Some theoretical and practical ramifications of story grammars

Journal of Pragmaties 6 (i982) 441-450 North-Holland ~l!Jishin8 Company

SOME THEORETICALAND PRACTICALRAMIFICATIONS OF STORY GRAMMARS*

ROBERT CALFEE

The value of story grammars has be,~n the subject of some dispute in recent years. A case is made that story, grammars serve useful, but limi,ied functions in ,:lescri~bingsome important features of narrative texts and in providing a framework for investigating; conlprehension. Ameng issues raised are the adequacy of story grammars for explicating production and comprehension of harry,tire texts in natural versus tormm" ' settings. The pOSSll)lt.~ty is exp~or~:a' . . . . . .ma~ . the orgam~,:auona~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rre,mework of these grammars may be, related to the curricular framework used to train: individ~als as part of their schoc,iing. Conditions not well handled by existing story grammars are also considered. Among these are various instructional functions stories a~e used to serve - especially the use of narrative formats to carry non-narrative content. It is concluded that there are problems which existing story grammars should not be expected to handle. R~ther than aban,:lor~ingthem on these grounds, it is suggested that a broader set of gram mars ne~:ds to be developed. ........

The goa[ H,aman beings (and perhaps others) seem constantt / on the search for ways of organizing their experiences. Simon (1981) makes ~ persuasive argument that organization is essential, that unbridled cornple~dty eventually leads to disin. tegration of any organism. Sentence graramar can be viewed as one outcome o[ this search - such grammars summarize our c:on~,entions for arranging and interpreting a list of elements (words) so they are relatively easy to handle. Every language possesses a grammar, a,ad th; acquisition of that grar~mar is for virtually every child a natural consequence of e~posure to the language. An interesting consequence of human evolution has been the :~ earance of

' No effort has linen made to duplicate references from the Beaagrande paper, to which the present paper was addressed Where reference is made to ~peci:':~cparts of ILheB~mgrande paper, ~hese are sho~m as Section ~ This paper was prepared while in residence at the Cen:er for Advanced Studies in the ~ehaviorat Sciences, StanIord University. Mailing address: Robc~-t Cldfee, School of Educatio]a, S'~anfo~rd Univer~,ity, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

0378-2166/82/0000-0000/$02.75 © 1982 Norlih-Holkmd

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reflective organiz~ttion. In so~ne respects, the purpose of education is to lead people to an understanding of the processes by which we can efficiently and productively organize our world. In the proce,;s, the natural and the commonplace are reexamined and made explicit. "Ihus, although every five-year old "uses grammar", the',,opec ' ofte~ shows up in the curriculum, To be sure, formal mstraction in sentence grammar has f;dlen into disrepute; research suggested that this practice was ineffective (Mellon 1969). Students still use grammar anyway, but nc,wadays they are less conscious of their usage, less a~ are of the differences between casual conversation and formal writing, and less knowledgeable about how to apply grammatical tools in the work of comm,Jnicating ideas (Applebee 1980). A practical person might be inclined to conclude that ~eaching grammar does have an effect. Sto;y grammars are more recent inventions; lately there has been much di~ussion ~beut the parallels between parsing at the sentence and discourse levels (cf. the references in Beaugrande to papers by Bower, Colby, Mandler and Johnson, Rumeihart Stein and Glenn, and Thorndyke). To be sure, the . . . . . h,, A. . . .

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smJcture were well grourded in the traditions of rhetoric. Nonetheless, the concept ~f the ~gtorygrammar excited the imagination of psychologists when it first appeared. Just as transformational grammar pro~ vided behavioral scientisls an instrutaent ,~orundertaking the study of.'~entences, w has story .grammar o~gerred new doors for the examination Of te~;t. Grammatical theories; have in both instances provided analytic opportunities for psychological investigations of greater compkxi~y than had been previously undertaken..lust in case my position is not yet apparent - I think that th,~. story grammar concept is serving a most useful role in present-day social ~ience research, it ha~ broadened the scope ol our investigations of language, it takes advantage of scholarship outside the immediate domain of our discipline, and it provides ~ valuable linkage to ¢.ne of society's most important to~ts for influencing the development of the r~ind - the school.

