Title - I Survived the Children's Blizzard, 1888 Author: Tarshis, Lauren Publisher: Scholastic Print Synopsis Authors Purpose Genre Eleven-year-old John Hale has already survived one brutal Dakota winter, and now he's about to experience one of the deadliest blizzards in American history. Entertain Historical Fiction RDQ (Reading Difficulty Quotient) Accelerated Reader Lexile Find at 1258 4.0 790 Amazon RDQ based on a maximum of 3000 words Levels are suggested levels based on RDQ, not official levels Sentences Total Words Different Words Max Word/Sent 36 Total # of Words 3215 # of Different Words 988 Ave Word/.Sent 8 Hi Freq occurs 2283 71% # of Hi freq words 423 42.8% % of Long Sentences 3.6 Low Freq occurs 165 5.1% # of Low freq words 122 12.3% Subjective Criteria Illustrations: No support Dialog: Multiple speakers Dialog: Broken dialogue Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues Language: Many descriptive words Sentences: Multiple phrases Text structure: Story/Poem Sequence of Events: Mostly chronological Features Integral Setting - Historical Topics *History American History Pioneers Low Frequency Words ache acre bitters burying buttery cabinet chasing cure curling cursing deathly delicious dollhouse doubt dumbest emptiness fibbed franny's freckled furious general glaring glistening government gulp hale hammering hardware hauling haylofts herds horror ignored imagined imagining jackrabbits january lied luckily lungs maniac massive medicines milling millionaire minnesota neighbors nightmare nowhere nuggets numb opposite overgrown panic peering perked pictured piling pioneer pioneers plunged poem poisoned potions practically prairie pricked puke queasy raged raked rattler rattler's remedies rickety roamed rooftop rotted ruell sauce sawing scaring schoolhouse scrawny seasons sheriffs sioux skidded skies slithering sopped sparkling sprinting sprouted staggered stammered stewpot stockings stomachs straighter stranded surprisingly sven swallowed sweat swished terrifying territory terrorizing thunderstorms torture trampled triangle unicorn unpainted venom vicious wandered wanna warmth whooshing widened wrinkling