Text Leveling System

Sixth Grade Secrets

RDQ:	1131	Max Word/Sent	34	Total Words	1852		Diff Words	591
Lex	770	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	1292	69.8%	Hi freq	258	43.7%
AR	3.8	Long Sentences	5	Low Freq occurs	58	3.1%	Low freq	49	8.3%

It all started with a hat.
Laura was at a garage sale with her friends
Tiffany and Allison.
"Euu don't put that on your head" said Allison.
"You don't know where it's been. I might have
lice."
Laura hesitated a moment then put it on her
head. She realized Allison might be right but she
also thought it was a tacky thing to say in front of
the man who used to wear it. Anyway the man
was bald so how could he have lice?
"How much?" she asked.
The bald man smiled. He was missing a front
tooth. "Well it was a dollar" he said" but since
you're so pretty you can have it for fifty cents."
It was a red cap with a blue brim. In silver letters]]
above the brim were the words PIG CITY. It fit snug 
but not too tight over her very long brown hair.
"What do you think?" she asked her friends.
Tiffany looked up from a box of records and 
laughed. "It's cute" she said.
"Everything looks cute on you Laura" Allison 
agreed.
Laura bought the cap but she insisted on paying 
the original price one dollar. She didn't think she 
should get it any cheaper just because she was 
pretty.
"What does Pig City mean?" Tiffany asked the 
man.
He didn't answer. He just winked at her.
Laura knew her parents wouldn't like the cap. 
They never liked any clothes she bought at garage 
sales. They couldn't understand why she'd want 
to wear somebody's old clothes when they'd buy 
her anything she wanted new.
But where would she be able to find a new cap 
that said PIG CITY on It? Well actually she remembered 
there was a store at the mall where they sold 
caps with anything anyone wanted printed on them. 
Still it wasn't the same. The thing that made this 
cap so special was that she didn't buy it at the mall. 
It was like Allison had said "You don't know where 
it's been." That was why she liked it. What was 
Pig City? It was mysterious.
"How do you know It doesn't have lice?" Allison 
asked as the three girls walked away.
"He was bald" said Laura.
"So?" asked Allison. "He wasn't always bald."
"How do you know?" asked Tiffany. "Maybe 
he was born bald."]] 
"Everybody's born bald" said Laura.
Tiffany laughed.
"Well I wouldn't put someone else's hat on my
head" said allison. "What if the man used to be
a pig farmer?"
Allison had short brown head neatly combed and
parted just a little off center. Her face was clean
fresh and healthy-looking. Her teeth were white
and her fingernails were neatly trimmed. You could
tell just by looking at her that she always wore
clean underwear.
"Maybe Pig City is the name of a health
club" said Tiffany "where fat people go to lose
weight."
Allison laughed. "Or where slobs to to learn
good manners" she added.
Laura laughed.
"What if it really is a city?" asked Tiffany. "And
the only people who live there are fat slobs with
bad manners!"
They all laughed.
"Maybe it's a beautiful city" said Laura "with
flowers everywhere and trees and beaches. The
just call it Pig City to keep the tourists away."
"Wouldn't that be great?" said Allison. "And
not too many people would want to live in a city
named Pig City either so it's not crowded or
polluted."
"It's the most wonderful place in the world" 
said Tiffany "just like the Garden of Eden. And 
nobody wears clothes just fig leaves."
Tiffany probably changed her underwear every
day too only you couldn't tell just by looking at 
her. Something about her was always messy. Her]]
clothes never fit right. The more she tried to comb her hair the worse it got.
"I'm going to be a pig farmer when I grow up" Laura declared.
Tiffany laughed.
"I thought you wanted to be President" said Allison.
"I can do both" said Laura. "You're only a!lowed to be President for eight years."
Laura's goal was to be the first woman President of the United States. That was why it bothered her when people told her she was pretty. Nobody ever told George Washington he was pretty!
Laura had little doubt that she would someday be President. It was just a question of whether or not she'd be the first woman. She was afraid another woman might beat her to it.
Just as George Washington is known as the Father of our Country someday she wanted to be known as the Mother of our Country.
"If you're a pig farmer you'll have to kill pigs" Tiffany pointed out.
"Oh I could never do that" said Laura. 
"That's how they make their money" said Tiffany. "They raise pigs until they're big and fat then they butcher them! Just so people can eat bacon. It's disgusting."
"What about the farmers who just have dairy cows?" asked Allison. "They don't kill their cows. They just milk them and make money by selling the milk."
"But Laura wants to be a pig farmer not a cow farmer" said Tiffany.
"Oh" said Allison. "So?" she asked. "Why can't]] 
she milk pigs? Pigs are mammals! They have milk too."
They had been studying mammals in Mr. Doyle's class.
"Pig milk?" questioned Tiffany.
"Yes!" exclaimed Laura. She liked that idea. "You've heard of goat milk. Why not pig milk? It will be a new product! And pig cheese! I'll be the only one selling it so I'll make lots of money."
"How about pig yogurt?" suggested Allison. "Yogurt already tastes like it comes from pigs anyway."
"And pig butter" said Laura.
"And pig cottage cheese" said Allison.
