Text Leveling System

Martin Luther King, Jr.

RDQ:	851	Max Word/Sent	25	Total Words	1444		Diff Words	451
Lex	710	Ave Word/.Sent	7	Hi Freq occurs	928	64.3%	Hi freq	182	40.4%
AR	3.4	Long Sentences	0.6	Low Freq occurs	60	4.2%	Low freq	38	8.4%

Who was Martin Luther King, jr.?
Can you imagine a world where laws keep black and white people apart? Where black children couldn't swim in the same pools as white children? Or go to the same schools? A place where a law made it hard for black people to vote? Or where a black person had to stand up on a bus so a white person could sit down? This world was real. And it happened in the United states.]]
Martin Luther King jr worked hard to change rules so they would be the same for whites and blacks. He didn't do it by fighting. He helped change unfair laws by making people think. He did it by making people feel. He did it with his words.]]
Lots of black people and white people helped dr king protest those laws. This made many people angry because they didn't want change. But in the end the protesters won. And the rules changed forever.]]
 Growing up.
Dr. King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was named after his father. He was called M L. Small but strong, M L rode bikes with his brother and sister.]]
M L father was the minister of a church. He taught his children to stand up for what is right. He taught them to speak out against what is wrong. He taught them that all people deserve justice, which means that they should be treated fairly.]]
When he was six, M L best friend told him he was no longer allowed to play with M L. Why? Because M L was black and his friend was white.
Segregation laws were meant to keep black people and white people apart. They kept kids apart, too. M L Felt bad. Why wasn't he good enough to play with his friend?]]
M L Mother told him he was just as good as anybody else. And she told him the world was wrong. He wiped his tears. Then M L promised that one day he would change the world.]]
In his time
Martin Luther King jr was a boy in the late 1930s. Many things were different from how they are today. Transportation. Most people still traveled by horse and buggy. Only some people were lucky enough to have cars. Cities. Some of New York city's famous skyscrapers were finished in the 1930s. Two of them are the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. Money. Candy bars cost about a penny. That doesn't sound like much, but dollars and pennies were worth a lot more back then.]]
U S events.
Many people did not have jobs during this time, called the Great Depression. Most people had very little money. Toys and free time. Children played board games and listened to programs on the radio for fun. School. Times were tough. Some families couldn't afford to send their children to school. Books, clothes, and shoes were too expensive.]]
Away with words.
M L grew up listening to sermons in church. He listened how powerful words can be used to help people understand ideas. When M L was 14, he entered a speech contest. He put his anger about the unfairness of separate rules for white people and black people into words. He made people think. He made them feel. The judges loved his speech, and he won.]]
On the bus ride home from the speech contest, the driver told M L and his teacher to give up their seats to white people. M L Had to stand for two hours. He was mad. But he didn't say anything. He knew he could be arrested, hurt, or even killed if he did.]]
A student of peace.
M L worked hard in school. He finished college when he was 19 years old. He moved to the northeastern US and continued in school. He wanted to be a minister like his father.]]
In 1952, M L met coretta Scott and fell in love. They got married and moved South to Alabama. He even earned the title doctor period now he was dr king.]]
Helping others.
The kings moved back to the South to work for equal rights. They saw that not much had changed for black people there. They still couldn't swim in pools or go to school with whites. They still had to stand on buses so white people could sit.]]
In Alabama, dr king had a chance to help. A bus driver told a woman named Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white person. But she didn't get up. Rosa Parks was arrested because she had broken the law.]]
Lots of people went to a meeting to decide what to do. Maids, janitors, and other working people rode the buses. They asked people not to ride buses until blacks and whites had the same rules. They called it a boycott. They put dr king in charge because he had a way with words.]]
For more than a year, black people walked. They took cabs. They even rode mules to get around. The boycott was not easy. But finally, people listened. Black people and white people would have the same rules on buses. Unfortunately, many white people did not follow the new rules.]]
Dr king went all over the country giving speeches. He talked about injustice and civil rights. He made people feel. He made people think. And he asked people to join him in protests for change.
Blacks and whites marched together to protest bad laws. They went to places where only whites were allowed. A lot of them got arrested. Angry people called them names. Sometimes the marchers were hurt or even killed.]]
Newspapers, television, and radio reported it all. People around the world were mad. They saw how bad it was to have separate rules.]]
One person who saw what was going on was president John F Kennedy. The president wanted to show that he agreed that rules should be the same for blacks and whites. So he invited Dr. King to visit him at the White House.]]
Awesome facts about Dr. king. Dr. king and his father were both named Michael king. But his father changed their names in 1934. Once dear king was hit with a brick during a peaceful March. He didn't fight back. He kept walking. Dr. king liked to dance. Dr. king learned good ideas from a man from India named Gandhi. He used peaceful protest to fight unfair laws.]]
Dear king gave 2500 speeches during the last 11 years of his life. The statue of Dr. king at his memorial in Washington, DC, is huge, its head weighs 27 tons. Dr. king told people to love each other like brothers and sisters. Dr. king and coretta Scott king had four children: Yolanda, Martin Luther, Dexter, and Bernice.]]
Dr. King's dream. It was August 28, 1963, in Washington DC. In the same city where our country makes its laws, a huge crowd of people black and white cheered. They had come to stand with Dr. king and protest bad laws. Everyone in the crowd wanted the same rules for white people and black people.]]
Dr. King's voice boomed as he gave his most famous speech called I have a dream. Dr. King's dream was for all people to be treated the same.]]
 His final years.
The rules did change in 1964 and again in 1965. Laws were now the same for black people and white people. But not everyone followed the new rules right away. For the next several years, Dr. king and many others kept working. Dear king gave speeches. He planned peaceful protests. He helped others.]]
In 1968, Dr. king was in Memphis, Tennessee. He was helping black garbage collectors protest for better pay. But angry people still did not want change. A man with a gun assassinated Dr. king. Black and white people around the world were very sad. They had lost a man who made them think and feel. They had lost a man who helped make our world a better place with peace and justice. But Dr. king left us his words to remember him by.]]
A memorial to peace.
You can visit a National Memorial to Dr. king. It is in Washington, DC. There you can read his words about his hope that people could live together peacefully and with justice. You can also stand next to a 30 foot statue of him. It is called the stone of hope. From far away, the stone of hope looks Gray. But up close, it is really many colors. The colors stand for all the different people in the world. That's because Dr. king stood up for our rights to all be treated fairly.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Formal

Captions

Inserts/Side bars

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Dates

Table of Contents

Glossary

Index

Chapters

Headings

Footnotes

Features

Topic

Changes

Actions

Cause/Effect

Government

Laws

Equity

*Citizenship & Laws

Low Frequency Words

assassinated	boycott	collectors	college	dc
depression	deserve	gandhi	injustice	janitors
judges	kennedy	marchers	memorial	memphis
national	northeastern	peace	peaceful	peacefully
president	protesters	protests	rockefeller	segregation
separate	sermons	skyscrapers	speech	speeches
statue	tennessee	transportation	unfairness	unfortunately
whites	worth	yolanda