ABSTRACT
The three students we just met-Ralph, Clare, and Kim-paint a picture of the reading process that takes place daily in classrooms, and they remind us how complex learning from text can be. That is, these students struggling to learn from text are, indeed, di-
verse and have variable lessons to teach. For decades, researchers have attempted to capture this complex picture of text-based learning. In 1979, Jenkins articulated what he called his "Problem Pyramid" or "Theorist's Tetrahedron," a model that he envisioned as a useful heuristic for capturing the inherent complexity and multidimensionality of learning and memory. This "two-decade-old" model also serves as a poignant reminder that current concerns for the complexity and situativity of learning, including learning from text, are not new. Rather, the roots of such notions reach deeply into the history of educational literature. For instance, we can point to these themes in the philosophical writings of James (1890), Dewey (1913), Vygotsky (1934/1986), and others.
