Maurice goes missing in the Twilight Mansion; when he is found, it becomes apparent that he has lost all of his memories and has become a different person; Ella sets out to uncover what happened to himSelecting Text ExemplarsThe following text samples primarily serve to exemplify the level of complexity and quality that the Standards requireall students in a given grade band to engage with. Additionally, they are suggestive of the breadth of texts that students should encounter in the text types required by the Standards. The choices should serve as useful guideposts inhelping educators select texts of similar complexity, quality, and range for their own classrooms. They expressly donot represent a partial or complete reading list.The process of text selection was guided by the following criteria:• Complexity. Appendix A describes in detail a three-part model of measuring text complexity based on qualitative and quantitative indices of inherent text difficulty balanced with educators’ professional judgment inmatching readers and texts in light of particular tasks. In selecting texts to serve as exemplars, the work groupbegan by soliciting contributions from teachers, educational leaders, and researchers who have experienceworking with students in the grades for which the texts have been selected. These contributors were asked torecommend texts that they or their colleagues have used successfully with students in a given grade band. Thework group made final selections based in part on whether qualitative and quantitative measures indicatedthat the recommended texts were of sufficient complexity for the grade band. For those types of texts—particularly poetry and multimedia sources—for which these measures are not as well suited, professional judgment necessarily played a greater role in selection.• Quality. While it is possible to have high-complexity texts of low inherent quality, the work group solicited onlytexts of recognized value. From the pool of submissions gathered from outside contributors, the work groupselected classic or historically significant texts as well as contemporary works of comparable literary merit,cultural significance, and rich content.• Range. After identifying texts of appropriate complexity and quality, the work group applied other criteria toensure that the samples presented in each band represented as broad a range of sufficiently complex, highquality texts as possible. Among the factors considered were initial publication date, authorship, and subjectmatter.Copyright and PermissionsFor those exemplar texts not in the public domain, we secured permissions and in some cases employed a conservative interpretation of Fair Use, which allows limited, partial use of copyrighted text for a nonprofit educationalpurpose as long as that purpose does not impair the rights holder’s ability to seek a fair return for his or her work.In instances where we could not employ Fair Use and have been unable to secure permission, we have listed a titlewithout providing an excerpt. Thus, some short texts are not excerpted here, as even short passages from them wouldconstitute a substantial portion of the entire work. In addition, illustrations and other graphics in texts are generallynot reproduced here. Such visual elements are particularly important in texts for the youngest students and in manyinformational texts for readers of all ages. (Using the qualitative criteria outlined in Appendix A, the work group considered the importance and complexity of graphical elements when placing texts in bands.)When excerpts appear, they serve only as stand-ins for the full text. The Standards require that students engage withappropriately complex literary and informational works; such complexity is best found in whole texts rather than passages from such texts.Please note that these texts are included solely as exemplars in support of the Standards. Any additional use of thosetexts that are not in the public domain, such as for classroom use or curriculum development, requires independentpermission from the rights holders. The texts may not be copied or distributed in any way other than as part of theoverall Common Core State Standards Initiative documents. |