[CentOS] Simple bash question

I am calling a bash script and passing in somestring that includes a "$"

myscript   "$plusmore"

I want to assign in the myscript the $1 arg to something like
MYTEXT="$1"

when I do that I dont get what I'm expecting. if I do
MYTEXT='$1'
I still dont get what I'm expecting.

On the first assignment of MYTEXT I do not want the "$" to be treated as a
shell variable. I cannot find out how to do that.

I do not have the option of escaping the call to myscipt "\$plusmore". I
cannot do that.

What am I missing.

Jerry