Text Leveling System

Mrs. Lizzy is Dizzy

RDQ:	775	Max Word/Sent	39	Total Words	3020		Diff Words	727
Lex	690	Ave Word/.Sent	6	Hi Freq occurs	2093	69.3%	Hi freq	327	45%
AR	3.2	Long Sentences	3.1	Low Freq occurs	120	4%	Low freq	68	9.4%

The Lockdown!
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
It was Friday, one of my favorite days
of the week. Do you know why Friday is
one of my favorite days? Because the next
day is Saturday. And then comes Sunday.
And on Saturday and Sunday there's no
school.]]
Yay!
My teacher is Mr. Granite. He's from
another planet, but he's always talking
about our environment.
"Always recycle your plastic bottles," Mr.
Granite told us. "Because plastic bottles
can be made into plastic lawn furniture.
And plastic lawn furniture can be made 
back into plastic bottles. And plastic
bottles and plastic lawn furniture can
be made into plastic cup holders, so you
can relax and drink from a plastic bottle
while you're sitting on your plastic lawn
furniture. And plastic ... "
Mr. Granite didn't get the chance to
finish his sentence because at that very]]
moment the school secretary, Mrs. Patty,
made an announcement over the loudspeaker.
Attention," she said, "Dr. Emer is in the
building."
"Dr. Emer is in the building!" shouted
Michael, who never ties his shoes.
"Dr. Emer is in the building!" shouted
Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff
that isn't food.
"Dr. Emer is in the building!" shouted
Neil, who we call the nude kid even
though he wears clothes.
"Dr. Emer is in the building!" shouted
Andrea Young, this annoying girl with
curly brown hair who I hate.]]
Everybody was freaking out!
"Who's Dr. Emer?,, I asked.
Emer is short for emergency, Arlo! 
said Andrea. (She calls me by my real
name because she knows I don't like it.)
"You probably weren't paying attention
when they told us about Dr. Emer."
I wasn't paying attention to your face,
I told Andrea.
"It's a lockdown, AJ." said Ryan. "That's
what it means when they announce that
Dr. Emer is in the building."
Oh, yeah! Now I remember. Lockdowns
are cool. Just in case a bad guy ever breaks
into the school, we have to lock our classroom
door, turn off the lights, sit on the ]]
floor in the corner, and stay really quiet
until the lockdown is over.*
We all rushed over to the corner. Mr.
Granite locked the door. He made us sit
boy-girl-boy-girl so we wouldn't talk to
each other. I had to sit next to Andrea
Young. Ugh, disgusting!
"Everyone stay calm," said Mr. Granite.
We all sat without talking for like a
million hundred seconds.
"Can we whisper now? I finally asked.
"Okay," Mr. Granite said, "but quietly."
"I heard on TV that a crazy person.
Lockdowns are even cooler than fire drills. Fire drills
 are still cool because we get to stand around on the playground
instead of learn stuff. One time I hypnotized
 Andrea, and she went crazy and pulled the fire alarm.]]
escaped from the loony bin last week," I
whispered.
"Really? whispered Emily, who is
Andrea's crybaby friend.
You shouldn't say crazy person, Arlo,
whispered Andrea. "My mother is a psychologist.
She told me we should say
psychotic.
"Maybe the psycho who escaped from
the loony bin is inside our school right
now! said Michael.]]
"Maybe it's a zombie psycho," said
Ryan.
"Maybe it's a zombie cannibal psycho,
said Neil.
Maybe it's a zombie cannibal psycho
who eats kids for breakfast!,, I said.
 said Mr. Granite.
"Stop trying to scare Emily," whispered
Andrea.
Emily is such a scaredy-cat. I bet she
would have run out of the room if we
weren't in the middle of a lockdown.
"We're all going to die, I whispered.
"I'm scared! said Emily.
"Me too, somebody else said.
Sheesh, get a grip! It's just a lockdown.]]
"I have an idea," said Mr. Granite. "Let's
hold hands. It will help calm us down.
Everyone take the hand of the person sitting
next to you."
Andrea looked at me.
"Hold my hand, Arlo," she said.
"No way," I said. "I'm not holding your
hand."
"You have to," Andrea told me. "Mr.
Granite said so."
I looked at Mr. Granite. He gave me one
of those teacher looks.