"And pig ice cream" Tiffany joined in.
When Laura was four years old her father told her about George Washington. It was the day before her first day of kindergarten. She was supposed to get her hair cut. She threw a temper tantrum.
"No!" she screamed and cried. "I don't want to get my hair cut! No! No! No! No! No!" She stomped angrily around the house kicking things. When she kicked a table in the living room the lamp on top of it fell and broke.
She instantly stopped crying.
Her father rushed in when he heard the crash. He looked at Laura then at the broken lamp. "How did this happen?" he demanded.
"I don't know Daddy" Laura said innocently. "I was just standing here when suddenly the lamp broke."
He didn't get angry or accuse her of lying. Instead he told her the story of George Washington and the cherry tree and how George later grew up]] 
to be the first President of the United States the Father of our Country!
When he finished Laura stared bravely into her father's eyes and said "I cannot tell a lie. I broke the lamp."
Just as George Washington didn't get in trouble for chopping down the cherry tree Laura Sibbie didn't get in trouble for breaking the lamp. She didn't have to get her hair cut either. Her parents promised she'd never have to get her hair cut as long as she never told another lie.
She was now in the sixth grade. There was only a month and a half left of school. Her hair was long and thick and reached down below her waist. She hadn't lied yet.
"Pig ice cream?" questioned Allison. "Yuck-ola!"]] 
Laura wore the cap every day for a week. Her parents got used to it. Everybody in school made some dumb comment about it but soon they got used to it too. By the end of the week it had become a part of her. She would have looked strange without it.
"We'll be in the Dog House!" Laura shouted then slammed the door behind her.
Tiffany and Allison were waiting in the backyard sucking on grape popsicles. They liked coming to Laura's because there was always good food to eat.
The Dog House was big enough for a dog the size of an elephant. It was built by Laura's father and her oldest brother over fifteen years ago. Laura had two brothers and one sister but they were]] 
much older than she was. None of them lived at home.
It was called the Dog House because from the outside it looked like a giant doghouse with a door. Also the name of the first club to use it was The Dogs.
Since then it had been home to The Paul McCartney Fan Club The Spiders The Cowgirls The Destroyers The Erasers The Devils and now a new club: Pig City.
Laura was the president of Pig City. Allison said she should be mayor and not president because it was a city and not a country but she was outvoted. Tiffany was vice-president and Allison was secretary. So far they were the only members.
They entered the Dog House. Tiffany plopped down on a purple bean bag chair. Allison sat on a bed covered by a black-and-white checked bedspread. Laura sat in a swinging bamboo chair that hung from the ceiling.
There was also a bookcase a television two lamps a coffee table and various other odds and ends mostly odds. Nearly everything came from garage sales.
Nothing electrical worked which didn't matter since there were no electrical outlets. They had a battery-operated cassette tape recorder if they wanted to listen to music.
Laura made a fist with her right hand then raised it and held it lengthwise against her nose like a pig's snout. Allison and Tiffany did the same. Then they all solemnly lowered their fists. It was the secret Pig City salute.]] 
Pig City was a secret club. It had to be. Clubs were no longer allowed at Laura's school. Earlier in the year there were several clubs but a parent complained because her child couldn't join one. After that clubs were no longer allowed.
"You're first Allison" said Laura.
Allison blushed.
"What'd you bring Allison?" asked Tiffany.
Allison removed a photograph from her jacket pocket and set it on the coffee table. "You don't have to stare at it!" she exclaimed.
It was a picture of her when she was three years old naked in the bathtub.
"I got it out of my parents' album" she said. "Can you believe it? They used to show it to everyone who came over! I'd be sitting right there in the room with them and they'd show the album to their friends with that picture in it. 'How adorable' they'd say. 'How precious.' Every one of my parents' friends has seen my butt!"
Tiffany laughed.
"Aw how adorable" said Laura.
"It's not funny!" said Allison. She turned the picture over.
Laura had a jewelry box that looked just like an old-time pirate's treasure chest. She opened it and placed Allison's picture facedown on the torn red felt.
"Your turn Tiffany" said Allison. "And it better be something good."
"It's better than yours" said Tiffany. "I mean worse."
Tiffany's lips were purple from the grape ]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Features

Simple Plot

Topic

Inclusion

Friendship

*Family & Friends

*Schools & Education

School

Low Frequency Words

angrily	butcher	comb	combed	destroyers
devils	doubt	doyle's	eden	electrical
euu	facedown	healthy	hesitated	instantly
jewelry	kindergarten	lengthwise	lied	lowed
lowered	mccartney	mysterious	naked	ola
original	outlets	outvoted	parted	photograph
polluted	popsicles	precious	president	product
questioned	recorder	secretary	sibbie	slobs
solemnly	tacky	tourists	underwear	various
vice	wears	what'd	yogurt