didn't read the entire book in ELA because it may not be at an 8th grade reading level. I wanted to make sure that it would be appropriate for the students.  I entered the text into the Lexile Analyzer and returned a Lexile Measure of between 1100L and 1200L.  Based on the chart on page 108, this book would fall slightly above 8th grade based on the current Lexile band(showing a 9-10 level) but on level based on the Stretch Lexile Band. I feel it would be a good book to use because of the fact that it falls within the stretch band and would help to develop more advanced reading skills for 8th graders.

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I chose this book for a few reasons. The main reasons being the character perspective and the culture in this book. The Alchemist is a great story that is inspiring and shows a different culture that students can find and appreciate.

I decided to conduct the Fry Readability Test. This book falls between 7th and 8th grade reading level. With an average result of 134 syllables per 100 words and an average result of 5 sentences per 100 words. I used the first 316 words in the beginning of the book to obtain my scores using an online Fry Calculator.

I am not surprised at all by these results because it is a very easy and short read. I recently read this book and to have Middle and High school Social Studies students read it, would be very simple for them that carries a very strong message. My hopes are to teach them about society and understanding a different perspective. This will not be a literately challenging book but for my future students, and being inspired by culturally relevancy this week, I believe it is important to choose books without bias of the ethnicity and cultures of the character and even where the books setting is.

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Modern Chinese Literature: The Mad Man's Diary

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Modern Chinese Literature: The Mad Man's Diary

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I selected the short story Mad Man's Diary by Luxun. I want to teach Chinese as a secondary language as well as social studies and this text could be used for both, although at different levels. This short story acts as an important source for World History when studying Modern China, modernism, and the rise of communism. This short story has been canonized by Taiwan and China as a literature classic because of it's call to arms for modernization and the rejection of traditional Confucian ideals, through the metaphors of madness and cannibalism. It also used a framed narrative where classical Chinese framed the truth, as shown through vernacular Chinese, which is narrated by the Mad Man. After dissecting the text, a major part of the class discussion and written assignments would be arguing if the narrator is mad or not, as there is supporting evidence within the short story, as well as within the larger allegorical application, for both sides.

I used the Fry method of calculating text complexity. It had an average of 6.2 sentences and 135 syllables per 100 words, making it rate as 7th grade literature for this assessment. That seemed very low to me because the work is complex in content, but this may arise because it is a translated work, was written as a diary, and has many sets of repetition as the narrator is mad.

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I am currently using Ocean Meets Sky by the Fan brothers for read alouds in K-2 classrooms.

I conducted the Lexile assessment. I entered in the text into the Lexile Analyzer, which calculated the texts as being between 500-600L. Then, I also used the book search on the Lexile website, which provides more detailed readability information for early primary grade books. Ocean Meets Sky was listed at a 540L, which would equate to 2nd-3rd grade level. The early reading indicators assessed the book as a very high demand for text structure, a high demand for syntax, a moderately high semantic demand, and a high decoding demand for readers. The more detailed indicators are helpful to think about. Since students' listening comprehension exceeds their independent reading levels, this texts' readability is accessible and engaging through a read aloud.

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How I Write by bestselling author Janet Evanovich

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How I Write by bestselling author Janet Evanovich

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One thing I hear repeatedly in the classroom is "there's nothing to write about" or "I'm finally done, why are you making me rewrite it?"

I chose this book because I think it would be beneficial for students to hear these (same) answers from a successful third party, and this book is written in an approachable and easy to follow Q & A format.

I used the Fry Readability Graph. This book has an average of 6 sentences per 100 words and includes an average of 150 syllables. It reads at an approximate 9th grade level which is perfect because my goal is to teach high school English.

I'm excited about these techniques as they will be helpful when deciding which texts are a good match for the curriculum and for my learners. I can also sample my own writing to see if it matches the expected ability of my target audience.

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How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author

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How many people would kill to be a bestselling novelist? Especially one like Janet Evanovich.Writers want to know how a bestselling author thinks, writes, plans, and dreams her books. And they are primed for a book from Janet Evanovich that tells, in a witty Q&A format:- How she comes up with suc...

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The Mouse and the Motorcycle by: Beverly Cleary 

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The Mouse and the Motorcycle by: Beverly Cleary 

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I am currently using this book in a book club. All of my students love the book and are actively engaged in the readings. Some of the students have trouble with the vocabulary. Some of the vocabulary is automobile heavy and without prior knowledge, they need more support.

