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The United States Grows
(1865-1900)

MarkTwain "Roughing It"

MarkTwain "Roughing It"
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.6

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    autobiographical, boomtowns, prospectors, desperado, mainly, famous, various, novels, fiction, writing, marrow, based, negative, whiskey, mining, stagecoach
     content words:    Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, East Coast, Roughing It, Civil War, Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Carson City, Celebrated Jumping Frog, Calaveras County, Wild West

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MarkTwain "Roughing It"
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Mark Twain's most famous novels, Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, are set in Missouri where he grew up, but Twain didn't always live in Missouri. He lived for a time on the East Coast, and also for a time on the western frontier. His novel, Roughing It, takes place on the frontier.
 
2     Mark Twain had gone west after the Civil War. There he became a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, a Carson City, Nevada newspaper. He filed reports each day on the colorful happenings in Nevada's mining towns. His reports told about the wild events in the boomtowns in a style that sounded like everyday conversation. He liked to exaggerate and add a little humor too.
 
3     He became a popular writer and soon was traveling and writing about the places that he visited. Readers couldn't wait to see what he would say next about each place he visited.

Paragraphs 4 to 10:
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