Centered around Common Core State Standards, Common Core: Complex Issues in Text is designed to help students read both fiction and nonfiction with a critical eye, develop reasoned opinions, and defend ideas with specific examples. Practice pages, student charts, graphic organizers, research challenges, discussion starters, writing prompts, games, group activities, and recommended reading lists enable students to practice: uncovering the author's purpose; spotting propaganda and bias in nonfiction; sorting credible from unreliable narrators in fiction; seeing one event from multiple points of view; building arguments for informal debates; and using inference and connotation to discover underlying meanings.

Mark Twain Media Publishing Company specializes in providing captivating, supplemental books and decorative resources to complement middle- and upper-grade classrooms. Designed by leading educators, the product line covers a range of subjects including mathematics, sciences, language arts, social studies, history, government, fine arts, and character. Mark Twain Media also provides innovative classroom solutions for bulletin boards and interactive whiteboards. Since 1977, Mark Twain Media has remained a reliable source for a wide variety of engaging classroom resources.