I held Andrea's hand. Ugh, gross!
 Ryan whispered. A.J. and
Andrea are holding hands. They must be
in love!]]
"When are you gonna get married?"
whispered Michael.
said Mr. Granite.
Andrea kept looking at me and
smiling.
"If we were married, Arlo, we would
hold hands like this all the time," she told]]
me. "Holding hands is so romantic."
"If we were married," I said, "I would
jump off a bridge."
"Oh, snap!" said Ryan.
"You're mean, Arlo!
I had to hold hands with Andrea in
the dark for a million hundred minutes. I
thought I was gonna die.
And then suddenly, the door unlocked.
And then the doorknob turned.
"It's the crazy person who escaped from
the loony bin!" whispered Ryan. Everybody
was freaking out.
And you'll never believe who walked
through the door at that moment.
Nobody. It's impossible to walk through]]
a door! Doors are made of wood. If we
could walk through wood, they wouldn't
bother putting up doors ..
But you'll never believe who walked
through the doorway.
I'm not gonna tell you.
Okay, okay, I'll tell you. But you have
to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah]]
Crazy Week
The person who walked through the
doorway was Officer Spence, our school
security guard!
Officer Spence acts like he's a real policeman.
But security guards aren't allowed
to carry guns or beat up bad guys or do
anything cool.]]
"It's all clear," Officer
Spence announced. "The
lockdown is over."
"Yay!" everybody
shouted.
"Thank you, Officer Spence,"
said Mr. Granite.
"Just doing my duty, sir."
We all giggled because
Officer Spence said the
word "duty," which sounds
just like "doody." It's okay to say "duty"
in school, but you're not allowed to say
"doody." Grown-ups get really mad.
Nobody knows why.
"Did they find the crazy person who]]
escaped from the loony bin?  asked Officer
Spence.
No, he replied. "That person is still at
large."
"If they didn't find him, how do they
know how big he is?" I asked.
Andrea rolled her eyes.
"At large means missing, Arlo!" she
said.
"Your face is missing," I told Andrea.
"Oh, snap!" said Ryan.
"Don't worry," Officer Spence told us.
"I've got my eyes open."
I hope so. It would be weird to walk
around trying to find crazy people with
your eyes closed. You'd bump into stuff.]]
Officer Spence makes no sense.
Mr. Granite went back to teaching us
about recycling plastic, but a few minutes
later there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it now?" Mr. Granite looked
annoyed.
It was our principal, Mr. Klutz, and our
vice principal, Mrs. Jafee. Mr. Klutz has
no hair at all. I mean none. But when he
poked his head in the doorway, he was
wearing a long blond wig! Mrs. Jafee had
one on too. It was hilarious.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of
your company?"* asked Mr. Granite. "And.
 That means "What are you doing here?" in grown-up
talk.]]
what's with the crazy hair?"
"Next week will be Crazy Week at Ella
Mentry School," announced Mr. Klutz.
"Monday will be Crazy-Hair Day, so everybody
should come to school with crazy
hair. Doesn't that sound like fun?]]
"Yes!,, said all the girls.
"No!" said all the boys.
"And Tuesday will be Crazy-Clothes
Day," said Mrs. Jafee. "Everybody should .
dress up crazy, you betcha!,,
"Wednesday will be Crazy-Hat Day,
said Mr. Klutz.
"Thursday will be Crazy-Shoes Day,"
said Mrs. Jafee. and Friday will be Crazy 
Everything Day!
"We'll send a note home for your parents
in your backpacks," said Mr. Klutz.
"But we wanted you kids to get excited
about Crazy Week at Ella Mentry School.
That's silly. Parents can't fit in a backpack. Except for
really small parents, I guess.]]
"It's going to be one crazy week, by
golly!  said Mrs. Jafee.
Like our school wasn't crazy enough
already!]]
Crazy-Hair Day
Monday was Crazy-Hair Day. My mom
put this stinky gel stuff on my hair and
combed it all toward the middle to make
a fake mohawk. She called it a fohawk . It
was cool.
Michael sprayed green dye in his hair.
Neil the nude kid had on a baldy wig. He ]]
looked just like Mr. Klutz! Ryan put some
orange stuff in his hair but left thin, dark
