Name ______________________________ Centerfield Ballhawk By Matt Christopher Illustrated by Larry Johnson Prediction ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Author’s Purpose informpersuadeentertain

Centerfield Ballhawk Focus Skills: To discriminate time-order clues To read and understand a realistic fiction selection To compare a nonfiction article with a realistic story To use singular and plural pronouns correctly Genre Realistic Fiction- tells about characters and events that are like people and events in real life Summary Young Jose Mendez is a terrific centerfielder but a weak hitter. When his father calls him a “Born outfielder,” Jose realizes he is a hit with his father. Reading Strategy Summarize Good readers pay close attention to the setting, characters, and events of a selection. Summarizing is a strategy to keep track of story events as students read. This involves recalling the setting, the words and actions of characters, and the most important events.

Setting Page 334 Based on this inning, do you think Jose is a good hitter? Why? ____________________ ____________________ What is the score after Jose hits his home run? Page 336 How has Jose saved the team a run? ________________ ________________ Is Jose proud of his performance in the game? How do you know? ________________ ________________

How can you tell? What is Jose better at: catching fly balls or batting? _____________ _____________ _____________ Page 338 What does the author mean when he says, “the Stockade Bulls showed the real power they had, as if they had purposely kept it hidden until now”? ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ Why does Jose wish he could vanish? _________________________ _________________________ Page 340 Being after the ball like a leaping gazelle means ____________________ __________________________________ Would you like to have Jose as a friend? Why or why not? _________________________ _________________________

Page 342 Does Jose’s dad get to the game before or after his great catch? __________________ How do you know?__________________ Is Jose happy or sad that his father watched the game? Does the author tell you this? _____ How did you know? ______________ __________________________________ Page 344 How do you know Jose trusts his father? ______________________ ______________________ ______________________ Why does Mr. Mendez explain that his disappointment when Jose hit Mrs. Dooley’s car is different from being disappointed in Jose himself? ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________ ___________________

Page 346 Compare Jose’s and Mr. Mendez’s abilities as baseball players. What has Jose learned about the importance of teamwork? _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________

Think and Respond 1.What does Jose learn about his father and himself? _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 2.The author uses outfielder and ballhawk to describe Jose. How are these words alike or different? 3.How can you tell that Jose is unhappy when he finds out his father has watched the game? _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________ 4.If you played baseball, would you want to be on the same team as Jose? Why or why not? _______________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________

Use the graphic organizer to answer the following questions. 1.Where does most of the action in this story take place? 2.Why have things been hard for the Mendez family? 3.Why is getting more than one hit at the game so important to Jose? 4.What is a ball called in this story? 5.What is Jose’s first thought when he grounds out? 6.What very fast animal is Jose compared to? 7.What breaks the tie in the game? 8.What is Jose thinking of when he asks his teammate, “Who’s perfect?” 9.What does Jose think will make up for disappointing his dad after breaking the neighbor’s car window? 10.What really does disappoint Jose’s dad? 11.What had Carmen been doing that afternoon? 12.Why does Jose’s dad want Jose to forget about trying to hit like he did? 13.What does Jose’s dad mean when he says his children are “a chip off the old block?” 14.What is most important to Jose at the end of the story?