Two Texts on the Same Animal
A Grade 3 class reads two short texts about the same animal. Text 1 is a labeled diagram-style paragraph stating that the animal lives in rivers, eats plants, and grows to about 30 centimeters. Text 2 is a short narrative about a child who sees the animal in a river and watches it eat plants. A question asks: 'According to the texts, what does this animal eat?' One student answers 'fish, because the child in the story sees it catch something.' Another answers 'plants.' A third says 'the texts do not say.' The teacher wants students to see that the answer is stated directly in both texts and does not require guessing from the story's mood.
1. Why is 'plants' the correct answer, and what mistake did the 'fish' student make?
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'Plants' is correct because Text 1 states it directly and Text 2 shows the animal eating plants, so both texts agree. The 'fish' student added information that is not in either text: the story may describe the child watching the animal, but the setup says the animal is seen eating plants, not catching fish. That student is treating an inference about a river animal (river animals often eat fish) as if it were stated. The judgement the question tests is the difference between what a text says and what a reader assumes from background knowledge.
2. How should the teacher respond to the student who said 'the texts do not say'?
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That student is not reading carefully rather than reasoning wrongly, so the fix is to send them back to the exact words. The teacher can ask the student to point to the sentence in Text 1 that tells what the animal eats, and then the sentence in Text 2. Once the student locates both, the teacher should name the strategy: when a question asks 'according to the texts,' the answer is in the words, and the reader's job is to find and point to it. This also gives the teacher a check on whether the student can locate information in a paragraph, which is a separate skill from inference.
3. Design a question that would require combining both texts rather than finding one fact.
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A combining question might ask: 'The child in Text 2 watches the animal in a river. Using Text 1, explain why a river is a likely place to see this animal.' A strong answer links Text 1's statement that the animal lives in rivers with Text 2's scene, showing that the story setting matches the fact. This cannot be answered by pointing to one sentence in one text; the reader must hold a fact from Text 1 and a detail from Text 2 together. The teacher should accept answers that cite both texts and reject answers that cite only the story or only the fact paragraph.