The j ~

of the stccy g,s~a,nmar concept

W,.. have now gained enough experience witl~ the story grammar concept to reflect on the adequa,.'y of this invention: How good is it? What are its sm.ngths and weaknesses? How can it be improved? What are its practical In considering the adeq~:acy of story grammars, a variety oF possible limitations and unknowns ca~i be raised, sufficient to question the viability of Lhe ,.:o~c~'~. The theoretical rigor of such grammars has been que,aioned on fonr~istic grounds (!!~lackand l~wer 1980; Black and Wilensky 1979). One can ~ub~. or~ both logical and pcagmatic grounds whether the grammars as

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currently formulated can generate the entire s,,'t of objects included under the narrative rubric - the f~ll range of the oral mJdition, the adventures of James Bond, the tales of Joseph Conrad, and the texts found in basal readers. ~eaugrandie suggests that present models au. at best a starting point for a broader set of representations. He is also ,oti the opinion that an adequate theory must include within its scope the no lion of the story-teller and the contextual environment that geaera~tes the s~Lo,ry(section 3.17). Finally, is the story grammar adequate as the foundation for a psychology of story compre. hension.'? Transformationaf grammar has seen its heyday, and sentence diagramming is taught by relatively few teachers today. Yel: ~he concept: of sentence grammar remains with us, and youngsters who learn how semences are built (whether by sentence transforming, sentence combining, or sentence taking-apart) are probably better at both comprehending and composing sent~mees than are youngsters who do not receive such training iJl~ school. I tl'~ink that the same comments applty to the concept of story gra~mmar. ~cpigscatat~uH 'T'L... 1 llg; L ~....~ U I I U ~.I .l l.i ~. i H . ~'~' J l-'~" l g g ; U 1~ :^ for a :,,uvtu~al ^ ' " "~'~ . . . . ........... :--* (one or more) "--" [lI~['[ can help both schohr and student in briag~ag order to the information in a text, Most important, story grammars ~lescribe some essential features of narrative structure. Whether they are an improvemem over ¢onventonal rhetoric is beside the point; they do seem to !provide a different perspective on the issue. At one time transformational grammar was proposed aot only as a scheme for linguistic analysis of sentences, but as a cognitive model of sentence understanding Relatively few people rai:,, tile transformational banner for either of these purposes nowadays, although the con,:epts still serve reasonably well for both purposes within certain botmdary condi~:ons. Miller's (1962) chronometric studies and Savin and Perchonok's 11964) Archimedean experiments on sentence comprehension are still ~Tiosteasily imerpreted by reference to transformational concepts - it is perha[,,s a measure of the investigators' success in findiag subjects and conditions that satisfy lihe assumptions o~" the transformational model. The same comments can be made abow! the role of stow grammars as psychological models - the fact that these models provide a reasonable account of behavioral data under certain conditions may be a sign that the investigator has an adequate (though perhaps not fully explicit) model of the subject char~cterisfics and experimental conditions that foster the style of thinking represented by the model. For some time psychology has been played a:; a game - someone proposes a theol~y, usually wit~, a parcel or two of supporting evidence. Immediately opponents arise to challenge the th~ry, pr,~,ffering contradictory data from other subjects, conditions, and perspectives, And so the battle rages -weak theories, uncertain ii~ts of generatizability, and poor experiment.a! control

