Common Core Standard For English Language Arts Page 11

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Common Core State StandardS for engliSh language artS & literaCy in hiStory/SoCial StudieS, SCienCe, and teChniCal SubjeCtS
the model in action: sample annotated reading texts
The following examples demonstrate how qualitative and quantitative measures of text complexity can be used along
with reader and task considerations to make informed decisions about whether a particular text is an appropriate
challenge for particular students. The cases below illustrate some of the possibilities that can arise when multiple
measures are used to assess text complexity and how discrepancies among those measures might be resolved. It
is important to note that the conclusions offered below concerning the texts’ appropriateness for particular grade
bands are informed judgments based on qualitative and quantitative assessments of text complexity. Different
conclusions could reasonably be drawn from the same data, and reader and task considerations may also warrant a
higher or lower placement.
Example 1: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Grades 6–8 Text Complexity Band)
Excerpt
The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends
of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into
teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeed-
ed in learning to read. When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going
one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return. I used also to carry
bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I
was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This
bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valu-
able bread of knowledge. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little
boys, as a testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them; but prudence forbids;—not that
it would injure me, but it might embarrass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach
slaves to read in this Christian country. It is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that they lived
on Philpot Street, very near Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard. I used to talk this matter of slavery over
with them. I would sometimes say to them, I wished I could be as free as they would be when they
got to be men. “You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have not I
as good a right to be free as you have?” These words used to trouble them; they would express for
me the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I
might be free.
I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily
upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every
opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a
dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his
master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them,
when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery
was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made
to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the
desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of
the slave on the part of the master.
In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic
emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated
interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed
through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue
was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was
a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these
documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sus-
tain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful
than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my
enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left
their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us
to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and
contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted
would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable
anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather
than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened
my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied
my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of
the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this ever-
lasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed

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