In The Prince of Butterflies, we meet a person who devotes his life to saving butterflies. When he is young, butterflies speak to him and ask him for help. For several years as an adolescent, the boy trans-forms into a butterfly and guides the whole community of butter-flies to the next resting place on their migratory path. At the end of the book, the butterflies return to the now eighty-year-old man to support him at this stage of his life.
Figure 7.2 Andie shows her synthesis chart.
When I look at the students’ work in response to The Prince of Butterflies from that first day, I see proof that five- and six-year-olds can synthesize difficult text. For exam-ple, in Dylan’s first thinking, he shows the boy standing frozen as he stares at the but-terflies. Next, he writes the words “Da Mom”—his notations for the words dad and mom—and draws the boy moving away from the house with an arrow. Then he draws the butterflies flying to the boy. In his next wave, he draws the boy’s wings as he becomes a butterfly. And finally, he shows the boy flying in the air and return-ing to the ground (see Figure 7.3). Dylan demonstrates that he understands at least the first two-thirds of the book, using the building blocks of the story to aid in his retelling.
Tyler also uses the chronology of the story in his retelling/synthesis drawing. His picture metaphor is the ripples in the pond rather than the wave metaphor that Dylan uses. The points he chooses are also differ-ent (see Figure 7.4). He starts with a butter-fly at the center of the circles, and then uses lines to define the butterflies flying onto the boy. In the next ripple, we see the boy metamorphosing into the butterfly. Finally, Tyler draws the boy as an old man in his wheelchair seeing the butterflies come to him once again. Like Dylan, Tyler is able to use the structure to demonstrate his synthe-sis of the story.
Dylan and Tyler are successful at synthesis when we define syn-thesis only through a retelling lens. However, Destiny synthesizes the book beyond the chronology of the story. Although her draw-ing leaves me confused, her explanation of her thinkdraw-ing shows me that she has a deep understanding of the story.
Figure 7.3 Dylan’s synthesis.
Figure 7.4 Tyler’s synthesis.
“This boy, he passed the butterflies.
He never hurt them, but the butterflies hurt him by never coming back to him.
And then the butterflies came back and he was happy again. And he loved the butter-flies once again.” She paused and added,
“At the end, I thought he dies. And the but-terflies were really sad inside like him.”
I asked how her thinking changed as she heard the story, and again she thought a moment, then responded, “The patches that made me really interested in the story.
. . . Well, when he smiled at the butterflies and said he’d help them.”
Noticing different ways that students are using synthesis to comprehend the text, I worry about Spencer getting frustrated or feeling limited by the drawing structures. A first look at Spencer’s drawing might confirm that worry. But when I allow Spencer to help me synthesize his work, my new understanding emerges (see Figure 7.5). It’s easy to look at his drawing and see a mess. In real-ity, it is a detailed and intentional map of Spencer’s understanding of the story. He is eager to share his thinking, and explains, “It’s a map. It’s of the guy and these are the butterflies, and he’s turning into a butterfly, and then he’s going over here, and then he goes over here, and that’s his home, and he goes over here, and over here that’s the way he goes here. Then here, then here, and over here.”
When I try to probe what went on in his head as he heard the story and made the map, he answers with his stock reply, “I don’t know. It just did it.”
Whereas Destiny is able to use words to explain her thinking, Spencer relies more on his drawing. He, too, can use synthesis as a tool.
The longer I work with these strategies as a teacher, the more I notice how they can aid readers in deepening their levels of under-standing. I originally thought synthesis was a retelling tool where the readers added details from their own lives. Work such as Destiny’s and Spencer’s guided me to change my thinking signifi-cantly. I see them “owning” the books they read. I notice they stand in as characters in the book—virtually living through the
Figure 7.5 Spencer’s synthesis.
book as they think about their own thinking. I notice that my stu-dents stand side by side with characters from the books, and that they can talk about their own thinking while thinking for the char-acter as well. They are able to hold the thinking of two beings at once.