Samantha
Bustos-Hubeny
RDNG
7545
“From
Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we
speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in
the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects.
It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the
tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is
indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field,
Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the
landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye
can integrate all the
144
syllables, 6.5 sentences, 8th grade reading level
“Soldier’s
Home” by Eernest Hemingway
Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the
result of untruth or exaggeration, and when he occasionally met another man who
had really been a soldier and they talked a few minutes in the dressing room at
a dance he fell into the easy pose of the old soldier among other soldiers:
that he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time. In this way he
lost everything.
During this time, it was late summer, he was sleeping late
in bed, getting up to walk down town to the library to get a book, eating lunch
at
136 syllables, 1.5 sentences, 10th grade reading level
“A Noiseless Flash from Hiroshima” by John Hersey
Dr. Fuji sat down cross-legged in his underwear on the
spotless matting of the porch, put on his glasses, and started reading the
Osaka Asabi. He liked to read the
Osaka because his wife was there. He saw the flash. To him- faced away from the
center and looking at his paper- it seemed a brilliant yellow. Startled, he
began to rise to his feet. In that moment (he was 1,550 yards from the center),
the hospital leaned behind his rising and, with a terrible ripping noise,
toppled into the river. The doctor, still in the act of getting ot his feet,
was
144 syllables, 7 sentences, 7th grade reading level
General Textbook Readability Checklist
In the blank before each item, indicate V for "yes," +
for "to some extent," or x for "no" or 'does not
apply."
UNDERSTANDABILITY
___V___1. Are the assumptions about students' vocabulary knowledge appropriate?
___Vweaw___2. Are the assumptions about students' prior knowledge of this
content area appropriate?
___+___3. Are the assumptions about students' general experiential background
appropriate?
____x__4. Does the teacher's manual provide the teacher with ways to develop
and review the students' conceptual and experiential background?
___+___5. Are new concepts explicitly linked to the students' prior knowledge
or to their experiential background?
___+___6, Does the text introduce abstract concepts by accompanying them with
many concrete examples?
___+___7. Does the text introduce new concepts one at a time, with a sufficient
number of examples for each one?
___V___8. Are definitions understandable and at a lower level of abstraction
than the concept being defined?
___V___9. Does the text avoid irrelevant details?
___V___10. Does the text explicitly state important complex relationships
(e.g., causality and conditionality) rather than always expecting the reader to
infer them from the context?
___x___11. Does the teacher's manual provide lists of accessible resources
containing alternative readings for the very poor or very advanced readers?
___V___12. Is the readability level appropriate (according to a readability
formula)?
USABILITY
A. EXTERNAL ORGANIZATIONAL AIDS
____V__1. Does the table of contents provide a clear overview of the contents
of the textbook?
___V___2. Do the chapter headings clearly define the content of the chapter?
___V ___3. Do the chapter subheadings clearly break out the important concepts
in the chapter?
___V___4. Do the topic headings provide assistance in breaking the chapter into
relevant parts?
___V___5. Does the glossary contain all the technical terms in the textbook?
___x___6. Are the graphs and charts clear and supportive of the textual
material?
___+___7. Are the illustrations well done and appropriate to the
level of the students?
__V____8. Is the print size of the text appropriate to the level
of student readers?
___V___9. Are the lines of text an appropriate length for the level of the
students who will use the textbook?
___x___10. Is a teacher's manual available and adequate for
guidance to the teachers?
___+___11. Are the important terms in italics or boldfaced type
for easy identification by readers?
___+___12. Are the end-of-chapter questions on literal,
interpretive, and applied levels of comprehension?
B. INTERNAL ORGANIZATIONAL AIDS
___+___1. Are the concepts spaced appropriate throughout the text,
rather than being too many in too short a space or too few words?
___V___2.. Is an adequate context provided to allow students to determine the
meaning of technical terms.
___V___3. Are the sentence lengths appropriate to the level of students who
will be using the text?
___V___4. Is the authors style (word length, sentence length, sentence
complexity, paragraph length, numbers of examples) appropriate to the level of
students who will be using the text?
____V__5. Does the author use a predominant structure or pattern of
organization (compare-contrast, cause-effect, time order, problem-solution)
within the writing to assist students in interpreting the text?
INTERESTABILITY
___x___1. Does the teacher's manual provide introductory
activities that will capture students' interests?
___V___2. Are the chapter titles and subheadings concrete,
meaningful, or interesting?
___V___3. Is the writing style of the text appealing to the students?
___+___4. Are the activities motivating? Will they make the
student want to pursue the topic further?
____x__5 Does the book clearly show how what is being learned
might be used by the learner in the future?
___+___6. Are the cover, format, print size, and pictures appealing to the
students?
___+___7. Does the text provide positive and motivating models for both sexes
as well as for other racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups?
___+___8 Does the text help students generate interest as they
relate experiences and develop visual and sensory images?
SUMMARY RATING
Circle one choice for each item.
The text rates highest in understandability
/ usability / interest,
The text rates lowest in understandability/ usability/ interest.
My teaching can best supplement understandability/ usability / interest.
I would still need assistance with understandability/ usability / interest.
STATEMENT OF STRENGTHS: (The strengths
of this textbook are….)
Variety of themes
Good pictures and decorations to make the book aesthetically
pleasing.
Good use of vocabulary
There are selections about nature and war and the Salem witch
trials, just to name a few. Those alone show a good variety already. The
textbook itself is very aesthetically pleasing to look at. Some pages have
decoration at the bottom or all around the page and some of the pictures are
really cool. Plus the entire book is yellow. The creativity of the colors in
this book please me. I like the words they choose to define on the page itself.
I feel they do a good job of picking out which words may be foreign to
students.
STATEMENT OF WEAKNESSES: (The weaknesses of this textbook
are...)
Uninteresting
Low Reading Level
Lack of sufficient stories written by females and a good variety
of races
I feel the stories would be boring by the students. I love to read and I only
spotted a few stories that I remember being interesting. Everything else sounded dull, to be honest. I
would need to do something to keep the students interested. I feel the reading
level should be higher than it is. While tests need to be below reading level,
I feel English classes need to be above reading level to properly challenge
students. There is an extreme lack of stories written by people of color and
women. The majority of the stories were written by white males. I feel like
they should be the minority as they are the things students read most about in
every other English class they could ever take.
