The given passage is prescribed for grade 7 students respectively. Firstly, when considering authenticity, it can be divided into three sub-criteria as material, purpose, and approach. Therefore, the authenticity is evaluated through the above-mentioned sub-criteria as well. When following through with authentic materials, this is an article posted online. However, the material is apparently authentic for the students. Then, when observing the purpose, the students will find this article interestingly amiable to read because sports are always engaged in their daily routine. Also, this article will make sense to them when reading it. Students will not read it, just because the teacher asked them to read it by force. The approach is the last sub-criteria of this first criteria. The students will willingly and purposefully read this passage under the guidelines of the teacher. Anyhow, the teacher has to make sure not to encourage learners to read aloud, because if they do it, they will not understand the meaning of the text.
Secondly, length is one of the significant criteria for selecting a text in reading. However, when going through this passage, the length of the passage is quite extensive for grade 7 students because the students are still fresh for the secondary grade. Some students might find this text difficult to understand without thoroughly going through it and some students might lose interest when they reach the end of the text.
When considering the content of the text, as above- mentioned, the content will get the interest and it will motivate them to follow through further information if they need regarding the topic.
Furthermore, the students can comprehend the given information quickly with the support of the other subjects that they have been learning so far. For instance, as the students are simultaneously going through science, they can quickly understand what happens to “blood vessels” and how sports make an impact on both “sugar” and “cholesterol” levels. Besides, this passage is relevant for a grade 7 student as it contains the facts, they enjoy reading. It is clear to mention that the text is not biased or that does not discriminate against any religion, race but there is an inquiry is raised highlighting the “transgender” community and that is a bit debatable when considering gender identity. However, in sum, the content seemingly helps the students to increase their motivation in reading.
Moreover, when evaluating the readability, it is clear that the students can expand their lexical knowledge by going through this text. There is a quite less amount of unknown lexical items that can be found in the text. For instance, the words, lethargy, mandatory, fascinating can be identified so far. Therefore, the student can somehow quickly go through the text and understand it swiftly. Besides, syntactic appropriateness is included in the passage as the content, topic, cultural appropriacy, and familiarity fulfill the intention correspondingly.
Then, when analyzing the exploitability, the teacher can gain the maximum usage of the text or the teacher can make a maximum number of activities, can fulfill the target objects, and cover many sub-skills using the text. For instance, basically, for pre-reading activities, the teacher can do a brainstorming session to activate students’ schemata or he/she can show some pictures of famous sports and players at the beginning. The teacher can assign students to do a true or false activity, an activity to find synonyms, antonyms or rhyming words, multiple-choice questions, summary type questions, and many more as while reading activities. As post-reading activities, the teacher can ask students to write a composition or a summary regarding the text or the teacher can ask students to do a speech regarding their favourite sport to get them integrated with the other skills accordingly.
Later, when considering cultural suitability, the text violates one cultural norm of the country and that is transgenderism. On one hand, it discriminates against the whole transgender community. On the other hand, in the local context, people are not completely thorough with other sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. Hence, due to the unawareness of those norms, some parties may find it offensive when going through the passage. So, it is better if the text is not containing any violence via any single word.
At last, when considering the appearance of the text, it will be effective if the font size becomes a little larger because some students who have visionary errors might find these small fonts a burden to read. The layout of the passage is also fair to the students. Anyhow, it will also be effective, if the passage comes up with pictures regarding the given topic such as famous players, sports and so on. Finally, the legibility becomes fair for the students but it is better to enlarge the font size accordingly.
In sum, by observing all of these facts, one can understand that all the criteria for selecting a text have been precisely covered.
