Text Leveling System

Heat Wave

RDQ:	748	Max Word/Sent	30	Total Words	1025		Diff Words	417
Lex	690	Ave Word/.Sent	11	Hi Freq occurs	658	64.2%	Hi freq	158	37.9%
AR	3.2	Long Sentences	7.9	Low Freq occurs	45	4.4%	Low freq	41	9.8%

My big brother Hank used to tease me that
girls couldn't be farmers.  But he sure changed his
tune the day the Heat Wave hit.
I was feeding the chickens when I heard a loud
roar.  I looked out across the horizon and saw a big
old clump of crinkled yellow air rolling across the 
sky.  A flock of geese flew in one side and came out
the other side plucked stuffed and roasted.]]
I hollered for Ma and Pa and Hank but before
they got outside the Heat Wave hit.  The mercury
blasted out of the porch thermometer like a rocket.
Ma's flowers pulled themselves up by their roots
and crawled under the porch looking for shade.]]
By the time everybody ran outside
the Heat Wave had gotten snagged on the 
barn's weather vane.  It was near harvest
time so we raced to the cornfield to save
what we could.  But by the time we got there
it was already too late.  The corn had started 
popping.  It looked like a blizzard had hit.
One of our old hound dogs turned blue and 
froze when he saw it.  I wrapped him in a 
blanket and he thawed out okay.]]
Then we heard a commotion in the pasture.  We
raced over.  The cows were hopping around like rabbits.
The ground had gotten too hot so we herded them
inside the barn.  They still looked miserable though.
Pa figured their milk had gotten too hot so we set to
milking.  As it turned out the cows had jumped so 
much they'd churned their milk to butter.  It came out 
melted.  We'd milked the last of the butter when I had
an idea.]]
We scrubbed a couple of shovels and the beds of 
the pickup trucks then I sent Pa and Hank to the 
field to fill the pickups with popcorn.
When they were done they brought the trucks 
around and we all pitched in and poured the butter 
over the popcorn.  Then Hank and Ma drove the 
trucks to the drive-in movie down the road.  In no
time at all they sold every last bit of that popcorn
then hurried home.]]
We still had plenty of worries.  We hurried
to the field where we had oats planted.  Sure
enough they had dried out.  I tried wetting
them down but that didn't turn out to be such
a good idea.
Soon I felt something slimy and thick rising
up around my ankles.  In another minute it was
waist high and I could barely move.  Turned
out I'd created a whole field of oatmeal.  It was
lumpy just like Ma's and I about drowned in 
the stuff.
I dog-paddled to the edge and crawled out.
Whoo-ee!  That oatmeal was sticky!  I told Pa
we should bottle it which we did later.  It made
fine glue.]]
It was then that I caught a whiff of something
burning.  I followed my nose to the barn and hurried
inside.  The cows were steaming and their coats were
starting to singe.  Those poor critters were about to
cook!  We hosed them down and turned fans on
them.  It helped but not enough.  Pa always said I
was the quickest thinker in the family and I knew
it was up to me to think of something else.]]
I figured it was time to take on the Heat
Wave.  I thought blowing air on it would help
but we needed the fans for the cows.  Besides we
didn't have near enough fans to cool the Heat
Wave down.  Then I had another idea.  A huge 
flock of crows all beating their wings at once
might work.  One thing Kansas has is plenty of 
crows.  And I knew how to get them to come.
We dumped several fifty-pound bags of flour 
and a bunch of yeast in the trough by the barn
then stirred in water with shovels.  That dough 
rose so fast we had to run for our lives.  It rolled
over several chickens then picked up the tractor
and Sally the mule.  Ended up big as the barn.]]
A few minutes later the dough started baking in
the heat.  Smelled awful good and that's what I was 
counting on.  Crows can't resist the smell of baking
bread and soon every crow in Kansas came flocking
to the farm.  Their wings made so much wind we
had to tie ourselves around a giant tree trunk to keep
from being blown away.  It felt cooler already.]]
The trouble was those crows didn't keep flying.  They
lit on the bread and started eating.  The temperature shot
right back up and I figured we might be licked.
The crows pecked at the bread until they freed Sally
and the chickens.  None of them were a bit worse for wear.
In fact they were right frisky.  I figured all that yeast had
caused their spirits to rise.]]
Seeing Sally gave me one more idea.  I told Pa to 
hitch her to the plow and she plowed up a section of 
land in record time.  While Pa was plowing I found
what I needed.  I gave everyone lettuce seeds and we
started planting.  Those seeds sprouted as soon as
they hit the dirt.]]
The bigger the lettuce grew the cooler the air
got.  That Heat Wave put up a fight all right.  It 
rippled and twisted and squirmed like a bucking
bronco.  But as the lettuce cooled the air more
the Heat Wave started shrinking until it finally
disappeared altogether.]]
The weather vane and the barn cooled down and
the cows stopped steaming too.  They didn't seem
much affected except the fuzz on their hides never
grew back.  Ma had to knit them all sweaters for
the winter.]]
So that's how I saved the farm by planting
lettuce.  In case you're wondering how lettuce could
cool the air it wasn't just any kind of lettuce you 
see.  It was iceberg lettuce.  I did make one mistake
though.  I miscalculated the amount of lettuce I 
needed and planted too much.
Kansas had an awful early
snowfall that year but none of us
ever let on why.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concept: Fanciful

Features

First Person

Topic

Temperature

*Weather

Nonsense

Farms

Animals: Farm

Low Frequency Words

affected	churned	commotion	drowned	flocking
freed	harvest	herded	hollered	horizon
hosed	knit	mercury	milked	milking
miscalculated	miserable	oatmeal	ourselves	paddled
pasture	pickups	plucked	resist	rippled
section	shovels	shrinking	singe	snagged
sprouted	squirmed	stirred	sweaters	thawed
thermometer	thinker	trough	vane	whiff
yeast