Text Leveling System

The Berenstain Bears and the Homework Hassle

RDQ:	522	Max Word/Sent	32	Total Words	1061		Diff Words	381
Lex	640	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	676	63.7%	Hi freq	165	43.3%
AR	2.8	Long Sentences	7	Low Freq occurs	33	3.1%	Low freq	28	7.3%

Mama was sitting in her favorite chair straightening up her sewing basket when she sniffed the air and said, "What's that funny smell?"
Papa looked up from the evening paper and sampled the air. "Hmmm," he said. "I smell it, too. It smells like..."
"Garbage!" said Mama. "It smells like garbage."
Papa sniffed again. "Now, where do you suppose..."
"I'll tell you where I suppose!" said Mama, who had put aside her sewing basket and sniffed around the room. "It's coming from Brother's backpack."
And sure enough, it was. There was an old banana peel, a brown apple core, and a moldy piece of bread in Brother's backpack.
But that wasn't all there was in Brother's backpack. Among the books and papers was a letter. It was old and wrinkled, and it was from his teacher. Mama read it.
Then she passed it to Papa. After Papa read it, he looked across the table at Brother, who was doing his homework.
At least, he was supposed to be doing his homework. And maybe he was. But it was hard to tell by looking at him. He had a card table set up in front of the television, that was showing his favorite program, The Bear Stooges. He was listening to his boom box and talking into a cell phone at the same time. There was a Game Bear and a bowl of popcorn on the TV And, oh yes, there were some school books and a paper and pencil, too.
"Excuse me, young sir," said Papa. "Is this the Mars space station?"
"I'll get back to you, Fred," said Brother.
He put down the cell phone and turned off the boom box. "I'm not quite reading you, Dad."
"You're not reading much of anything, according to this letter from your teacher. You may as well have been on Mars for all the attention you've been paying to your homework lately," said Papa.
"Letter? What letter?" asked Brother.
"This old, wrinkled letter that Mama found in your backpack," said Papa. The letter may have been old and wrinkled, but its message was clear.
"In my backpack?" said Brother. "I thought my backpack was private."
"When something starts to smell like garbage," said Mama, "it isn't private anymore.
Sister Bear couldn't resist putting her two cents in. "I don't see how you expect Brother to keep up with his homework. He has so many more interesting things to do. There's soccer, basketball, video games, going around like a big shot, and girls."
Brother turned on Sister. "Why, you little... !"
"That will be quite enough, Sister," said Papa. "Why don't you go do your own homework?"
"It's all done," said Sister. "See?"
"You call those scribbles homework, you little twerp?" shouted Brother.
"Now," said Mama, "let's everyone calm down and try to figure out what the problem is."
"I'll tell you what the problem is! The problem is too much homework! Vocabulary homework! Arithmetic homework! Science homework! It's homework, homework, homework! Every subject! Every day till it's coming out of my ears!"
"Uh-huh," said Papa. "Tell me, son, what is your homework for today?" "Adding and subtracting fractions and memorizing two stanzas of `The Bear Stood on the Burning Deck."'
"That really doesn't seem like too much homework to me, son," said Papa. Brother slumped and stared at the Bear Stooges, who were busy hitting
one another on the head.
"I'm not hearing any sort of explanation," said Papa. "I guess that's because tonight's homework isn't really the problem. The problem is that you haven't been handing in your homework on a daily basis. You haven't been taking care of business. You've been falling behind."
"Gee, what's going to happen?" asked Brother as the living room phone rang.
"It's the BRS," said Mama. "For you, Papa. "Take their number and I'll call them back,' said Papa.
"What's the BRS, Mama?" asked Sister. "It's the Bears' Revenue Service," said Mama. "They collect taxes."
"What's going to happen," said Papa, "is that there's not going to be any more Mars space station. No more boom box. No more popcorn. It's just you and your homework until you're all caught up."
"But that'll take forever!" moaned Brother. "Nevertheless," said Papa.
"You just don't understand!" said Brother, heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Mama.
"I'm just going for a walk," said Brother.
As often happened when Brother had a problem and went for a walk, his feet led him to Gramps and Gran's, just down the road.
Gramps and Gran could tell Brother was in trouble as soon as they opened
the door. After some milk and cookies, Brother told them the whole miserable story: the telltale letter, the missed assignments, the no television, the no video games, the no anything until he caught up. And he was so far behind that he'd never catch up.
"Oh, you'll catch up," said Gramps. "Your father did." "Huh?" said Brother.
"Same thing happened with your dad when he was your age," said Gramps. "Of course, there was no television then."
No television, thought Brother. Wow! That would have been like really being on Mars!
"We had radio," continued Gramps. "We still have it, of course. But radio was like television then. It had great stories every evening. There was a Western called Bearsmoke, and Buck Bruin in the Twenty-Fifth Century was sort of like Bear Trek is now. And your dad listened to them while he did his homework. And he was big on sports, just as you are. So he fell further and further behind. I clamped down on him, just the way he's clamping down on you."
Gee, thought Brother. Papa does understand. The thought that he'd gone through it all himself made Brother feel a little bit better.
A stranger was meeting with Papa when Brother got home.
"He's from the BRS," said Sister. "It has something to do with taxes. It looks like Papa hasn't been taking
care of business, either."
The stranger was about to leave.
"We'll be glad to give you a little more time. But you're going to have to catch up," he said as he left.
And that's how it worked out. Brother sat on one side of the card table, and Papa sat on the other side.
It was a good lesson for both of them.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Inferences: Some implications

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Author's purpose: Obvious

Features

Character traits

Simple problem/solution

Unusual use of vocabulary

Topic

*Feelings, Behaviors

*Schools & Education

Responsibility

Low Frequency Words

according	assignments	basis	clamping	fractions
further	gran's	handing	memorizing	miserable
nevertheless	private	resist	revenue	sampled
science	service	stanzas	stooges	straightening
subtracting	telltale	that'll	tonight's	trek
twerp	vocabulary	wrinkled