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darken the c<)n:lict, so that it is often difficult to tell whether anyone has won, or even -,vhai the battle is about. We discard Kepler's ruminations before Newton arrive~ on the scene (K~,stler 1968). Increasingly, l am inclined to beSeve that we give too little credil to the ps)~chologica[ theoretician-investigator who proposes a theoretical framework anti is then abl.• to create a data set that is interpretable within that framework. One need not go overboard in this regard, but in a sense this researcher is a~:ting as a leacher. The goal is to interact with a group of students (the ~ut9~xts) ~,o tb ~t th.~wbehave in a predictabk way. The conditions of instruction may be more or le~s well arti~;ulated, exl:licit, and formal. The laboratory m~eot~ga~oris often unaware of ~he full ran[:.e of instructions and conditions thz~t he or she has brought to bear on the s,~Jbjects, though these are in fact lar!zdy deter:~ined by the investigator. Thcore!ical models are creative acts, but they generally h~,ve some basis in the facts, in experience, in data. Current models of story grammar may not ¢ncolnpa~s all the forms of narrative extant in Western civilization, but one can find ~any instances of these :;tructures in storybooks, on television, and in ~tL~,:)!te~ts. Most importantly, one finds thenl in the laboratory materials used by i',~,,~stiga~or~to "test" their subjects, yo~n$1 and old. From the experimental da~a it seems dear that the .~toqr-grammar proponents have hit upon procedu;e,~ teat raake i~ possible fc~rtheir subjects ~o do a good job of remembering a l:,t o! mfcrm~tion after rea:~on~blybrief stt,dy. The,e e',.:~rimental findings can be explained in one of two ways. First, it mz~? be that ~t~ry grammar patterns are actually pretty good matches to the scl~emata that exist within people°s minds. This notion of a good match brings to mind the "good figures" that were a~ the heart of Gestalt psychol,agy (H~ch~rg 1964). Concepts of symmetry, clo~ure, good continuation, and the Ilk,: compri~ a kind of per,:eptual " gramw:.;r" , a way of discus~,;ing visual structures that are easy to comprehend. These concepts arose no~t so much frc,m a pnon assumptions as f:rom careful analysis of perceptual reports. Vi~,~ed from thi,; perspective, story grammars are a clever way of summarizing the' empirical findings about people's understandings of narratives. Hiding in tht~ background of this explanation is a r~ativist assumption - the story grammar is a go~xt match to the data because people's minds have a built-in pr, x:livity to operate parallel to the structure 3f story grammar. The ~.'~ond ex ~lanation looks more to the environment for the causes. One ,~e,sion of this e~:planation appears at first not too exciting -. psychologists ~,~t~c_~are ~:o~.vinc¢.dof the merits of the story grammar coi,cept are siml:iy ck,'¢~ at drafting stories (and nonstories) tLat are more or less easily compr:hcnded. On th," surface, their creations r~ay appear consistent wilth storygrammar prir~pks, but in fact they are following the dictates of a different a:~d pr~mably d~per) repre~ntation of stoties. These researchers are victims <,[ the "|anguage-a:~.a-fixed.effect" fallacy (Clark 1973); if a randomly selected

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set of agthors were to compose stories according to the rules of the grammar, variation between authors and between stories within autl,,o~'s mi~t be more important than the systematic effects of the grammar., Another version of the environmental explanation says that story-grammar schemas may be quite common among indiviLduals raised in certain culture.,;, but that this widdy shared experience reflects culturall constancites ra~her than psychological proclivities. This reasoning leads one to, conclude that the story g,ramraar is more a model of a cultural artifact them a model of cognitive processes. One might concoct a "grammar" of the (::law hammer that could a~ccount for a considerable body of data, but that would be neither deep no,r unique as a description of how ~t worker drinks when using the hammer.

~!;ch~!ing and narra.ti.'veex~rienc¢, Yet another variation in the environmental explanation stresses the importan,:e of more or less sys~tematic instruction as a foandatio, n for the story grammar phenomenon. On the one hand, there are the centuries old efforts of rhetori~cians to systematize the narrative form. At a more local level, one finds school teachers busily engaged instructing youngsters in how to compose stories - and inversely, how to comprehend stories. Fil~ally, one can even view the laborato,ry activities of cognitive psychologists as a sort of instruction - within the micro-climate of the laboratory, they seem to have discovered how to create materials and conditions that markedly influence ~,erformance in a fashion predicted by the story g;~ammar system. The natural.formal dimensiion provides some usefid in~fights for evaluating. these explanation~; (Calfee 1979; Goody 1977; Oh;on 1977; Beaugrande's di:stinctie',~ between formal and commonsense interpretations of grammars is a connotatively rda~:ed idea). We learn some things under conditions that are natural, implicit, and contextually supported; we learn other things under conditions that are formal, explici~t, mad removed from supporting contexts the di,,;tinction is roughly parallel to home-based versus school-based learning. The child's ability to comprehend simple :~tories has its origin in natural learning. Perhaps the constraction of the h~man :mind is such that story cc,mpr~,.hension is a ~aore o: Ie:~ "natural" consequence -- in any event, preschool children are i~ers,~d from birth in a sea of narratives, and entering 16ndergartners are abl~ in most instances to handle this genre (Applebee 1978). What happens ne~! in the development of a well educated person is most interesting. While the kindergartner can follow the slLoryline, and has a sense of what follows what, ~he fully literate adult has a deeper understanding of the motivational paths that "dritve" a story, can ihandle more complex narrative forms, and often has a consdous awareness of the structure in the absence of formal education, which is to say that an unschooled person may be a

