Text Leveling System

A Simple Gift

RDQ:	1532	Max Word/Sent	54	Total Words	2891		Diff Words	852
Lex	830	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	2101	72.7%	Hi freq	383	45%
AR	4.4	Long Sentences	10.7	Low Freq occurs	123	4.3%	Low freq	96	11.3%

JUST THE RIGHT WORDS "Mom, you'll never guess what!"
Carrie slammed the front door of their tenth-floor New York apartment so hard that her mother ran out of her office and rushed toward the living room, almost knocking over a drooping plant on the way.
"I got a part in my class play!" Carrie announced before her mother could possibly guess what. "And not just any part!" Carrie gasped, trying to catch her breath. "It's a singing part. And guess what I get to be?"
"May I have three guesses?" Mrs. O'Connor asked.
Carrie nodded. "And the first two don't even count."
"Little Red Riding Hood?"	. "Guess again."
"Sleeping Beauty?" "Nope. Better than that!"
"You're Peter Pan? That's who I wanted to be when I was your age . . . even if Peter Pan was a boy.
"You're not even close, Mom. Think really big!" "Give me a hint."
"Okay." Carrie closed her eyes, concentrating hard. "What comes in threes?"
"Blind mice!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Connor. "Mom!" Carrie could make the word last two syllables-or three, if she was really exasperated. "Little pigs? You've been cast as a singing little pie"
"Mom!" The word lasted three syllables this time. "For your information, you are talking to a molar."
"A molar? As in teeth?"
As smart as she was, her mom sure could be clueless sometimes, Carrie thought.
"Yes, as in teeth."
"But most people have twelve molars, Carrie, not three! I'd have never guessed that in a million years.
"Yeah, but there are three up and three down on
each side." Carrie laughed, proud of her extra-hard hint. "Anyway, we're writing a play for National Children's Dental Health Month. Mrs. Gregory already thought of a name for it."
"Which is?"
"The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing but the Tooth," Carrie said cautiously. "We really didn't like the title all that much, Mom, but we didn't want to hurt our teacher's feelings, she was so proud of it."
"I kind of like the title," Mom said. "It's so"-she struggled for the right word-"so unforgettable." "And I, Ann McCarrity O'Connor, better known as Carrie, am a molar. It's one of the most important roles. I'm the only tooth that sings."
"And what exactly do you sing?" asked Mrs. O'Connor.
"I've got to make up the song myself," she said. "I think the teacher picked me to write it because ... because you're a real writer and she figured you could help."
"Well, let's see if I can."
Mrs. O'Connor walked to the office, where she did her writing, and motioned for Carrie to follow. Inside, she nodded for Carrie to sit down at the desk. Carrie dropped her book bag to the floor and settled herself in her mother's writing chair, which she considered the best seat in the house.
"So where do I begin?" Carrie asked.
"I always think of what I want to say first. Then I figure out exactly how to say it. Just get something down on paper, Carrie. You can always change it later." She cleared away pages filled with scribbling and put a fresh pad of paper in front of Carrie. Then she sat down in a chair on the other side of the desk.
Carrie looked around the office. The dozen Michael Madigan books her mother had written were lined up neatly on the bookshelf along the wall. On the desk lay a stack of letters from children who had read those books. Mrs. O'Connor always answered every letter, though sometimes she didn't get it done too quickly. Carrie saw the well-worn dictionary, creased open to the W. Then she saw that picture, the one that had gotten her in such trouble a few weeks before-the faded photo of a boy holding a fish on a cane pole with one hand and clutching the fingers of a pigtailed girl with the other. It had been on her mother's desk for as long as Carrie could remember ... until the night when Carrie had accidentally knocked it off and cracked the frame. Usually when Carrie did something wrong, her mother's disappointment just bubbled up. But that night it had boiled over big-time. Carrie didn't really understand why her mother was so upset over a little thing like that picture frame. She had broken lots of other things before ... a crystal lamp, a porcelain rabbit, even her big toe. Her mother hadn't ever made such a big deal out of anything. True, Carrie had suggested that a breeze had blown the frame off the desk, until her mother pointed out that the windows were closed. But when Carrie finally confessed, you'd have thought the frame was made of pure gold instead of Popsicle sticks.
"So what do you want to say about teeth?" Mom's question from across the desk prodded Carrie's thoughts away from the picture and back to the play.
"Most grown-ups have thirty-two of them. Brush after every meal. In circles. Not too hard. Not too soft. Remember to floss. That's very important, too."
"Well, there's your raw material. Now think of a tune you like. Something everybody knows. Like `Row, Row, Row Your Boat.' Everybody knows that one, Carrie."
"Brush, brush, brush your teeth," Carrie began timidly, looking at her mother for approval. Mrs. O'Connor nodded for her to go on.
Carrie couldn't think of a second line. "Maybe I've got writer's block," she said. Her mother always said that when she got stuck.
"Morning, noon, and night . . ." Mrs. O'Connor suggested. She had to add the third line, too. "If you treat your teeth like friends . . ."
She paused, wanting Carrie to finish the song. "Now what rhymes with night, Carrie?" she asked. "Fight. Sight. Tight. Right." Carrie was good at rhyming. "That's it, Mom. Right!" She sang the last line herself. "Then they will treat you right."
