Text Leveling System

Red Wolf Country

RDQ:	958	Max Word/Sent	40	Total Words	523		Diff Words	289
Lex	730	Ave Word/.Sent	12	Hi Freq occurs	266	50.9%	Hi freq	67	23.2%
AR	3.5	Long Sentences	14	Low Freq occurs	39	7.5%	Low freq	38	13.1%

Two red wolves roam 
the coastal wetlands.
A rare snow has fallen,
and icicles glitter
in the sweet gum
and loblolly pine.
She-Wolf has a secret
nobody knows.]]
With her mate, she climbs
a low rise, and as the sun sinks
into clouds of gold and silk,
the coats of the two wolves
flare up like bright red flames.
When twilight falls,
the two mates
stand against the sky
and howl.
It is a haunting song
and for a moment
the world stands still
and listens.]]
It is the time of the wolves. 
They are hungry for deer,
but they'll settle for
a fat gray squirrel
or a dinner of mice.
There below, downwind
in a frozen marsh,
a small dark animal ambles along
in the moonlit southern night.
The red wolves step delicately
through the soft snow.
Gracefully, they drift down 
towards the shining pond
and press themselves flat.
They squirm toward
the shadowy creature,
then together bounce up -
and charge.]]
It's a skunk!
The startled wolves skitter
and skate on the slippery ice...
and scramble off into the trees.]]
Over the following weeks,
as spring begins,
the red wolves hunt
and sometimes eat:
swamp rabbit or fiddler crabs.
Water
drip
drip
drips
and runs in the creeks.
The smell of damp brown earth
fills the air,
and She-Wolf's secret
grows and grows.]]
She leads as the two mates search
above the cutbanks,
among the trees, under logs,
for a good place to den.]]
Skirting farms, alert,
sniffing for clues,
they move silently
through their world.
Too close.
A dog barks. The lights
of a farmhouse flick on. The fur
on the nape of their necks
stands up like a lion's mane.]]
A nervous farmer
raises a rifle. Takes aim.
Focuses She-Wolf 
in the crosshairs of his scope
and fires. Bam! A leaf
with a hole in it
spins by her eyes
and both wolves plunge 
into a river.]]
Bullets kick up the water 
around their ears. Two alligators
slide down the bank and
slither into the river.
The wolves ride the current,
struggling for air.
Finally, they scrabble up
a muddy bank into thick brush.
Safe at last, they are travelers
in a hurry. They move high
into the hills and further
from the land
of man.]]
Days pass.
At last, among the roots
of a huge deadfall tree,
they find the place.
She-Wolf begins to dig and dig,
widening and cleaning
their newfound home.]]
Soon, the first blooms appear
on the dogwood
and everywhere
the sounds of birds and bees
tremble in the air,
celebrating spring.
And in the den, too, something 
is stirring.]]
Fuzzy and blind
cuddly-warm balls of fur,
nuzzling, hungry for life.]]
The wolf pups grow
by leaps and bounds - nibbling berries,
licking mouths, and playing:
flinging around stiff pieces
of rabbit skin to tug on,
while Mother and Father Wolf
take turns watching...
and watching out.]]
From coastal swamps
to blue-ridge mountains - 
for as long as man allows -
a world for pups 
to grow up in, to mate,
and to have secrets of their own.
Call it: Red Wolf Country.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Inferences: Some implications

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Colorful, figurative

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Difficult

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Integral Setting

Figurative Language

Metaphors

Unusual use of vocabulary

Topic

Nature

*Animals

Animals: Forest

Habitat

Low Frequency Words

ambles	coastal	crosshairs	current	cutbanks
deadfall	delicately	dogwood	focuses	further
gracefully	haunting	icicles	listens	loblolly
marsh	moonlit	nape	newfound	nuzzling
plunge	raises	ridge	scope	scrabble
scramble	skirting	skitter	slither	southern
squirm	startled	stirring	swamp	swamps
towards	twilight	wetlands