Text Leveling System

Extra Credit

RDQ:	2151	Max Word/Sent	49	Total Words	3527		Diff Words	991
Lex	920	Ave Word/.Sent	13	Hi Freq occurs	2701	76.6%	Hi freq	448	45.2%
AR	5.2	Long Sentences	23.2	Low Freq occurs	161	4.6%	Low freq	129	13%

IN THE HILLS ABOVE KABUL
sadeed knew he wasn't supposed to be listening to the men talking in the next room. He also knew he wasn't supposed to be peeking through the crack near the bottom of the old wooden door. But they had to be talking about him in there-why else would his teacher have invited him to the home of the head man of the village?

His teacher, Mahmood Jafari, had not told him much. "Please come to Akbar Khan's house this afternoon at four. He and his councillors meet today, and I have to speak with them. And I may need you to be there."
Sadeed thought perhaps his teacher was going to recommend him for a special honor. That
wasn't hard to imagine, not at all. Perhaps the village elders would award him a scholarship to one of the finest new schools in Kabul. He would wear blue trousers and a clean white shirt to classes every day, and he would have his own computer, and he would take his place as one of the future leaders of Afghanistan. His father and mother would be very proud of him. It would be a great opportunity. And Sadeed was certain he richly deserved it.
Through the crack in the door, Sadeed could see all seven men, sitting on cushions around a low table, sipping tea. An electric bulb hung overhead, and two wires ran across the ceiling to the gasoline generator outside. Mahmood was talking to Akbar Khan, but the teacher's back was toward the door, and Sadeed couldn't hear what he was saying.
When the teacher finished, someone Sadeed knew-Hassan Jaji-began to speak. Hassan stopped by his father's shop in the village bazaar at least once a week, and he sometimes stayed awhile, telling stories about his time as a freedom fighter during the war with the Soviet Union. One day he had shown Sadeed where a Russian grenade had blown two fingers off his right hand.
And as the man spoke now, that was the hand he used to stroke his chin.
"I am only a simple man," Hassan said, "and l would never try to stop progress. But our traditions protect us. And they protect our children. And I believe that the schoolteacher has asked us to allow something that would not be proper." The eyes of the men turned back to Mahmood. The teacher looked around the circle and cleared his throat, speaking more forcefully now so that Sadeed could hear every word he said. "What Hassan says about our traditions is certainly true." He paused, and Sadeed saw him hold up a bright green envelope with three stamps on it, each one a small picture of an American flag. The front of the envelope was decorated with two pink butterfly stickers.
The teacher said, "But it is also a tradition that we are a courteous people. And therefore one student from our village school must answer this letter from the girl in America. And I believe it would be most courteous if our very best student writes back, the one student who is most skillful with the English language. And that one student is Sadeed Bayat."
A pang of disappointment cut through Sadeed.
His name had just been spoken in the ears of the most important men in this part of Panjshir Province, and why? To be recommended for a great honor? No. To write a letter. To a girl.
Hassan stroked his chin again. He shook his head. "That letter is from an American girl. And should a boy and a girl be sharing their thoughts this way? No. Let one of the girls write back. A girl would be more proper."
And outside the door, Sadeed nodded and whispered, "Exactly!"
The teacher spoke up again. "To be sure, what Hassan says would be best. But the letter that goes back to America will represent our village, even our nation. And should we accept less than the very best writing, the best spelling and grammar? I know Sadeed Bayat-you may know him too, the son of Zakir the wheat merchant. He is a good boy. And his excellent writing will represent us well. His words will speak well of all the children of Afghanistan. And I feel sure that no harm will come of this. I feel sure that-"
Akbar Khan held up a hand, and Mahmood went silent.
The headman said, "Have you told Sadeed about this letter yet?"
"No," said the teacher. "I came to ask for advice."
Akbar nodded. "You did well to wait." The headman looked around the circle. "I agree that the finest student from our village must reply. And I agree that it would be best if a girl from our school is the writer." Akbar turned to the teacher. "Sadeed has a sister, doesn't he?"
"Yes," Mahmood said. "Amira, about two years younger."
The headman smiled. "Just so. Amira will write back to the girl in America. And the finest student from our village will watch over her and help her, doing what is needed to be sure that the writing is excellent. But only the girl will sign the letter. And therefore, all will be proper. And, of course, our teacher promises that nothing shameful will come of this." Looking Mahmood full in the face, he said, "Do you promise this?" Mahmood nodded. "I do."
"Then it is decided," said Akbar Khan. "And now we will have more tea."
Fifteen minutes later, when his teacher came out into the entry hall, Sadeed was sitting on the long wooden bench with two men who had arrived to speak before the village elders. He
stood up and followed his teacher down the hallway, out the door, across the walled courtyard, and then through the iron gate that opened onto the main road.
As they stood beside the road, Mahmood smiled and said, "Thank you for coming, Sadeed. It turns out that I needn't have bothered you. I know you need to hurry to your job now, but I must speak with you before school tomorrow morning. I need your help with an important job."
Sadeed nodded, taking care to put a puzzled look on his face.
"So," Mahmood said. "Good evening."
And with a small, formal bow, the teacher turned right and walked toward the school, headed home. Not only did he work at the school, but he lived in a room built against the rear wall of the building.
Sadeed turned in the other direction, headed back toward the bazaar. He worked for his father every day after school, and the shop would be open for at least another hour.
