a Disciplinary Lens
Young faces are turned toward 8-year-old Elena. Their eyes are alert; they’re waiting to hear what she has to say. Someone has just asked her why she really likes the book One Tiny Turtle (Candlewick, 2001) by
Nicola Davies. Elena turns to page 6 and says, “Listen,”
as she reads the first sentence. “Far, far out to sea, land is
only a memory, and empty sky touches the water.” Her
teacher, Ms. Ancova, can feel the magic of the sentence
as Elena reads it.
Both Elena and Ms. Ancova anticipate the next ques-
tion a student asks: “Why did you like that sentence?”
“I can see it in my mind,” Elena replies, “the sky
touching the water, and then, ‘land is only a memory.’
That really makes us understand how long it’s been since
that turtle has been on land.”
Ms. Ancova is delighted that Elena is both visualizing
images and appreciating writer craft. She makes a note
to add a discussion of figurative language to her writing
craft lessons and then goes back to listening to her
students.
“I agree with you, Elena,” states Jacob. “I like how the
author makes us see the turtle’s size. When the turtle is a
baby, she says it’s ‘not much bigger than a bottle top.’
And then when the turtle is about two, she says it’s
‘bigger than a dinner plate.’”
“And then,” adds Kiah, “on page 21, when the turtle is
over 30, the author says, ‘She’s big as a barrel now.’”
Thinking Like a Scientist
“Do turtles get bigger than a barrel? How long do they
live, anyway?” wonders Marcos.
“I want to know that, too,” Elena adds. “And I wonder
how we know that a turtle grows up and returns to lay
its eggs on the exact same beach where it was born. I
mean, was someone there on the beach when a baby
turtle came out of the egg and then somehow followed
the turtle for years in the sea?”
Not only is Elena looking at text through a literary
lens, but she is also bringing a scientific eye to it. Ms.
Ancova always seems to be short on time to devote to
science and social science in her 3rd grade class, so
when a text appears during language arts time that can
serve as a springboard to scientific or historical investiga-
tion, she seizes on that link. She says, “You know, both
Marcos and Elena have a scientific inquiry. Marcos
wonders how long loggerhead turtles live, and Elena
wonders how we actually know that loggerheads return
to the exact same beach where they were born to deposit
their eggs. Both Elena and Marcos have turned their
wondering into a scientific question.”
“How will you go about answering your questions,
Marcos and Elena?” queries Ms. Ancova.
How will a student judge
whether an Internet entry
about loggerhead turtles
is based on scientific evidence?
In her research, Elena will discover that there is some
doubt whether all loggerheads undertake this round-trip
swim. She will be fascinated to learn that scientists track
turtles by putting a beeping radio transmitter on their
shells, which enables them to track the turtles by satellite. She may wonder whether they do this with other
animals—and that will lead to new questions. She may
wonder, too, whether the beeping is loud and bothers
the turtles. She may imagine different tracking devices,
maybe ones that she will invent someday.
Why a Disciplinary Lens?
Elena views text through disciplinary lenses. Such
specific focusing and refocusing gives a depth to
comprehension that more generic comprehension strategies may not provide. Although Elena can apply
