Text Leveling System

The Wreck of the Zephyr

RDQ:	941	Max Word/Sent	30	Total Words	1319		Diff Words	461
Lex	730	Ave Word/.Sent	10	Hi Freq occurs	901	68.3%	Hi freq	192	41.6%
AR	3.5	Long Sentences	5.8	Low Freq occurs	66	5%	Low freq	48	10.4%

Once, while traveling along the seashore, I stopped at a small
fishing village. After eating lunch, I decided to take a walk. I
followed a path out of the village, uphill to some cliffs high
above the sea. At the edge of these cliffs was a most unusual
sight- the wreck of a small sailboat.
An old man was sitting among the broken timbers, smoking
a pipe. He seemed to be reading my mind when he said, "Odd,
isn't it?"
"Yes," I answered. "How did it get here?"
"Waves carried it up during a storm."
"Really?" I said. "It doesn't seem the waves could ever get that
high."
The old man smiled. "Well, there is another story." He invited
me to have a seat and listen to his strange tale.]]
"In our village, years ago," he said, "there was a boy who could
sail a boat better than any man in the harbor. He could find a
breeze over the flattest sea. When dark clouds kept other boats
at anchor, the boy would sail out, ready to prove to the villagers,
to the sea itself, how great a sailor he was.]]
"One morning, under an ominous sky, he prepared to take his
boat, the Zephyr, out to sea. A fisherman warned the boy to
stay in port. Already a strong wind was blowing. 'I'm not afraid,'
the boy said, 'because I'm the greatest sailor there is.' The fisherman
pointed to a sea gull gliding overhead. 'There's the only
sailor who can go out on a day like this.' The boy just laughed
as he hoisted his sails into a blustery wind.]]
"The wind whistled in the rigging as the Zephyr pounded her
way through the water. The sky grew black and the waves rose
up like mountains. The boy struggled to keep his boat from
going over. Suddenly a gust of wind caught the sail. The boom
swung around and hit the boy's head. He fell to the cockpit
floor and did not move.]]
"When the boy opened his eyes, he found himself lying on
a beach. The Zephyr rested behind him, carried there by the
storm. The boat was far from the water's edge. The tide would
not carry it back to sea. The boy set out to look for help.]]
"He walked for a long time and was surprised that he didn't
recognize the shoreline. He climbed a hill, expecting to see
something familiar, but what he saw instead was a strange and
unbelievable sight. Before him were two boats, sailing high
above the water. Astonished, he watched them glide by. Then a
third sailed past, towing the Zephyr. The boats entered a bay
that was bordered by a large village. There they left the Zephyr.]]
"The boy made his way down to the harbor, to the dock where
his boat was tied. He met a sailor who smiled when he saw the
boy. Pointing to the Zephyr he asked, 'Yours?' The boy nodded.
The sailor said they almost never saw strangers on their island.
It was surrounded by a treacherous reef. The Zephyr must have
been carried over the reef by the storm. He told the boy that,
later, they would take him and the Zephyr back over the reef.
But the boy said he would not leave until he learned to sail
above the waves. The sailor told him it took years to learn to
sail like that. 'Besides,' he said, 'the Zephyr does not have the
right sails.' The boy insisted. He pleaded with the sailor.]]
"Finally the sailor said he would try to teach him if the boy
promised to leave the next morning. The boy agreed. The sailor
went to a shed and got a new set of sails.
"All afternoon they sailed back and forth across the bay. Sometimes
the sailor took the tiller, and the boat would magically
begin to lift out of the water. But when the boy tried, he could
not catch the wind that made boats fly.
"When the sun went down they went back to the harbor. They
dropped anchor and a fisherman rowed them to shore. 'In the
morning,' the sailor said, 'we'll put your own sails back on the
Zephyr and send you home.' He took the boy to his house, and
the sailor's wife fed them oyster stew.]]
"After dinner the sailor played the concertina. He sang a song
about a man named Samuel Blue, who, long ago, tried to sail
his boat over land and crashed.
'For the wind o'er land's ne'er steady nor true,
an' all men that sail there'll meet Samuel Blue.'
"When he was done with his song, the sailor sent the boy to bed.
But the boy could not sleep. He knew he could fly his boat if he
had another chance. He waited until the sailor and his wife
were asleep, then he quietly dressed and went to the harbor. As
he rowed out to the Zephyr, the boy felt the light evening wind
grow stronger and colder.]]
"Under a full moon, he sailed the Zephyr into the bay. He tried
to remember everything the sailor had told him. He tried to feel
the wind pulling his boat forward, lifting it up. Then, suddenly,
the boy felt the Zephyr begin to shake. The sound of the water
rushing past the hull grew louder. The air filled with spray as
the boat sliced through the waves. The bow slowly began to lift.
Higher and higher the Zephyr rose out of the water, then finally
broke free. The sound of rushing water stopped. There was
only the sound of wind in the sails. The Zephyr was flying.]]
"Using the stars to guide him, the boy set a course for home. The
wind blew very hard, churning the sea below. But that did not
matter to the Zephyr as she glided through the night sky. When
clouds blocked the boy's view of the stars, he trimmed the sails
and climbed higher. Surely the men of the island never dared fly
so high. Now the boy was certain he was truly the greatest sailor
of all.]]
"He steered well. Before the night was over, he saw the moonlit
spire of the church at the edge of his village. As he drew closer
to land, an idea took hold of him. He would sail over the village
and ring the Zephyr's bell. Then everyone would see him and
know that he was the greatest sailor. He flew over the tree topped
cliffs of the shore, but as he reached the church the
Zephyr began to fall.]]
"The wind had shifted. The boy pulled as hard as he could on the
tiller, but it did no good. The wind shifted again. He steered for
the open sea, but the trees at the cliff's edge stood between him
and the water. At first there was just the rustle of leaves brushing
the hull. Then the air was filled with the sound of breaking
branches and ripping sails. The boat fell to the ground. And
here she sits today."]]
"A remarkable tale," I said, as the old man stopped to relight his
pipe. "What happened to the boy?"
"He broke his leg that night. Of course, no one believed his story
about flying boats. It was easier for them to believe that he was
lost in the storm and thrown up here by the waves." The old
man laughed.
"No sir, the boy never amounted to much. People thought he
was crazy. He just took odd jobs around the harbor. Most of
the time he was out sailing, searching for that island and a new
set of sails."
A light breeze blew through the trees. The old man looked up.
"Wind coming," he said. "I've got some sailing to do." He picked
up a cane, and I watched as he limped slowly toward the harbor.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Two speakers

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Concept: Fanciful

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Integral Setting

Clear cause/effect

First Person

Topic

*Transportation

Boats

Flight/Flying

Accidents

Sailing

*Fictional Ideas/Charac

Low Frequency Words

anchor	astonished	blustery	bordered	churning
cliff's	concertina	familiar	gliding	guide
gull	harbor	hoisted	hull	land's
magically	moonlit	ne'er	o'er	ominous
oyster	pleaded	prove	recognize	reef
relight	remarkable	rigging	rowed	rustle
sailboat	sailor	shoreline	spire	surely
surrounded	tiller	timbers	towing	treacherous
truly	unbelievable	uphill	villagers	warned
whistled	zephyr	zephyr's