As he walked along the road, following a large man riding on a small donkey, he thought about all he had heard. No great honors were heading his way. However, Akbar Khan himself had
called him "the finest student from our village." So that was good.
And Sadeed also thought about tomorrow, about how he would have to pretend to be surprised when his teacher told him he must help Amira just like he had pretended to be puzzled a few moments ago.
But the only thing that actually puzzled Sadeed was how his teacher could call writing a letter to a girl in America "an important job."
Because that made no sense at all.
IN THE HILLS ABOVE LINSDALE
t was a long way down, but Abby tried not to think about it. She dug the rubber toes of her rock-climbing shoes deeper into the crevice. She tested the grip of her left hand, then arched her back and stretched her right arm above the ledge, feeling around for something she could grab onto.
Reaching made the strap of her helmet pull tighter against her chin. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead, gained speed, then dripped off the tip of her nose and disappeared, far, far below. One slip, one false move, and this climb would be over. The rope might save her life, but a fall would mean defeat. It would mean this mountain had beaten her. And Abby would not accept that.
There wasn't a breath of wind, no cries from soaring eagles, no harsh sunshine, nothing to break her total concentration. And there was nothing in her way to the summit-except this two-foot ledge, this little gray overhang, scraping against the top of her helmet.
Her right hand found a bump overhead, a lump, and yes, there was an upside grip on it, wide enough for four fingers.
But if she let go with her left hand, and gave up both toeholds to increase her reach, could those four fingers of her right hand hold tight? And with her feet hanging, could she hold on long enough for her left hand to reach up and find another grip? And if her left hand did find a grip, would she have the strength to pull herself higher so she could get a new foothold?
There was only one way to find out.
Still holding on with her left hand, Abby reached down and pushed her right hand into the chalk bag hanging from the belt at her waist. The white powder scoured the sweat from her fingers, leaving them so dry they almost squeaked. She reached up again, took a firm grip with her right hand, let go with her left, and then stepped away from her toe-holds, trying to keep her legs 'from swinging.
Hanging by just four fingers now, she tilted her head back, eyes searching above for a bump or a crack. And there it was. She pulled with her right arm, reached up with her left, but the second grip was still an inch too high-an inch that might as well have been a mile.
Her right-hand grip was failing, and Abby made a desperate grab with her left. But the effort made her legs swing, and that caused more strain on her aching fingers. And that was it.
She fell back and plunged straight down, a tenth of a second, then another. The rope stretched, then snapped taut and caught her. She spun wildly toward the gray wall, but she was ready, both hands on the rope now, her legs bent to absorb the shock.
Twenty-six feet below, Mr. Insley gave a blast on his whistle. "Jan, Carrie, let 'er down easy." And five seconds later, Abby Carson had both feet on the floor next to the climbing wall in her first-period gym class.
It was probably the flatness of the land in central Illinois that had gotten Abby so excited about climbing. And she wasn't alone. Lots of other kids in town also had the climbing bug.
Her big brother, Tom, claimed that he and some friends had reached the peak of the town's water tower, more than 120 feet. It took Abby's breath away to think about being up that high-even if her brother's story about the daring climb, followed by a police chase through the cornfields, wasn't 100 percent true. He was known to tell some pretty tall tales.
But the massive concrete grain elevator by the railroad tracks at the edge of town? Someone had definitely climbed that thing. Because the person who got to the summit had left a mark: the name of the high school teams, painted near the top of the tallest silo. The word LIONS was so big that other teams coming to town could see it while their buses were still five miles away.
However, in the town of Linsdale, the thirty-foot wall in the gym at Baldridge Elementary School was the tallest man-made thing a kid could climb on-without getting into trouble with the law.
The wall had been installed a week before Thanksgiving, and instantly it had become Abby's favorite thing about school. Ever. And before Christmas vacation, she had mastered every route to the top-except the path that led to the overhanging
ledge. Here she was in the first week of March, and it still blocked her way. Six times she had tried to beat the ledge, and six times she had failed.
Even so, Abby loved that wall. She loved the brightly colored grips spaced out across the dark gray surface. She loved making her way upward, inch by inch. And she loved being alone up there, that feeling of total self-reliance. If she failed, she had no one to blame but herself.
Abby had never even seen a real mountain with her own eyes, much less tried to climb one. So for now, the wall would have to do. And as she walked toward her second-period class, she replayed every step and each grip of today's ascent, running through it like a slow-motion movie in her head.
She gave it her full attention for two reasons. First, she wanted to make a better climb next time-a perfect climb. And second, thinking about the wall was much more fun than dreading all the math and science and reading and social studies she was going to have to endure for the next six hours. After first-period gym class, Abby felt like the rest of the school day was zero fun like a winter with no snow. Or a summer without sunshine. And these days, she was under a ton of extra pressure.
Because the truth was, Abby had never been a very good student. And during the first half of sixth grade, her academic problems had gone from bad to worse.
And then, about two weeks ago in February, her problems had moved beyond worse-all the way to rotten.
A
WORST CASE Abby enjoyed a number of things about
