Journal of Literacy Research

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Early Grade School Children's Liking of Script and Suspense Story Structures Paul E. Jose and William F. Brewer Journal of Literacy Research 1990 22: 355 DOI: 10.1080/10862969009547718 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/22/4/355

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Journal of Reading Behavior 1990, Volume XXII, No. 4

EARLY GRADE SCHOOL CHILDREN'S LIKING OF SCRIPT AND SUSPENSE STORY STRUCTURES

Paul E. Jose Loyola University of Chicago

William F. Brewer University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana ABSTRACT The structural-affect theory of stories was used to predict that young grade school children prefer narratives that involve suspense to those that fail to stimulate a pleasant affective response. Suspense stories, scripts (narratives that described a mundane event sequence), and scripts with added excitement (scripts with nonintegrated exciting events) were read to children of three ages: kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Children indicated their liking of the stories in three ways: (a) a 7-point rating scale, (b) a ranking of the three types from most liked to least liked, and (c) choosing one of the three as the story they would most prefer to hear read to them at a later date. The prediction that suspense stories would be best liked was confirmed. For the rating scale measure, only second graders reliably liked suspense stories more than plain scripts. For the ranking measure, both first and second graders reliably liked suspense stories best. Finally, for the preference measure, all three age groups reliably liked the suspense stories best. These results support the structural-affect theory's contention that young children's story schemas begin to include the dimension of suspensefulness in story narratives. Reading researchers have long been interested in the question of why certain children like certain stories and do not like others. For example, Beyard-Tyler and Sullivan (1980) and Zimet (1972) have argued that children's interest in reading material varies according to theme and gender: Boys like to read about sports and

girls like to read about family and peer relations. These observations constitute an attempt to understand children's preferences for stories based upon content. However, separate from the issue of content, or what the story is about, is the issue of 355

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story structure. Narratives are explicitly structured in various ways for the purpose of eliciting particular affective responses in readers. The present study was designed to explore the ability of a theory of story appreciation to explain young grade school children's liking preferences for three different story structures. Bruce (1978) has asked the question, What makes a good story? because heÉ was concerned about how story quality affects readers' general motivation to read. In particular, he questioned whether narratives in early reading materials are liked by young readers. In many early reading series, plot structure has been neglected in favor of controlling and manipulating vocabulary and sentence difficulty in order to foster decoding skills (see also Bettelheim & Zelan, 1982). Thus, some stories that early grade school children read are dull and boring. However, it has also been our observation that pre-schoolers and early grade school children commonly read, hear, and view more exciting and suspenseful stories outside of the classroom than inside. The two questions that we attempted to answer with the present study were: (a) do young grade school children prefer stories that are structured to elicit an emotional response of suspense in the reader to nonexciting narratives about mundane activities? and (b) if so, when does this preference for suspenseful stories become evident? First, let us examine several story theories that bear on these real world concerns. Story Theories Story grammar theory. At this time, one of the major theories of stories is the story grammar approach, originated by Rumelhart (1975) and elaborated by Stein (Stein & Glenn, 1979) and Mandler (Mandler & Johnson, 1977). This approach claims that a narrative which describes the instigation, course, and outcome of a character's plan constitutes a story. Stein and Glenn's (1979) description of a story grammar is representative of this perspective. They define a story as a narrative composed of six story grammar elements presented in a temporal sequence: setting information, initiating event, internal response of the protagonist, attempt by the protagonist to attain a goal, consequence or outcome of the protagonist's attempt, and finally the protagonist's reaction to the outcome. This approach describes a typical story's structure, and data collected by various researchers (e.g., Brennan, Bridge, & Winograd, 1986; Whaley, 1981) indicate that children expect that stories will conform to this structure. This approach makes no explicit predictions about a reader's affective or aesthetic response; it is concerned with story comprehension and memory for story elements rather than story appreciation. Thus, no predictions can be made as to differences in story liking between different stories or different story structures. Story features approach. Work derivative from the story grammar approach (Stein, 1982; Stein & Policastro, 1984) could be termed the story features approach because it has begun to identify story structure characteristics that are used by