lines in it so his head looked like a basketball.
Andrea and Emily put colored
ribbons and bows all over their hair.
Even Mr. Granite had crazy hair. He
showed up with purple dreadlocks.It was
hilarious. You should
have been there!]]
After we put our backpacks away and
pledged the allegiance, Mr. Granite said it
was time for math. I hate math. Why do we
have to learn math when there are calculators
in the world? That's like walking ten
miles to a store when you can take a car.
It's really hard to pay attention to math
when your teacher has purple dreadlocks.
In fact, it was hard to learn anything that
morning because we were all looking at
each other's crazy hair. My mohawk was
itching, too.
After a million hundred hours, it was
 time for lunch. And then, of course, it was
the best time of the day.
Recess!]]
Recess rocks! It's the only thing I like
about school. We get to go out on the
playground and do whatever we want. My
friend Billy who lives around the corner
told me that when you go to heaven, it's
like recess all the time.
I went to play on the swings with Ryan,
Michael, and Neil the nude kid. Andrea
and her girly friends hung around so they
could annoy us, like always.
So there we were, minding our own
business on the swings, when this lady
walked over from across the street with
yellow hair. Well, her hair was yellow, not
the street. It would be weird if streets were
yellow.]]
Anyway, the hair on both sides of her head was
curled up into buns like Princess Leia from
Star Wars. It looked like she was wearing earmuffs. Or maybe she
taped dinner rolls to her
head. She looked weird.
"Hi kids!" she said.
"My name is Elizabeth.
But you can call me Mrs.
Lizzy."
We told Mrs. Lizzy our names. Andrea ]]
and Emily said they liked her hairstyle.
"Are you Princess Leia?" asked Michael.
"Are those dinner rolls taped to your
head? I asked. "Or are you wearing earmuffs?"
"Goodness no!" Mrs. Lizzy said. "This is
my real hair."
"Did you do that for Crazy-Hair Day?"
asked Ryan.
"No, I wear my hair like this every day,"
said Mrs. Lizzy.
If you ask me, she should cut her hair
and get earmuffs instead.
"Are you a new teacher?" asked Andrea,
who never misses a chance to brownnose
a teacher.]]
"In a way, yes," Mrs. Lizzy told us. "The
Board of Education decided that kids don't
learn enough in school. So they started the
 Recess Enrichment Program. That means
you kids will get to learn new things during
recess. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
"Yes!" said the girls.
"No!" said the boys.
What? ! We have to learn stuff during
recess? What's the deal with that?
Mrs. Lizzy told us boys to cheer up. She
said that the Recess Enrichment Program
will be fun and that she was going to teach
us lots of cool things.
Bummer in the summer! It wasn't fair,
if you ask me. Recess is supposed to be for]]
burning off energy and running around.
Nobody told us anything about a Recess
Enrichment Program.
This was the worst thing to happen in
my life since TV Turnoff Week.]]
An Important
Life Skill
Mother's Day was coming up on Sunday.
Mrs. Lizzy said that for our first recess
enrichment project we should make something
for our mothers.
I'm going to cook my mom breakfast
in bed," said Andrea.
"How are you gonna do that?" I asked.]]
"Do you have a stove in your bed?"
"No, Arlo!" Andrea said, rolling her eyes.
"I'm going to make her breakfast on the
stove and then bring it to her in bed."
"Oh," I said. "That's different."
"My mom loves to eat breakfast in her
pajamas," Emily said.]]
"She should put her breakfast on a
plate," I told Emily. "Your mom is weird."
Emily looked all mad, like she was going
to start crying. As usual.
"No, dumbhead!" Andrea said to me, rolling
her eyes again. "Emily's mom doesn't
put the breakfast in her pajamas! She eats
it while she's wearing her pajamas!
I knew that. I just like yanking Andrea's
and Emily's chains.
"Mothers like it when you make them
a gift for Mother's Day," Mrs. Lizzy told
 us. "Today I'm going to teach you how to
make the perfect Mother's Day gift."
"What's the perfect Mother's Day gift?"
asked Ryan.]]

