Text Leveling System

Crickwing

RDQ:	1144	Max Word/Sent	27	Total Words	1374		Diff Words	590
Lex	770	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	851	61.9%	Hi freq	222	37.6%
AR	3.9	Long Sentences	6.7	Low Freq occurs	125	9.1%	Low freq	100	16.9%

Pow! Swoosh! A sharp-eyed monkey clobbered Crickwing and swiped his sculpture.
Crickwing dived for cover. "I only let him get away with that because he's so big," he grumbled, cowering under a rotten log.
Crickwing hid until the next night, when hunger drove him out to search for a meal. But as soon as he had added the final flower petal to his dinner, an enormous, scaly lizard nearly gulped him down. Crickwing dodged, and the lizard took off with his edible artwork. "Another masterpiece-ruined!" Crickwing panted. "I'm starving and my wing aches. I don't know if I can take this much longer."
The next night things got even worse. An ocelot pounced and nearly crushed Crickwing. When he darted away, the ocelot scooped him up in her massive paw and threw him high into the air.
"Oh noooo!" Crickwing wailed. "Not again!"
When he landed, Crickwing scrambled about in a panic and leaped into a crevice under a stone, where he collapsed in angry tears.
"I'm so tired of having to run, run, run from giant predators," he seethed. "I hate being so small. And I hate never being able to finish a meal-I'm a mere exoskeleton!"
Through the long night, Crickwing's wing throbbed as he waited in his hideout.
Many hours later sunlight streamed into his cave, and the leaf-cutting ants began another busy day. Thousands of the tiny workers carried large slices of leaves back to their colony. Crickwing, groggy and still angry, crept out for a better look.
"Ha! These guys are even punier than I am," he muttered. None of the ants seemed to notice him.
Crickwing inched closer. "There's something about these eensy critters that just bugs me. Why isn't anyone bothering these little twerps?"
He placed a spiny leg across the leafcutter path. "Well, let's see what happens now." He chortled. "Have a nice trip-see you next fall!"
Several ants stumbled, but then went back to work as if Crick-wing weren't even there.
"This will get their attention," he growled, picking up a leaf from the path. The ant carrying the leaf hung on tight, which gave Crickwing a dastardly idea. He hung several ants from a vine, one by one, and watched with glee as their tiny legs flailed. Crickwing laughed so hard that he nearly forgot his aching wing.
"That night Crickwing wolfed down a sweet flower bud, not even noticing its dazzling purple color. He had work to do.
Right in the middle of the leafcutter trail, he dug a deep hole in the ground. Then he crouched behind a rock, waiting to see what the ants would do.
In the very early dawn, the ants rose as usual and went to work. When they returned, their cargo clamped in their jaws, they could barely see their way. "They plummeted into the trap, piling into a great green heap.
"these muddling molecules are so easy to fool!" snorted Crickwing.
Back in the leafcutter colony, the queen of the ants called a meeting.
"This week's production is down!" she barked. "What on earth is going on?"
"It's a cockroach, Your Highness," stammered Terra. "He's picking on us," added Gravel.
"No cockroach meddles with our colony. Seize him!" ordered the queen.
The next morning the ants found Crickwing fussing with his latest ant trap. He had no chance for escape as thousands of leafcutters swarmed over him, dragged
him back to the anthill, and marched him down its dark, winding corridors.
When the tunnels narrowed, the ants crammed Crickwing through one final tight spot. Pop! His wing snapped back into place, and he realized that the throbbing ache was gone. Before he could give it another thought, the ants pulled their prisoner into a chamber and buried him up to his neck. For hours the whole colony filed by, whispering to one another: "How do you think he became so awful?" and "His mother must be heartbroken."
"That big oaf showed up just in time for the annual peace offering to the army ants," crowed the queen. "There's no way they'll attack us if we hand this hefty no-gooder over to them. Truss him up like the fat turkey he is and ship him out!"
The leafcutters bound Crickwing, hauled him back through the dim tunnels, and carried him up into
the forest.
The ants hiked in silence for a long time. "I can't do this," Eartha blurted at last.
"Neither can L" Terra shuddered. "Remember the giant beetle we brought to the army ants last year?"