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marvelous story~eiler, I:~utthat the skill is l~kely to operate at an intuitive level. Now the :~ppropriatt;ness of the story grammar as a model of comprehension cz~ be stated in a different 'say. On the one hand is the question of how well the grammar accounts for story comp~:ehension in commonplace settings by individuals whose tutdage has been strictly natural. On the other hand is the question of how well the grammar accounts for comprehension in formal settings by individuals who have received systematic instruction, This latter question can be turned around -- to wh~t extent does the story grammar incorporate the element~ of ~Ihe curriculum used to train the individuals? Impii~i~ in this argument is ~.he notion tha! curricult~.m structure can become cognitiv: structure, that the person who is formally educated begins to think in ways theft mirror the p;ogram of instructiort (Calfee 1981a). ~lruclure t:er,~us cotllet~

As Beaugrande makes clear, sto~r grammar s not a single unified system, but a ~liverse array of concepts and procedures, some primarily analytic and structural, some more procedural and eomputer-modelish, and some focusing on the :ontent. The !a~.ter focus i~, faidy uncommon; Black and Wilensky (1979) ~uggest that their research is be~sed largely on content, but most of the work in this ar¢~ is a pragmatic example cf the separation of form and substance Beaugrande: 1,13). In general, most story r~:searcn has emphasized the role of ~truclurzl factors to the relati v'e neglect of content. Acco~rdingly, let me mention three iss.aes .:lealing with the content of stories, :~ues t~at are likely to prove importaht in story comprehension. The specific ~s:Jes ir,clude the content of the narrative, the function of the narrative, and ~he u~ of the narrative structure to carry non-narrative content. Sto~-grarrmar researchers have not, to the best of my knowledt~e, attempted to a~semble a ,axono~'ny of naturally occurring stories. Beaugrande ~sections 3.14 to 3.28) makes same interesting proposals along this line, and presents several dimensions or teatures that distinguish good stories from bad :;~ories, real stores from nonstories. His samrhng of stories from diverse origins illustrates the importance of a more careful descriiption of the domain which we are investigating. For examp!e, it does seem that real stories are likely to ,,ary in the famitiarity of the ch~t'ac:ers and the institutions, in the excitement ,tnd fantasy-fulfilling quality of the experience, in the lew~l of richness and t=nexpectedness, and in the cleverness and comple~:ity of the plot. The functions of narrative are not discussed by Beaugrande, nor by anyone ~!se, to my krowk~ge (Ed.: see Stein this i~iue). A story may be a thirJg unto itself, of course, but it may serve o~¢r purposes a~ well. For instance, a story l~y be designed chiefly to make a point - fables end in a moral. More generally siories may be used for illustration, as in the ease of a brief story

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being inserted in a larger passage for the purpose of illustrating, concreti:ing, and livening the discussion. Stories can also serve as analogies. When historians talk about the "growth" of a nation, when children read the "story" of the railroads, when the teach,~r discusses a "day" in the life of a honeybee, in these and other instances the narrative structure serves admirably as an analogy to carry a structure that is sequential, though lacking in the motivational linkages that are found in a genuine narrative.. It is not clear how variation in the function of a narrative effects either the structural features or the cognitiw; processing. I raise the issue here beczuse it seems currently neglected and leads naturally into my third topic, the use of the narrative form to carry non..narrative content. Here I refer not to the analogical role of narrative just mentioned, but to a very different application that is (unfortunately, in my opinion) quite common ic, many contemporary reading series. For instance, a story about a "choo-cho¢' train serves inciden. . . commulu:at¢ . . . . . . ' .... meas " - - at, -'. out . . . me ' . . .nature . . . . oi" the raa~roau --':---" system; a narrative tally to about the adventures of a Nav~o girl is the guise for a description oi' the contrasts between cultures. Beau~rande (sections .,.0-3.9) gives a number of other examples o~ story-like non-stories; particularly relevant is his account of why a "story" about "how to catch a fish" is not a story. While the teachers' manuals are seldom cliear about the matter, it appears that learning the incidentally presented information in s,lch pseudo-narrative texts is often the primary instructional goal. ]'he uncertainty arises because (a) teacher manua:s seldom if ever provide any guidan~::eabout passage structure, not even such gross oistinctions as that between narrative and expository structure, and (b) the questions iv, the manuals telJd to be ad hoc, and when they are classified, the categories (main idea, mfere~ce, detail)bear no relation to the structural features of ti~e specific passage. In any event, incidental learning is generally less dficient than inter~tional learning (Postman 1976), though not always (Brown 19'79). More to tbe point, the narrative structure may dominate the orsa:nization oi .....brmation in m~mory, so that even though the incidental material may be sl arm away, it may not be retrievable. This point is illustrated by the following dialogue, the effor~ of a third-grader to retell a descriptive pas~;age which presents in exposiitory style, but in the first person, a portrayal of a pine tree .. notice that the smdem begins by reference to a narrativz .~::yle,ai~d then encounters dilficuity bec~Luse narrative style is poorly suited to organi,dng retriewd of the bulk of the ir,!ormation.

