In my children’s literature course, my students who are pre-service teachers are assigned to design a text set. A text set is an intentional grouping of texts and resources at a variety of reading levels and from a variety of genres. Text sets can be organized as a series of texts that become progressively more advanced or they may have an anchor text or mentor text with supplementary texts and resources.
Text sets can help build students’ prior knowledge of a topic, provide students with multiple access points to topics, encourage students to make connections between texts, promote multiple models for writing and encourage independent reading. Text sets can serve as a vehicle for differentiation as they can be used to differentiate by content, process or product (Tomlinson). The reason it is especially important for us as Catholic school educators to focus on differentiation is that we believe in the inherent dignity of each student. Because of this belief, it is essential that every child has access to the curriculum and we know that students develop at different rates and learn in different ways.
Through text sets, teachers can differentiate instruction by including a variety of text types, such as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, images, newspaper and magazine articles, podcasts, websites, songs and primary sources. Once the texts have been selected, teachers then consider the level of each text (looking at both quantitative and qualitative complexity) and the instructional strategy through which the text will be used (for example, teacher read aloud, shared reading, small group reading, independent reading, etc.).
While some text sets are built around a topic such as the water cycle or reptiles or friendship, other text sets are built around an anchor text or mentor text. An example might be a text set focused on Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. In this text set, a teacher could include nonfiction books about spiders and farm life, other fictional texts by E.B. White, videos of a spider building her web, a dictionary and thesaurus to look up the words that Charlotte builds into her web, etc. The text set would remain in the classroom for the duration of the novel study so that students have access to a variety of resources and can go deeper with the concepts that interest them or any concepts they may need support in understanding.
In my children’s literature class, I have had students create all kinds of text sets, ranging from one on music composition and musical instruments to one on snowflakes, to one on personal and emotional wellness. In the example of the text set on music composition and musical instruments, my student included books like Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, The Trumpet and the Swan and Duke Ellington. While this text set was created for third-grade students, the text themselves range from first-grade to fifth-grade reading level. The student who created a text set on snowflakes also included resources from the Smithsonian website which had letters written by Snowflake Bentley and original photographs he took. This student added in chapters from Little House in the Big Woods to her text set to allow students to apply what they were learning from the nonfiction texts to the fictional story.
A text set provides a way for teachers to recognize and honor the dignity of their students as they can highlight students’ interests and learning styles through the variety of text types and levels presented.
At the beginning of the process, my students develop an essential question to be approached through the text set and then connect the texts and resources to the appropriate academic standards. They describe the texts in terms of Lexile level, qualitative complexity, reader/task considerations, and pair each text with an instructional strategy. They then outline the cumulative task or activity that can be completed after navigating the text set.
Since many teachers are faced with the challenge of trying to meet the needs of all students and it can be quite time-consuming to adapt classroom materials and learning resources, a text set is a helpful tool because it does take time to develop it initially, but then the materials are already at a variety of reading levels and provide an appropriate amount of challenge for students according to their zone of proximal development. The next step in using text sets would be to allow students themselves to develop a text set around a topic or mentor text they enjoy.
A text set provides a way for teachers to recognize and honor the dignity of their students as they can highlight students’ interests and learning styles through the variety of text types and levels presented. We have a beautiful responsibility as Catholic school educators to get to know our students’ needs and then work to meet those needs without making any student feel as though they are not capable of achieving success. A text set allows all students to read about, learn about and think about the same topic or mentor text concept at a variety of levels and with a variety of instructional strategies.
Betsy Donlon, Ed.D. is an associate professor of education at Aquinas College in the Diocese of Nashville.donlone1@aquinascollege.edu