"Oh no!" Mrs. O'Connor groaned playfully. "Not another writer in the family!"
"Now I want to write a song all by myself," said Carrie. Ever since she could talk, "by myself" had been one of Carrie's favorite things to say.
"You just stay right at my desk while I get supper ready," said Mrs. O'Connor. "Your father has to work late at the hospital tonight."
"D.D. always has to work late at the hospital," said Carrie, shrugging her bony shoulders. She called her father D.D. instead of Dad or Daddy. When she was little, Carrie had first called him D.D. on the very day he graduated from medical school. Her father told people D.D. stood for Doctor Dad. Carrie knew it was really just baby talk, like the way she had said "boon" for balloon or "baw" for ball. But she loved it whenever he told someone that story.
Her mother ignored Carrie's comment about the hospital. "So what would you like to eat?"
"Pasketti!" Carrie laughed. She never grew tired of her mother's spaghetti.
"Pasketti," agreed Mrs. O'Connor. "I'll just get the sauce started and be right back to see what you've come up with."
Carrie used her mother's fancy black fountain pen to jot ideas onto the yellow pad of paper just like her mother did. Then she crossed out some words just like her mother did. Then she balled up the piece of paper and tossed it across the room at a wastebasket. Her mother always did that, too. "Two points for me," she said to herself when the shot went in.
By the time the smell of sautéing onions and garlic was drifting through the apartment, Carrie had written the perfect lyrics for her song. She typed them up neatly on her mother's computer, which was on one side of the desk. Her mother could type without looking at the keys. Carrie typed very slowly, using one finger.
When her mother returned, Carrie handed her the sheet of paper. "You sing it to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' " she explained.
Mrs. O'Connor first read Carrie's words aloud slowly:
Twinkle, twinkle, little tooth. We all need you, that's the truth.
You must be brushed and flossed just right, Morning, afternoon, and night.
Then Mom began to sing the words. Carrie joined in and they sang the song over and over, faster and faster, until they both dissolved into giggles.
Her mother hugged Carrie before she could squirm away.
"I just love it when my words come out right," Carrie said proudly, folding the paper precisely into a little square and sticking it into a folder inside her book bag.
A STAR IS BORN
"So did you really think I was good?" Carrie asked her father as they walked the five blocks from the Holcomb School to their apartment after the class play. Her mother held one of Carrie's hands while they waited for a crosswalk light to change from red; her father held the other. It was late, past Carrie's bedtime, but the streets were still filled with the sound of honking taxis and the diesel smell of buses that whooshed by now and then. Carrie looked at the three-foot-tall tooth costume D.D. held in his other hand. It really did resemble a molar, with its broad cratered top and its creamy color. Carrie had made it from paper-máché in art class all by herself.
"You were absolutely terrific," D.D. said. "My daughter was absolutely terrific!" he shouted to no one in particular.
The night was warm for February, and Carrie could almost feel spring around the corner.
"You'd get my vote for molar of the year," her mother added. "Especially that `toe heel, toe heel, shuffle' dance part. That really was a showstopper, Carrie."
Carrie hadn't been sure about that part. She was glad her mother liked it.
A man passing by looked at Carrie's costume and then smiled at her. "I hope the tooth fairy leaves you a lot of money for that one," he teased.
Carrie laughed and imagined how much a tooth this size might be worth. A hundred dollars? The most she had ever gotten for a baby tooth was a dollar, though her best friend, Holland, always got two when she put hers under the pillow. She wished Holland hadn't moved away.
Every few steps Carrie would sing another line from her song, pulling on her parents' hands to get them to walk in time to the music.
"We must look strange, walking like this," D.D. said with a laugh.
"Nobody will notice if we act strange. It's New York City." Carrie's mother wasn't complaining. She
always said things like that about New York, and Carrie knew she wouldn't really want to live anywhere else.
"Do you wish you had grown up here?" Carrie asked her father.
"I liked growing up in Missouri. I just wish we could go back there more often to visit your grandma and grandpa."
"Mom, you were born in North Carolina, right?" "In Brownsville, North Carolina, honey. A little town not too far from Asheville. We moved from there when I was about your age, and I haven't been back since. They must still remember me, though."
"What makes you say that, Mom?"
"Because they want to make one of my books into a children's play for their Fourth of July homecoming. The town will be a hundred and fifty years old this year, Carrie, and they want to produce a play as part of the big celebration. A director called me about producing it last week."
"You're going to let them, aren't you, Mom?" "Probably. I've never let anyone make one of my books into a play before, but I knew this director a long time ago. He has a wonderful reputation on Broadway, and I'd trust him to do it right."
"Which book?"
"Michael Madigan's Curtain Call."
"It's my favorite! Are you going to Brownsville to see it?"
"I'd like to, but I don't know. I've got a deadline for my new book the first of August, Carrie, and you know how crazy it gets around deadline time."
Carrie's mind began whirring with excitement, and after a couple of blocks she couldn't contain herself. "Will there be kids my age in the play?" she asked.