"A balloon animal!" said Mrs. Lizzy.
She pulled a long red balloon out of her
pocket and blew it up. Then she tied the end
and twisted the balloon every which way. ,
It was really squeaky. The next thing we
knew, the balloon animal was finished.
"See?" Mrs. Lizzy said. "It's a little doggie!
Here, I'll show you kids how to make one:"
Mrs. Lizzy's balloon dog was cool. It
really looked like a dog. She pulled more
balloons out of her pocket and gave one
to each of us.
"Is it really important for children to
learn how to make balloon animals?"
asked Andrea. "Maybe we should use the
Recess Enrichment Program to improve
our reading, writing, and math skills."
"Can you possibly be more boring?" I
asked Andrea.
What is her problem? Reading, writing,
and math are way overrated. And balloon
animals are cool.
"Think of it this way, Andrea," said Mrs.
Lizzy. "When you grow up, you'll probably
go on a job interview one day. What would
happen if you were on a job interview and ]]
they asked you to make a balloon animal?
If you had never learned how to do that
as a child, you wouldn't get the job. That
would be a shame. Unemployment is a big
problem in our country. That's why it's so
important for kids to learn how to make
balloon animals."
Yeah! In her face! I love it when Andrea's
wrong.
And imagine if all the bad people in the
world made balloon animals instead of
committing crimes and hurting people,"
Mrs. Lizzy told us. "The world would be a
much better place, don't you think?"
Mrs. Lizzy made sense. I liked her a lot.
She also made great balloon animals. We]]
all blew up our balloons and twisted them
every which way.
"I worked my way through college by
 making balloon animals," Mrs. Lizzy told
us. "I graduated with a degree in balloon
animal construction."
"College must have been a lot cheaper
in those days," I said.
Some kids from the other classes gathered
around to watch us make balloon
animals. It was cool.
Maybe the Recess Enrichment Program
wasn't such a bad idea after all.]]
Crazy-Clothes
Day
Tuesday was Crazy-Clothes Day. I wore my
dad's pinstriped shirt, a red bow tie, soccer
shorts, mittens, and knee pads. Knee
pads are cool because you can flop down
on your knees and it doesn't hurt.
"A.J.," Ryan said when. he saw me come
into our classroom, "those are the craziest]]
clothes I ever saw.
Like he should talk! Ryan was wearing
his sister's dress, his mom's fur coat, and
a pair of 2009 glasses that had the 00 go
 over his eyes and the 2 and the 9 on either
side of his head.
Everybody was wearing crazy clothes.
At recess, guess who showed up at the
playground again? Mrs. Lizzy, of course.]]
She was wearing a black plastic trash bag
with holes cut out for her arms and legs.
And she was carrying a bucket.
"Hi kids!  she said when she saw us.
"Hi Mrs. Lizzy!" we all yelled.
"Did you dress like that because it's
Crazy-Clothes Day?" asked Andrea.
"No" she replied "I 
always dress like this
on Tuesdays."
That was weird.
But if you think ]]
that was weird, you'll never believe in a
million hundred years what Mrs. Lizzy
brought with her to the playground.
I'm not gonna tell you.
Okay, okay, I'll tell you.
It was a goat!
She had a goat with her! And it was on
a leash!
"Where did you get that goat, Mrs.
Lizzy?" asked-Michael.
"From Rent-A-Goat," she told us. "You
can rent anything. This is my friend Pootie.
Goats are my favorite animals. Do you
kids have pets at home?"
"I have a ferret named Wiggles," said
Neil the nude kid.]]
(Last year on Presidents' Day, Neil
brought Wiggles to school. Wiggles
escaped from his cage, got lost, climbed
onto Emily's head, and was elected president
of the school. That was weird.)
"I have a dog and some fish," I said. "It's
my job to feed the fish. But one time a fish
jumped out of the tank and my dog ate it.
That night my mom asked me if I fed the
fish and I told her that I fed the fish to the
dog. I wasn't too upset when my dog ate
my fish, because at least my fish didn't eat
my dog. That would have been weird."
Everybody laughed even though I didn't
say anything funny.
"Well, today for recess enrichment we're ]]
going to learn another important life skill,"
Mrs. Lizzy told us. "I'm going to teach you
how to milk Pootie the goat."
What?!
said Pootie.
"Milk comes out of goats?" I asked. "I
thought milk came out of cows."
"It comes out of goats, too, Arlo," said
Andrea. Little Miss Know-It-All was proud
of herself because she knew something I
didn't know. I hate her.
"See, we learned something already,"
said Mrs. Lizzy. "Goats give milk."
"I have a question," said Andrea.
"Yes?"
"Is it really important for us to learn how]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Footnotes

Features

First Person

Topic

*Schools & Education

Low Frequency Words

allegiance	announce	announced	announcement	annoy
annoyed	betcha	calculators	cannibal	college
combed	committing	construction	craziest	curled
dreadlocks	dumbhead	earmuffs	education	emergency
enrichment	environment	escaped	ferret	freaking
girly	gonna	graduated	granite	gross
hairstyle	hilarious	holders	hypnotized	improve
interview	klutz	leia	loudspeaker	minding
mohawk	nah	nude	owe	pinstriped
pleasure	pledged	pootie	president	presidents
project	psycho	psychologist	recycle	recycling
romantic	ryan	scaredy	secretary	security
turnoff	unemployment	vice	wears	weird
whisper	yanking	zombie