Worked example — How The Great Gatsby is classified
A worked example of the classification standard applied to one book. Every value below comes from a cited public source.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (Scribner, 1925) is the most-assigned 11th-grade novel in the US AP English Literature curriculum and the canonical short-novel for late-high-school close reading. It works well as a worked example because its data shape is meaningfully different from To Kill a Mockingbird — higher Lexile, narrower grade band, AP-required (not optional), zero banning records — so the methodology demonstrates differently across the same six dimensions.
The book’s machine-readable record is at /api/book/the-great-gatsby; the human-readable page with full assignment list is at /book/the-great-gatsby.
1. Lexile measure
Value: 1070L.Sourced from MetaMetrics’ Lexile Hub. 1070L is at the upper edge of grade 9-10 (≈900-1200L) and squarely within grade 11-CCR (≈1100-1400L) — consistent with the book’s most common assignment context (grade 11). Notably 200L higher than To Kill a Mockingbird’s 870L despite being a shorter book, reflecting denser sentence structure and more idiomatic Jazz-Age vocabulary.
2. Grade band
Value: grades 10-12. A narrower band than TKAM (which spans 7-10). Reflects that Gatsby is rarely assigned in middle school — the prose density and themes (infidelity, materialism, vehicular death) are high-school-only territory. Common Core ELA Appendix B cites it specifically as a grade 11-CCR exemplar.
Source: CCSS ELA Appendix B (Text Exemplars, grades 11-CCR).
3. Curriculum alignment
The book is cited in two named pedagogical frameworks tracked on this site:
- Common Core State Standards (ELA), grade 11. Listed in CCSS ELA Appendix B as a grade 11-CCR text exemplar.
- AP English Literature and Composition, grade 11. Cited in the College Board’s AP English Literature course framework as a requiredreading — a stronger designation than TKAM’s “recommended” status. The AP exam regularly references Gatsby in free-response prompts.
Sources: CCSS ELA Appendix B · AP English Literature course framework (College Board).
4. State-level evidence
The book appears on two state ELA frameworks tracked by this site as of publication: New York and Massachusetts — both citing it at grade 11. Notably appears on the New York City Department of Education district reading list, providing an additional district-level citation beyond the state-level evidence.
Sources: New York State Education Department · Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education · NYC Department of Education (district page).
5. Removal / banning records
Zero documented removals or formal challenges. Gatsby does not appear in PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans. This contrasts with TKAM’s four-state record and is consistent with the book’s long-standing status in the AP curriculum: required, broadly accepted, rarely contested at the K-12 level despite its themes of wealth, infidelity, and disillusionment.
Source verified empty: PEN America — Index of School Book Bans (2022-2024) (no entries for The Great Gatsby).
6. Seasonal & contextual tags
One AP Literature grade 11 assignment carries a summer context tag — Gatsby is a frequent summer-reading recommendation for incoming AP English Literature students because of its short length (180 pages) and dense prose, making it a useful pre-course warm-up.
Source: AP English Literature course framework — summer reading guidance.
Bonus dimension — public domain status
Gatsby entered the US public domain on January 1, 2021 (95-year copyright term from 1925 publication). This affects the book in three ways the classification standard’s six core dimensions don’t cover: (a) Standard Ebooks publishes a free, professionally typeset edition; (b) LibriVox hosts a free volunteer-read audiobook; (c) classroom adaptations and derivative works no longer require permissions. The book’s detail page surfaces these free options alongside the affiliate Bookshop.org link. This is a worked-example bonus, not a core methodology dimension — the standard’s six dimensions don’t depend on copyright status.
How this rolls up
When you view /grade/11, The Great Gatsby appears because its grade band (10-12) overlaps grade 11. When you view /state/new-york/grade/11, it appears because the New York State ELA framework cites it at grade 11 AND the Common Core / AP Literature national curricula apply across all states. When you query /api/v1/recommend?grade=11&curriculum=ap-literature, Gatsby is one of the higher-Lexile entries (1070L). When you query with exclude_banned=true, Gatsby still appears (zero banning records).
The takeaway from comparing this example with TKAM’s walkthrough: the same six dimensions produce very different classification outcomes for different books. That’s the methodology working — the framework is consistent, the data drives the result.
Want a different example?
Worked examples are added on request. If you’re a researcher or developer building on this dataset and need the methodology walked through for a specific book, contact us via the contact page.