Teachers are often told to focus on making sure they are using rigorous texts. Students are forced to pick out books based on Lexile level. For some reason, we have come to believe that complicated = rigorous = better.
I was talking to a student recently who has high aspirations for college. I asked her what she was reading for fun. As I Lay Dying, by Faulkner. (Yes, I am serious.) Why would any 17-year-old choose that book for pleasure reading? Because she has been fed the lie that complicated = rigorous = better.
And that is what it is: a lie.
You can do a close reading of anything. There is some really amazing YA lit that can be picked apart and examined a dozen different ways. Look at what the vast Harry Potter fanbase has done with that series? One need only step foot into a deep discussion with fans of The Kingkiller Chronicles to realize that such a book can be read for fun, and also analyzed, digested, ruminated upon, discussed, and torn apart with each reading revealing new and more complex ideas.
Case in point:
I went into over a dozen classrooms K-5 and read Red, a Crayon's Story. The premise is that there is a blue crayon with a red wrapper. He tries to color in red, but can't.
The narrator is a pencil.
All of the characters are art supplies.
And the discussions these classes had would knock your socks off.
Kindergarteners didn't understand why nobody could tell he wasn't blue. It was obvious.
One fifth-grader asked for the author's name and the publisher (HarperCollins) because she wanted to share some of her thoughts with the author.
Many kids were hyper-aware of the cruelty of the other crayons who called Red lazy, implied he wasn't very smart or trying hard enough, or were critical of him when he was sitting right there.
Several kids were horrified at the suggestion--made by the pencil--that Red needed to be sharpened. How painful!
A lot of kids appreciated how helpful the teacher was, even if the problem clearly couldn't be solved with effort and coaching.
In every single class, (and I do mean every one. Kindergarten through fifth) the students gasped aloud when a new crayon asks Red to draw a blue ocean. The startling revelation that this one simple question from a friend could show Red his purpose and help him find his worth. All of that from a kind word from a friend.
One teacher, when I closed the book, whispered, "What a wonderful book! There are so many levels to it."
It is a 40-page book with a Lexile level of 380 (late kindergarten).
The narrator is a pencil.
The main character is a crayon.
And the discussions that flowed from it naturally were rigorous.
Text complexity is made up of thee parts: qualitative, quantitative, and reader/task. We spend all of our time talking about the quantitative: Lexile. AR points. How many pages? How many chapters? How many syllables in the longest words?
In that, we miss out on the qualitative aspect. And, more importantly, the reader and task aspect.
This short picture book had those latter two in spades. Depth and breadth. Symbolism. A great illustration of metaphor. The idea of a third-person-limited narrator. Anthropomorphic characters. The idea that the shorter crayons are the older ones and why that is. Looking at the differences in attitudes between the crayons that are rounded nubs and those that are sharp and precise.
And beyond that, how did they treat each other? What was Red's problem? As the kids kept pointing out, it was absurd to presume he should ever have been able to do anything in red; he was blue. Why did all the other crayons ask that of him?? And this almost always led to a great discussion of societal expectations. One student even said, "I look like my dad, but I am much more like my mom. Nobody realizes that."
The richness and beauty in the observations of an 8-year-old who has spent her life being told, "Oh! I know your sister!" and all the implications that come along with that, for better or much much worse.
I have read many books to many kids, and I have never had a student ask for the information to contact the author. Ever.
That is rigor. That is the idea of engaging the reader and allowing their background knowledge to be used and expanded upon.
Kids understand failure.
Students understand the expectations people have of you.
Many kids know what it is to feel like they can't do anything right.
Far too many kids feel like no matter how hard they try, it is never good.
Entirely too many kids have heard people whisper that they are lazy or dumb or difficult.
This is a book that speaks to the experience of students and allows them to examine those complicated ideas of societal expectations and failure. They can see the difference of an intervening authority who is compassionate, and kind. They can know that some problems really can only be made better by the intervention of a peer.
That is rigor.
That is beautiful
One need not read Faulkner to find text complexity and rigor.
One need only look at this story with a Lexile of 380 told by a pencil.
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