"I suppose so. There are ten-year-old kids in my books."
"Do you think I could be in it?"
"Oh, honey, I don't think so. North Carolina's so far away. Besides, I wouldn't want people to think you got a part just because you're the author's daughter."
"What if I tried out for the play and nobody even knew who I was and I got a role all by myself? I could change my name to something catchy, like Carrie Berry or Carrie Perry." Carrie saw her mother smile. "You write under a different name; why can't I use a different one, too?"
"Kate McCarrity isn't a pen name," her mother explained. "It's the name I was born with. I had written several books before I married your father, and I just kept on writing under the name readers knew me by."
"Please, Mom," Carrie begged. "I want to try out for that play more than I've ever wanted anything." "It takes a long time to rehearse for a play, Carrie. A couple of weeks at least. We couldn't leave D.D. that long."
"D.D. always working at the hospital anyway." When she saw her father wince, Carrie was sorry she had said it. "We could call him every night, and he could fly down on the Fourth of July to see me in the play," she said, her voice full of enthusiasm. "It would be so much fun, and I just know I could get a part. You said I was absolutely terrific tonight, didn't you?"
"We'll think about it," her parents both said at the same time. When her father said those words, it almost always meant no. When her mother said them, it meant maybe.
"I've decided I want to be an actress," Carrie said as they turned into their apartment building. "Besides, Michael Madigan's almost like a brother to me. He'd want me to try out." When her parents didn't respond, Carrie tried hard to pout, but she couldn't keep back a smile when D.D. introduced her to their doorman as Madame Molar.
A half hour later, before she drifted off to sleep, Carrie yelled from her bedroom, "If I were the mother, I'd let you try out!"
A BIG DEAL
"Why didn't you tell me it was such a big deal?" was the first thing Carrie said when she saw the poster in the lobby of the old hotel where she and her mother were staying on the Brownsville square. It was summer vacation, four months after she first heard about the play.
"Because you didn't ask me," Mrs. O'Connor said. Carrie ran her fingers over the words on the poster and read them aloud slowly:
Auditions for Brownsville's 150th Anniversary Homecoming Play Michael Madigan's Curtain Call Performances: July 3-10
Based on the best-selling children's book by Brownsville's OWN Award-Winning Writer Kate McCarrity
Directed by Brownsville's OWN Award-Winning Director L. Bennett Sanders
At the Apple Barn Theater Then in smaller type the poster said: Roles for
One adult female (any age) Two boys, age 8-11 Three girls, age 8-11
And one very smart dog (any age) At the Apple Barn Theater Saturday, June 15, at noon Bring bio and recent photo.
All those auditioning (except the dogs) should memorize a short poem or monologue. Carrie's mother grabbed the handles of their two big suitcases and began to roll them from the lobby down the hall to their room. Carrie followed, lugging a smaller suitcase that didn't have wheels. The
Brownsville Hotel didn't look anything like the hotels Carrie was accustomed to seeing in New York. The lobby was about the size of her bedroom at home, and the old wooden floors creaked. Their room at the end of the hall had white ruffled curtains, and an old quilt with a pattern shaped like a star was draped across the end of each twin bed. The sink in their bathroom sat on a pedestal, and the tub stood on four claws. Her mother switched on a ceiling fan and pushed open two windows. "I'd almost forgotten how good mountain air smelled," she said as she scraped her fingers lightly across the rusted window screen.
Carrie almost wished her father hadn't let her come here. He had said she would make a good lawyer, the way she had argued with him so much about coming. First, she had asked him, "What if Shirley Temple's mother hadn't let her try out for her first show?" Carrie knew that D.D. liked old Shirley Temple movies even more than she did, but he hadn't even answered. Then she told him the pure mountain air would be good for her asthma. She figured since he was a doctor, the argument would really get to him. "I almost suffocated last summer in New York, it was so hot," she had said, clutching her throat and making choking sounds for effect. "You're getting to be a better actress all the time," D.D. had said. Then she had reminded him how grouchy Mom got when she had another book

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Author's purpose: Obvious

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Character traits

Clear cause/effect

Simple Plot

Topic

Remembering

Self Esteem

Plays

*Entertainment & Fun

*Family & Friends

Performing

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

absolutely	accidentally	accustomed	anniversary	announced
approval	asheville	asthma	auditioning	auditions
bio	boon	brownsville	brownsville's	cautiously
clueless	concentrating	cratered	curtain	curtains
diesel	disappointment	dissolved	drooping	effect
enthusiasm	flossed	garlic	graduated	holcomb
homecoming	ignored	imagined	introduced	knocking
lawyer	lightly	lobby	lugging	lyrics
máché	madame	madigan	madigan's	material
mccarrity	medical	missouri	molar	molars
motioned	national	particular	pasketti	paused
pedestal	performances	pigtailed	playfully	poem
porcelain	precisely	prodded	produce	producing
pure	recent	rehearse	reputation	resemble
respond	rhymes	rhyming	ruffled	rusted
sauce	sautéing	showstopper	shrugging	shuffle
squirm	suffocated	suitcases	syllables	taxis
temple's	terrific	theater	timidly	unforgettable
whirring	whooshed	wince	worth	writer
writer's