school. She loved the noise and energy on her bus every morning, and she always sat with her friend Mariah way in the back with the other sixth graders. She loved hanging out with her friends in the hallways, and she was very proud of the incredible mess inside her locker. On most days she even liked the food in the cafeteria, and when they served grilled cheese with a half cup of sweet canned pears, she always went back for seconds. She loved afternoon recess, loved art class and music class, and absolutely adored gym class, especially on the days when she got to climb.
Really, the only problem Abby had with
school was all that schoolwork. She didn't like it, and she never had. She was a decent reader, she was okay at math, and she was plenty smart. It wasn't that she couldn't do the work. She just didn't like doing it.
And most of the time, she didn't see the point. For example, how many times was some math teacher going to make her prove that she really did know how to add and subtract and multiply and divide? Enough, already.
And if she knew how to write a decent sentence with a subject and a verb, and if she always remembered to put a capital letter at the beginning and a punctuation mark at the end, then why did she have to suffer through all those endless writing exercises? It wasn't like she had plans to get a job writing for a newspaper or something.
Plus, she knew the names of all fifty states, and she knew where they were on the map, and she also knew the names of all the capital cities. Like Helena, Montana. And she knew how to find all seven continents on a globe, knew the beginning and ending dates for lots of important wars, knew the first sentence of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence by heart, and she could recite almost half of Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address. She even knew the names of the five countries that are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. So why did she have to keep reading and reading those huge, thick social studies books every single year?
Because Abby didn't like being cooped up in her room or the library, sitting at a desk with her nose in some book or her fingers tapping on a keyboard. She wanted more hands-on experience with rock climbing, wanted to learn more about tying knots and rappelling, wanted to learn about all the technical gear like cams and pitons and pulleys. And especially, she wanted to be outside.
She wanted to be getting her boots muddy in the woods and fields behind her house. She wanted to be sharpening her skill with the bow and arrows she had made. She wanted to be fixing up the shelter she'd started to build in the huge oak tree that had blown over during a storm last summer. Schoolwork-and especially homework-felt like an interruption, something that kept her from doing all the things she liked best. Even though her parents kept after her, she never really gave her schoolwork much attention or effort. So during the first half of the year
Abby's grades, which had never been great, slid a little lower.
In the back of her mind, Abby knew she was getting near some kind of danger point. So when the school guidance counselor sent a note and called her out of gym class one morning in February, she wasn't that surprised. She'd had a talk with Mrs. Carmody about her schoolwork during fourth grade, and two talks during fifth grade. As she walked through the office and into the guidance center, she had a pretty good idea about what to expect.
"Hi, Mrs. Carmody. You wanted to see me?" "Yes, Abby. Let's sit over at the table."
Abby saw that the table had already been set with two places, sort of like for a meal-one place with a white business-size envelope, and the other with a thick green file folder. Mrs. Carmody took the chair in front of the folder, and as Abby sat, she saw that the white envelope had her name on it.
She picked it up and said, "Am I supposed to read this?"
Mrs. Carmody said, "Yes, but let's talk a little first, all right?" The counselor paused a moment. "Your academic teachers have asked me to tell
you and your parents that they think it might be best if you repeat sixth grade next year. And I've looked over your records, and I think they're right. That's what that letter is about. Now, you can be the one to tell your mom and dad about this, or if you'd like, I can give them a phone call today to let them know the letter is on its way. I've mailed it to them, but I wanted to talk to you so it wouldn't come as a total surprise. So, can I answer any questions for you?"
Abby's mouth was suddenly so dry that her tongue felt as if it had stuck to her teeth. She stared at Mrs. Carmody, and for almost five seconds it was like someone had pushed the pause button for the entire universe. She whispered, "I'm gonna be . . . left back?"
The counselor nodded. "That is what we're recommending. Junior high school is hard enough all by itself, without having to catch up on basic academics. I'm sure you can understand that. We've had some experience with other students, and another year here will really be a big help to you, especially later on."
Abby kept staring. "But, left back? I can't do that. I mean . . . I can't do that."
"I know it's a lot to take in all at once like this,
but just take a deep breath or two, and remember that what we want to do here is what's best for you. That's all. Can I get you a drink of water?" Abby shook her head.
"Do you want to talk about this?"
She shook her head again and said, "I . . . I don't know what to say about it. I mean, it's like you said. A lot to take in."
"Well, it is, and I understand that, I really do. But I want you to remember that we want whatever's best for you. So, for now, you should probably go on back to class, and just think about it, all right? And if you want to talk to me again later today, here's a permission note you can use anytime." She slid a slip of paper across the table to Abby. "And let me know if you'd like me to be the one to tell your mom and dad, all right?"
Abby took the permission note and put it into the white envelope. As she stood up, Mrs. Carmody said, "Everything's going to work out, Abby. You'll see. So I'll talk to you later."
Abby nodded and said, "Okay." She tried to smile a little, but her face wasn't working. She walked through the office, and then out the door and along the fourth-grade hallway back toward the gym. Several of the fourth-grade classroom doors