"Yeah. They took him apart before we could even turn around and leave," quavered Gravel.
Crickwing gulped.
"Nobody deserves that, not even this big bully," said Eartha. "I say let him go. He never really hurt any of us." "What will we tell the queen?" Terra gasped.
"And what about the army ants?" Gravel howled. "They'll level our colony!"
"I just can't watch them shred this guy," insisted Eartha. "We'll figure something out on the way back. Let's go!" The ants released Crickwing and fled.
Crickwing was stunned. The queen is going to have their heads!And the whole leafcutter colony is now in serious danger-all because of me. Now that his wing no longer hurt, he could think clearly. I have to do something, but what? And then Crickwing had a brilliant idea.
"Wait! Wait!" he yelled, racing after the leafcutters. "I can help! Wait!"
He described his plan, and the ants listened carefully. "We'll have to move quickly, but if every ant pitches in, I think it'll work," Crickwing said.
"Can we trust this yahoo?" yelped Gravel. "Do we have much choice?" snapped Terra.
"The plan is worth a try, and we'll do our best to win the patience of the queen," Eartha promised. "But we don't have much time."
"Jump on my back, all of you," said Crickwing. "I am one fast runner."
In a far corner of the forest, in the army ant camp,
the lieutenant paced angrily. "Those leaf-eating fools are late!" she snarled. "If we don't have our peace offering by tomorrow at dawn, we march in and take what's rightfully ours."
As the hours passed, the army ants grew more agitated.
At first light, the army swarmed from its nest, ready for conquest. "No one!" shouted the lieutenant. "Absolutely no one keeps the army ants waiting!" They poured like an
angry river down the trail to the leafcutter anthill.
As the ferocious ants turned the final bend, they stopped dead in their tracks....
For a long, silent moment, they stared at the hugest, strangest, greenest anteater they'd ever seen. It loomed high over them, its terrible tongue dangling from its mouth.
The lieutenant's squeaky voice broke the quiet. "Halt! About-face! Run away!" The army ants tripped over one another as they scrambled back toward their camp, none of them daring to look back.
Crickwing and the leaf-cutting ants peered from atop the leafy anteater's head, watching the warriors fade into the forest. They all held their breath until the entire terrified hoard had vanished.
Then the queen approached. "I don't think we'll be seeing them ever again, thanks to you and your enormous sculpture, Crickwing," she said. "Or should we call you Straightwing now? We need someone to help us keep this anteater in order, so I hope you will decide to join our colony. And I hear that you're an incredible chef."
"Oh, I just like to play with my food," Crickwing replied. "And please, call me Crickwing. Your Highness, I would very much like to stay. The first thing I want to do is prepare a great celebration feast for everybody."
"Three cheers for Crickwing!" shouted Eartha. All the ant joined the cheer, then rushed into the forest. They gathered the brightest flower petals they could find and cut them into sparkling bits.
All night at the banquet, everyone threw flower confetti, danced the six-step, and sang until sunlight came creeping through the trees.
The queen peeked at the dawn and blinked drowsily. "I declare today a holiday," she yawned.
"Hear, hear!" said Crickwing.
And for the first time in colony history, the leafcutters took a day off.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Colorful, figurative

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Features

Character traits

Character development

Simple Plot

Topic

Bullies

Food Chain

Insects

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

absolutely	ache	aches	aching	agitated
angrily	annual	approached	banquet	blurted
cargo	chef	chortled	clobbered	colony
confetti	conquest	cowering	crevice	crick
crouched	crowed	dangling	dastardly	deserves
drowsily	edible	eensy	exoskeleton	eyed
ferocious	flailed	glee	gravel	greenest
groggy	gulped	halt	heartbroken	hefty
highness	hoard	hugest	hunger	inched
incredible	leafcutter	leafcutters	level	lieutenant
lieutenant's	massive	masterpiece	meddles	mere
molecules	muddling	muttered	noticing	ocelot
paced	panic	patience	peace	peered
piling	pitches	plummeted	pounced	predators
prisoner	production	punier	quavered	rightfully
scaly	scrambled	sculpture	seethed	seize
shred	snarled	sparkling	spiny	stammered
streamed	stunned	swarmed	swiped	terra
terrified	throbbed	truss	twerps	warriors
wolfed	worth	yahoo	yawned	yelped