Text Leveling System

Help Yourself

RDQ:	569	Max Word/Sent	32	Total Words	1378		Diff Words	493
Lex	650	Ave Word/.Sent	11	Hi Freq occurs	909	66%	Hi freq	192	38.9%
AR	2.9	Long Sentences	14.2	Low Freq occurs	51	3.7%	Low freq	39	7.9%

The first time I got paid for my newspaper route I went to a coffee shop.
It was a coffee shop that mom and I had been to quite a few times before. It was up two flights of stairs, above a shoe shop and an art gallery in our town's busiest corner. You could sit at a tables beside the window, 8 the best fudge cake you've ever tasted, and enjoy watching all the people scurrying across the street whenever the light changed.]]
I had to go into town, to the newspaper's head office, & some forms for my first pay. Mom said I was allowed to buy myself something, provided I didn't spend all my pay. There was a half hour until I had to catch the bus home so I went to the coffee shop.
It felt weird walking in. The place was almost full. Everyone else was a grown up, and they all seemed to be staring at this kid coming in by himself.
So I pretended to inspect the food under the plastic covers. I chose a piece of fudge cake and put it on a plate on my tray. It looked a little lonely by itself.]]
Can I have a banana milkshake, please? I asked the woman at the counter.
Certainly, Sir, she said. Will you be dining alone? Would you like anything else, Sir?
She was smiling at me, and I no she wasn't trying to put me down. But it made me feel embarrassed. Yeah, I'll have one of those apricot granola bars, too, please, I told her, in as grown up a voice as I could.]]
When I picked up the tray, the milkshake and the plate kept sliding around on it. I was trying to balance them, and hold the cellophane wrapped granola bar, and stuff the change in my pockets, and look for a place to sit, all at the same time. The woman at the counter was still smiling at me. There was only one empty seat, over by the window, so I headed for it.
I was watching my tray to make sure I didn't spill or drop anything, so I didn't dare look up until I got to the seat. I lowered the tray onto the table and sat down. Then, for the first time, I saw the guy sitting opposite me.]]
He was a biker. Man, what a biker! The coolest, toughest looking dude you ever saw. He had his hair shaved like a Skinhead. He had a tattoo on his knuckles of one hand saying G  o t 2 and a tattoo on the knuckles of the other hand saying r I d e. There was a dotted line tattooed across his forehead, with a message above it, left to inspect brain.]]
He wore a leather jacket with zippers and chains, badges and iron crosses, and a studded dog collar hanging from it. Man, I thought, he must sound like a heavy metal rock band when he moves. One of his legs was sticking out at the side of the table, and I could see his black jeans were all ripped and torn above his big black leather boots. Choice clothes! I wondered if he'd maybe ridden his motorcycle up the stairs into the coffee shop.]]
The biker looked kind of out of place drinking a cup of coffee. He was also eating a doughnut, and he had something else on his plate. I've never been this close to a real, live biker before. I wondered if he'd lead across and bite me, or pick me up and squash me into the Sugar Bowl or something.
He didn't. He looked at me and gave me a hiya sort of nod.]]
I was just going to nod back when a voice called, Sir? Would you like a straw for your milkshake?
It was the woman at the counter again.
I hurried over, feeling embarrassed once more. I took the straw. Out loud I said thanks but under my breath I said for nothing. Then I headed back to my table.]]
Halfway there, I stopped and stared. No, he couldn't be! Yes, he was! The biker had stopped eating his doughnut. He had picked up my apricot granola bar. He had peeled off the cellophane wrapping, and he was taking a bite from one end.]]
For a second I felt scared. I felt angry. That was my granola bar. I'd paid for it with my newspaper delivery money. As I reached the table, I made my mind up. I'd show this biker guy he couldn't push me around.]]
I sat down. I reached over and picked up the granola bar from where the biker had put it back down on his plate. The nerve of the guy! I took a bite from it from the end he hadn't touched. Then I put the bar back down on my plate!]]
The biker slowly raised his shaven head and looked at me once more. He stared thoughtfully for a minute. He gave another nod, picked up the granola bar, and took another bite a smaller and neater bite than mine from his end. He put the bar back down on his plate again and looked at me.
And suddenly it felt like a movie. One of those Clint Eastwood westerns, where the good guy and the bad guy stand facing each other on an empty St. hands ready over their guns, fingers twitching, waiting to see who draws first.]]
I drew. I reached for the shrinking apricot bar a second time period I picked it up and matched the stare of the tattooed terror across the table.
I took another bite not much apricot in that bite. In fact, it tasted a little bit like honey. I placed the bar back on my plate.]]
The biker gave me a third nod. He took up the remaining piece of granola bar. He held it daintily between thumb and one finger. He had his little finger bent in the air like some terribly polite person holding a cup of tea.]]
He carefully bit the final piece of granola bar exactly in half. Then he lifted his eyebrows in a question asking sort of way. I noticed for the first time that one eyebrow had a little tattoo above it, which said oil here. He leaned forward, offering me what remained of my bar, a slight smile on his face.]]
I'll never know where my next words came from. But they came. It was like being in a movie alright.
No, it's OK, I told the biker. You can have it. Tell you what you can have these, too,  if you're that hungry. I pushed my fudge cake and banana milkshake across the table toward him. The bikers mouth dropped open. I noticed a tooth missing.]]
And then return. I went on. I quickly reached across, grabbed his doughnut, and from the untouched side I took the hugest, most massive bite I could. The bikers mouth dropped open even further. Two teeth missing.]]
I stood up, bits of doughnuts still sticking to my chin, and I walked as calmly as I could out of the coffee shop. I half expected people to start cheering, yay! It's the granola kid! I also half expected a Harley-Davidson to come roaring through the tables and down the stairs after me.]]
At the bus stop a few minutes later, I could hardly believe I'd done it. My legs were beginning to shake, and my heart was pumping, but I felt great. OK, I hadn't eaten either of the other things I paid for, but I'd won, all right. I'd given that biker something more than a granola bar to chew on.]]
Paper carriers 1, bikers 0. I began to laugh out loud. The other people waiting for the bus looked at me in surprise. The bus arrived, and I reached for the changed I stepped into my pocket in the coffee shop. My fingers closed on the cool metal. They closed on something else as well, something thin, and light, and crackly.]]
Hello, what's this? I pulled the something out. There in my hand, still in its cellophane wrapping, lay my own, totally untouched, apricot granola bar.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Two speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Features

Character traits

Simple problem/solution

Simple Plot

Twist ending

First Person

Topic

Challenges

Courage

Fair play/Fairness

*Feelings, Behaviors

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

busiest	calmly	carriers	cellophane	crackly
daintily	davidson	dude	eastwood	embarrassed
further	granola	harley	hiya	hugest
jeans	knuckles	lowered	massive	milkshake
opposite	pockets	provided	ridden	route
scurrying	shaven	shrinking	skinhead	sliding
squash	studded	terribly	terror	thoughtfully
twitching	weird	westerns	wrapping