R. Calfiw/ ~eoretical and~mcticalramifications Text

Retelli~g

There is a big old tree in the yard outside my window. It is s~rai#tt and tall a~l looks like a cone. The branches at the bot~m are wide and full. The tr~ goes way above the roof ,of my ~ s ¢ . At the top it/s narrow and comes to a point. The green leaves that cover its brarghes are not really Ica~es at all. They are shar~ and ~inted and make me think of nt-edl¢~,. TM trte in my yard is e.lways green. In winter tM other trees lose their leaves. But even wh,..n snow falls and i,t is cold l can took at my Ir~ and think of sprinlb

T: 1 want you to tell me ah)ut the story you jm:t read..tel| me whatever you can remembe~'...hc,w did it start? S: It :~mrt~xlwhen someone was talking about a tlCC.,,and she,the ~tson was talking ab~stt the tr~.,was t©lling..telling..telling ho~ it looked like and how she thinks al~mt it. T' Can you tell me more.'?

S: Sht,'..sho,..she liked..she tells where um how it t~rowi..how it um grows..when the rain ~Hes..men she tell some um urn some lea~/es go up and she tell about the weather and,,, . . . . . . . .

I

Retelling protocols of this character are not unusual in our experience many students begin their retelling with "once upon a time...." Incidentally. ,mr third-grader had little or no trouble retelling a narrative of contparable readability (Dee-Lucas 1981}. The point to these remarks is that story grammars in their present form do not give much of a handle on problems of this sort - nor is it clear that they ~hould. Rather, what is needed is a broadax set of grammars for describing prose structur~ - such efforts are underway (Bereiter 1978; Calfee and Curley in press; Levin 1978; Meyer in press). To the degree that subsidiary information is apt~nded to the main f~rameof a structure, ~he grawanar predicts that the apl~dages will ~ jettisoned in favor of the more basic elements - how is tP~egrammar to "~,ow" th, t the writer may have intended that the ancillary raateriMs should have attracwxl more attention? ,,~-' such instances, the s~t,~ry gxan',mar is doing its job by describing how the reader:handles n~aterial frcu, a w~ter who is confused about purpose and audience To put it another way, st~mcture and conteat are operating quite independently in this case (~ugrande: 1.13), so much so that a passage may be so constructed that it 5ields ~ r understanding of ~te intended content, yet the structural analysis will detect nothing a ' ~ . PerhaFg we should ask not only how research can aid practice in this iastaw~, but how pra,~ice ~in inform resean:h. Beaugrande has pointed to the importan~ of scope and eco,logieal validity a~ criteria for assessing the value of story grmranars. These criteria seem quite nmsonable, and Beaugrande offers s ~ concrete examples of how they might be applied. Let me suggest that the I~ractices of ~¢hooling, both past and pr~mt, can provide rich examples for the

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grammarians’parsingactivities.Our insightmightbe sharpenedand enriched by the adviceof teacherswhodaily wrestlewith the engineeringaspectsof the task of helpingchildren understandstories,Schoolmaterialsinclude a wide array of stories,whichvary in their purpose,design,and quality. MC-cover, accompanyingthese materialsare pedagogicalinstructionsfor analysis and interpretation,whichalso vary widelyin purpose,design,and quality (Cplfee 1981b).Carefulexaminationof theseartifactsis likelyto modifythe concepts of story grammar,so that it comes closerto meetingthe criteriaof smpe and ecologicalvalidity.The translati.onfromresearchto practiceis alsolikelyto be hastened.

