Text Leveling System

The Goat In The Rug

RDQ:	427	Max Word/Sent	31	Total Words	904		Diff Words	352
Lex	620	Ave Word/.Sent	12	Hi Freq occurs	603	66.7%	Hi freq	145	41.2%
AR	2.5	Long Sentences	12.5	Low Freq occurs	41	4.5%	Low freq	29	8.2%

My name is Geraldine and I live near a place called window rock with my Navajo friend, Glenmae. It's called window rock because it has a big round hole in it that looks like a window open to the sky.]]
Glenmae Is called Glenmae most of the time because it's easier to say than her Indian name: Glee Nazbah. In English that means something like female warrior, but she's really a Navajo Weaver. I guess that's why, one day, she decided to weave me into a rug.]]
I remember it was a warm, sunny afternoon. Glenmae Had spent most of the morning sharpening a large pair of scissors. I had no idea what she was going to use them for, but it didn't take me long to find out.]]
Before I knew what was happening, I was on the ground and Glenmae was clipping off my wool in great long strands. It's called mohair, really. It didn't hurt at all, but I admit I kicked up my heels some. I'm very ticklish for a goat.]]
I might have looked a little naked and silly afterwards, but my, did I feel nice and cool. So I decided to stick around and see what would happen next.]]
The first thing Glenmae did was chop up roots from a Yucca plant. The roots made a soapy, rich lather when she mixed them with water.]]
She washed my wool in the suds until it was clean and white.]]
After that, a little bit of me you might say was hung up in the sun to dry. When my wool was dry, Glenmae took out two large square Combs with many teeth.]]
By combing my wool between these carding Combs, as they're called, she removed any bits of twigs or burrs and straightened out the fibers. She told me it helped make a smoother yarn for spinning.]]
Then, Glenmae carefully started to spin my wool one small bundle at a time into yarn. I was beginning to find out it takes a long while to make a Navajo rug.]]
Again and again, Glenmae twisted and pulled, twisted and pulled the wall. Then she spun it around a long thin stick she called a spindle. As she twisted and pulled and spun, the finer, stronger and smoother the yarn became.]]
A few days later, Glenmae and I went for a walk. She said we were going to find some special plants she would use to make dye.]]
I didn't know what dye meant, But it sounded like a picnic to me. I do love to eat plants. That's what got me into trouble.]]
When Glenmae what's out looking for more plants, I ate everyone she had already collected in her bucket. Delicious.]]
The next day, Glenmae made me stay home while she walked miles to a store. She said the dye she could buy wasn't the same as the kind she makes from plants, but since I'd made such a pig of myself, it would have to do.]]
I was really worried that she would still be angry with me when she got back. She wasn't, though, and pretty soon she had three big potfuls of dye boiling over a fire.]]
When I saw what Glenmae had meant by dyeing. She dipped my white wool into one pot and it turned pink. She dipped it in again. It turned a darker pink. By the time she finished dipping it in and out and hung it up to dry, it was a beautiful deep red.]]
After that, she died some of my wool brown, and some of it black. I couldn't have wondering if those plants I'd eaten would turn all of me the same colors.]]
While I was worrying about that, Glenmae  started to make our rug. She took a ball of yarn and wrapped it around and around two poles. I lost count when she'd reached three hundred wraps. I guess I was too busy thinking about what it would be like to be the only red, white, black and brown goat at window rock.]]
It wasn't long before Glenmae had finished wrapping. Then she hung the poles with the yarn on a big wooden frame. It looked like a picture frame made of logs. She called it a loom.]]
After a whole week of getting ready to weave, Glenmae started. She began weaving at the bottom of the loom. Then, one strand of yarn at a time, our rugs started growing toward the top.]]
A few strands of black. A few of brown. A Few of red. In and out. Back and forth. Until, in a few days the pattern of our rug was clear to see.]]
Our wreck grew very slowly. Just as every Navajo Weaver before her had done for hundreds and hundreds of years, Glenmae formed a design that would never be duplicated.]]
Then, at last, the weaving was finished. But not until I'd checked it quite thoroughly in front]]
end in back, did I let Glenmae take our rug off the loom.]]
There was a lot of me in that rug. I wanted it to be perfect. And it was.]]
Since then, my woe has grown almost long enough for Glenmae add me to make another rug. Hope we do very soon. Because, you see, there aren't too many weavers like Glenmae left among the navajos.]]
And there's only one goat like me, Geraldine.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Vocabulary: Few decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Features

First Person

Topic

Goats

Designs

*Arts & Crafts

Native Americans

Low Frequency Words

burrs	carding	collected	delicious	duplicated
dyeing	fibers	glee	glenmae	lather
loom	mohair	naked	navajo	nazbah
potfuls	scissors	spindle	straightened	strand
strands	suds	thoroughly	warrior	weaver
weavers	weaving	wrapping	yucca