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Many Long Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Sequence of Events: Chronological

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Character traits

Character development

Integral Setting - Cultural/Regional

Simple Plot

Topic

Sharing

Cultures

Customs

Differences

Letters (mail)

*Community

Friendship

*Family & Friends

Low Frequency Words

absolutely	absorb	academic	academics	aching
advice	afghanistan	akbar	arched	ascent
cafeteria	chalk	concentration	concrete	continents
cooped	cornfields	council	councillors	counselor
courteous	courtyard	crevice	cushions	decent
declaration	deserved	disappointment	dreading	elders
elementary	elevator	excellent	flatness	forcefully
formal	freedom	future	gasoline	generator
gettysburg	gonna	grammar	grenade	guidance
harsh	honor	honors	illinois	increase
incredible	independence	installed	instantly	interruption
junior	kabul	keyboard	khan	knots
language	ledge	massive	mastered	moments
montana	motion	multiply	nation	needn't
opportunity	overhang	overhanging	pang	pause
paused	percent	permanent	permission	pitons
plunged	pressure	progress	prove	province
pulleys	punctuation	rappelling	reasons	recite
recommend	recommended	recommending	reliance	replayed
represent	route	scholarship	schoolteacher	schoolwork
science	scoured	security	shameful	shown
silo	sipping	soaring	social	soviet
studies	summit	sweat	taut	technical
tilted	tradition	traditions	trickled	trousers
tying	union	universe	upward	verb
walled	whatever's	writer	younger