I chose to complete the Frye Readability Graph for this book. I used the first 100 words in the first three chapters in order to compile my data. Using the Graph is shows this book at a Level 5.1.

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I conducted the Fry Readability Graph Assessment on The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. I chose three different sections with primarily prose and little dialog. The results of each section were very close to each other. The overall average number of sentences per hundred words was nine point five and the average number of syllables per hundred words was one hundred twenty-four. The graph results indicate The Hate You Give has a third grade readability level.

I chose The Hate You Give because I hope to teach it to my high school students in the coming years. I also chose it to see how it would fair in the assessment. I knew its score would likely be in the lower grades because the writing is fairly simple. However, the themes are very complex and it is absolutely not a book suitable for a third grade reader. I contains depictions of gang violence, poverty, racial injustice, and many other themes appropriate for high school and up, not elementary. This supports the use of the Fry Readability Graph as a tool for assessing literature only as a supplement to careful consideration by a teacher.

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I conducted both the "Fry Readibility Test" as well as a Lexile Test.  I did two tests because the results of the Fry test were 11th grade.  I thought that sounded way to high!  I found online Frye test calculator and the results came back the same!  I then used an online Lexile calculator for The Lightning Thief.  The Lexile band for the The Lightning Thief was  680 would which would make appropriate for 4th and 5th graders.

I chose this text because the majority of my sixth graders find it pretty easy.  Since its part of our new scripted curriculum I wanted to see if it was indeed appropriate for 6th graders.  I'm now wondering why the test results were so different.

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I choose this book because we are currently reading this in in EL. It is an informational book and though excerpts are read aloud as they follow along silently, they are charged with the task of re reading at different times throughout the unit.
More importantly, though it is read aloud and repeated reads are required, the concepts addressed such as author point of view , main ideas and supporting details still seem to be challenging for the majority of my class. I was curious to see if the content was above their heads.
The three passages within the text I chose were "Becoming Well Aware", " Saving the Water in the Well" and "Access to the Well". Using the Fry Readability Graph, the data came back within the third grade- fourth grade band however it was closer tot he fourth grade band. I would have to conclude that since the readability is within their grade level, perhaps the lack of prior knowledge and relevance is playing a huge part in the comprehension.

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I selected portions from all three parts of 1984 by George Orwell because I teach British literature, and this text is always one for which the department will always insist coverage. Many of my students like the book, but a few struggled with it or even procrastinated on the reading assignments because of the complexity.

The Fry method was what made sense for me. This method indicated that this particular piece was appropriate for a student between 10th and 11th grade (see attached document). This makes sense because I have seen it taught both to underclassmen (in a private school) and upperclassmen (in a public school). Many of my students read below reading level, so certain portions of the text are difficult. If I teach it to my juniors (typically it's a senior text in my county, but I'm at an early college), then the majority of the content will be accessible (yet challenging) to most of my students. The part where Winston reads the book by Emmanuel Goldstein was the toughest portion that I evaluated.

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1) REVIEW the Assessing Text Complexity (starting on p. 121 - Fry ,Cari, Cloze etc.) If currently in the classroom it would be ideal if you conduct these assessments with your students. You can still complete this assignment if you are not in the classroom.

2) SELECT a text that are currently using or will be in a future lesson (this can be ANY book, informational text, poem, play, short story, etc.).

3) CONDUCT one of the readability assessments on your selected text.

4) POST your results in the column to the RIGHT with your NAME on it.

Discuss your rationale for choosing this text/selection, (i.e. is it particularly challenging for a

portion of your students?

What assessment did you conduct? What were the results of your text difficulty analysis?

Please complete by Wednesday.

Activities Rubric

Yes | No | Does your “activity” work meet the following criteria?

Post COMPLETE answers to questions in #4 above on class Padlet.

Completed all work in satisfactory (or greater) quality and by Wednesday of each week.

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40-60% correct

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Below 40% correct

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I chose the school text HMD Modern Chemistry ©2012.  I conducted a Fry Text complexity.  Three 100 word passages averaged 6.0 sentences and 163 syllables which scores it at the 11th grade level.  My guess is this is above the reading level of most of the students I teach, though I only have access to their PSAT scores.  I cannot find a correlation to PSAT score and reading grade level.  I do intend to perform a reading rate and comprehension assessment on my students at the beginning of the new year.  Lexile does not have data for this text on their search resource.