Strange and Amazing Sports Reading #2: The Smallest of the Big Leaguers

Item description

Eddie Gaedel was a 3’7” little person brought into Major League Baseball in 1951 by Bill Veeck, the zany owner of the worst team in baseball, the St. Louis Browns. Gaedel’s signing and appearance were a gimmick to increase attendance for the team, and the game Eddie Gaedel played in is one of the strangest and most memorable moments in all baseball history. This is the story of that event: the before, the during, and the after. This Common Core-aligned informational reading and assessment can be used in Grades 4-8 depending on your students’ ability levels and in a number of ways by teachers (teacher-directed study in class, close reading, independent practice, homework, test prep, etc). This is a high interest article that works equally well with either reluctant readers or in the regular classroom!
The printable includes:
1) An engaging, high-interest informational article of 900 words called “The Smallest of the Big Leaguers.” Flesch Kincaid Reading Level = 5.8
2) A set of 23 questions, from simple to more challenging, written to align with these Common Core Informational Text Standards:
RI.4.1. Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
RI.4.5. Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.
RI.5.4. Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
RI.5.9. Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
3) An additional crossword puzzle for early finishers or to use as another form of assessment.
4) Answers to every question.