References Applebee,A.N. 1978.The child’sconceptof story. Chiciigo:Universityof ChicagoPress, Applebee,A.N. 1980.A study of writingin the secondaryschool.Final F.eportNIE-G-793174. Urbana,IL: NationalCouncilof Teachersof English. Bereiter, C, 1,978.Discoursetype, schema, and strategy - a view from the standpoint of instructiozraldesign. Paper presentedat the American Educational ResearchAssociation Meeting.Toronto, Black,J. and G. Bower.1986.Storyunderstandingas problemsolving.Poetics9: 223-250. Black,J. and R. Wilensky,1979.An evaluationof story grammars.CognitiveScience3: ^rl3-230. Brown,A.L. 1979.‘Theoriesof memory;Ind problemsoi development:activity, growth and knowledge’.In: LX Cernakand F.I.M.Craik, eds., Levelsof processingin human memory. Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum. Calfee,R.C. 1979.Understandingand con prehending.Paperpresentedat Centerfor the Str@ of Reading,Universityof Illinois Calfee,R.C. 1981a.‘Cognitivepsychologyand educationalpractice’.In: D.C.Berliner,ed , Review of researchin education.Washington,DC: AmericanEducarilbnal ResearchAssociation. Calfee,RC. 1981b. THE BOOK(A genericmanualfor readingteachers).Unpublishedmanuscript, StanfordUniversity. Calfee,R.C.and R,G. Curley.Xnpress.‘Structuresof prosein the content area’.In: J. Fl.xxked., Understandingreadingcomprehension.Newark,D: InternationalReadingktisociatio.1. Clark. H.H. 1973.The languug:-as-fixed-ef~i~t fallacy:a critiqueof languagestatisticsir psychologicalresearchJournalof VerbaiLearningand VerbalBehavior12: 335-359. Dee-Lucas,D. 1981.Effectof discoursetypeon recallof chi!drenand adults.Paperpreser,tedat te AmericanPsychological.Association Meeting,Los Angeles. Goody,J. 1977.The domestxationof the savagemind. London:,CambridgeIlniversity! ress. Ho&berg,J.E. 1964,Perceprion.EnglewoodCliffs,NJ: Prentice-.Hall. Koestler,A. 1968,The sleepiiaikers,NewYork: Macmillan. Levin,G. 1978.Prosemodei;.(4!h cd.) NewYork: HarcourtBtaaze Jovanovich. Mellon,J.C. 1969.Transformationalsentence-combining: a metlod for enhaeicingthe develop mentof syntacticfluency‘n Englishcomposition.NCTEResearchReportNo. 10.Urbana,IL: NationalCouncilof Tertt:!!ers of English. Meyer, B.J.F. In press,‘Cr8anizationalaspects of texts’.In. J. Flood, cd., Issues in reading comprehension,Newark,DE: InternationalReadingAssociation. Miller,G.A. 1962.Someps~~chological studiesof grammar.AmericanPsychologist17: 748-762. Olson, D.R. 1977,From utter.m to text: the basis of languagein speechand writing.Harvard EducationalReview47: 257-281.

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Postman, L. !)76. 'Methodology oi hum=,~ learning'. In: W.K. Estes~ ed., Handbook of learning and cognilive processes, vol. 3: ~pproachcs to htnan learning and motivation, Hillsdal¢, NJ: Erlbaum. Savin, H. and E. Perchonok. 1965. G~ammatical sltructures and the immediate recaP! of English scnllences. Journal of Verbal Learaing and Verb;¢ Behavior 4, M8-353. Simon, H.A. 1981. The sciences of the artificial. (2n(ed.) Cambridge, MA: The MII" Press.

Robert Ca/fee ~ an experimental cog=litive psychologist. He earnexl his degrees at the Unio,~ersityof Califon:ia at L~ Angeles, did postgraduate work at Stanford University, and spent five years in the Psychology Department at Universi~,yof Wi~ccnsin. He retarned to Stanford as Associate Professor in '.he School of EducatiorL..and at [..rescr,! is Professo:r of Education and Psychology. I[nterew. have evolved over the past 15 years -- b,~ginning wit[= research on prereading skills, methods flJr assessing reading, and instructic,n in reading. Current interests are the b:oader ques=iems ,~f how education in,quences human ,.~gnifion and how h,aman cognition can intl~tence education,