Script and Suspense Stories

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children in their judgments of story quality. For example, Stein and Policastro (1984) had second graders rate a variety of narrative types on a 7-point scale where the lowest rating indicated not a story at all, the mid-point indicated a story, and the highest rating indicated really good, best story. The highest rated narrative type was multiple-episode passage that included the features of a blocked goal path and multiple episodes: It was rated at the mid-point, that is, a story. Another narrative type that was evaluated was the animate action sequence, which conforms to what Schank and Abelson (1977) have defined as a script. A script is a memory representation of a series of habitual everyday, mundane actions performed in a common setting. For example, the sequence of actions that a child would typically perform in going to school, getting through the schoolday, and then returning home would be a script. These children gave this narrative type a rating below the mid-point, that is, almost, but not quite a story. Since an initiating event and goal blockage were absent, these children rated this narrative type as fitting their story prototype less well. Although the story features approach examines story quality, it makes no explicit predictions about a reader's affective or aesthetic response. Whether good stories are liked more than mere stories by readers is an open question since Stein has not asked subjects to rate their appreciation of these narratives. Thus, this approach makes no explicit predictions as to differences in story liking between different stories or different story structures. Structural-affect theory. Another theory of stories, the structural-affect theory (Brewer & Lichtenstein, 1981, 1982a, 1982b; Jose, 1988; Jose & Brewer, 1984) takes as its central concern the issue of how stories are structured to elicit an affective response by the reader. Although a number of affective dimensions may contribute to a reader's labelling a narrative as a story (i.e., silliness and humor, rhyme, rhythm, morality, and violence), the theory concentrates on three discourse structures that are most commonly used in writing stories: suspense, surprise, and curiosity. The suspense discourse structure is probably the most common story structure (Brewer, 1980); it is the focus of the present study. The structural-affect theorists' claims about the suspense discourse structure are based upon Berlyne's (1971) general theory of aesthetics (see also Moynihan & Mehrabian, 1981). Berlyne claimed that enjoyment of an experience occurs when a temporary and moderate increase of arousal is followed by a reduction of arousal (arousal-boost-jag). The suspense story structure involves a story situation in which a significant consequence, as defined by structural-affect theory (Jose, 1988; Jose & Brewer, 1984), is likely to occur to the main character of the story. A significant consequence is the reader's knowledge that an important outcome is pending for the character. For example, in the typical adventure story, the main character may be captured and his or her life threatened. The uncertainty of this important outcome for the character creates a feeling of suspense (arousal) in the

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reader, and the resolution of this suspense at the end of the story reduces the arousal in a pleasant fashion. Thus, when the protagonist manages to escape safely, the reader feels relief from the reduction in tension, and this happy resolution of the suspense creates a pleasing emotional state. Thus, the reader reports liking the outcome and liking the narrative; further, they rate the narrative as a story (Brewer & Lichtenstein, 1982a, 1982b). The structural-affect theory bases its approach on the assumption that the discourse force of stories is to entertain, rather than to transmit information as efficiently as possible (Brewer, 1980). From this perspective, it then becomes important to understand how and why the reader's emotional reactions to a story structure marks it as enjoyable or boring as opposed to whether a story element is remembered or not. A chief distinguishing characteristic of this theory is that it addresses the issue of story appreciation. For example, the importance of the character's goal is of paramount concern for the structural-affect theory. The story grammar approach postulates that the initiating event serves as the stimulus for the event sequence: "Information in this category consists of events or actions which function to evoke a desire in the protagonist to achieve a goal or change of state in the protagonist's world" (Trabasso, Stein, & Johnson, 1981, p. 240). The structural-affect theorists agree that the initiating event is crucial to storyhood, but would further stipulate that it must concern an important goal (Jose, 1988); otherwise, the reader may fail to be concerned about the fate of the plan. A reader is likely to be uninterested in a trivial desire to achieve a goal: A narrative which features a desire to obtain sugar for a cup of coffee, for example, would constitute a boring narrative which would nonetheless still conform to the story grammar schema. The structural-affect theory claims that if a narrative fails to stimulate an emotional response of suspense, curiosity, or surprise in a reader, then the reader is unlikely to say that he or she likes the story. Research by Brewer and Lichtenstein (1981, 1982a, 1982b) on adults, and by Jose (Jose, 1988; Jose & Brewer, 1984) on older grade school children, supports the position that adults' and older children's liking of stories is strongly related to these three affective dimensions. The present study was performed in order to investigate some of the structural aspects of story liking in young children (kindergarten through second grade). Development of Story Liking Previous research has demonstrated that fourth graders (Jose & Brewer, 1984) like suspenseful stories, and there is a suggestion that younger children like suspense as well (Hay & Brewer, 1984). In addition, it has been shown that late grade school children begin to appreciate stories that conform to just world resolution: Good characters should receive positive outcomes and bad characters should receive negative outcomes (Jose & Brewer, 1984). Finally, it has been shown that older


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children prefer to read stories with both an important goal as well as difficult goal attainment (Jose, 1988). Although there are no published data examining the success of the structuralaffect theory in predicting story liking and story preferences in early grade school children, observation of these children listening to fairy tales and watching television suggest that the structural-affect theory may very well apply to this age. Thus, the major focus of this study was to gather data on the degree to which the structural-affect theory predicts the story liking of young grade school children. Two main types of story structure were compared in the present study: (a) script stories that described normal, everyday events, and (b) suspense stories that described a character in a potentially dangerous situation. It was predicted, using structural-affect theory, that the suspense stories would be preferred to the script stories because of the sustained elevation and resolution of arousal produced by the suspense discourse structure. A third type of story was used in the present study to help explicate the role of the reader's emotional reaction to story liking. The script story was modified by adding two exciting events to the narrative and was termed, scripts with added excitement. Since the two exciting events were not integrated into the story, that is, did not affect the course of the character's action, it was expected that this type of story would not be as effective in arousing the reader's emotions as the suspense stories. It was expected that the suspense stories would be best liked because of the significant amount of successfully resolved emotional arousal, the excitement scripts would be rated intermediate in liking because they would involve at least some affective response from the reader, and these script stories would be least liked because no significant affect is aroused.

METHOD Subjects Twenty-seven children each at kindergarten, first, and second grades were randomly selected from children whose parents had given permission for them to be tested. All children came from one grade school, which had two classes at each grade. Thus, approximately half of the children of the target age in this school were included in the testing. The school is located in a mid-sized Midwestern city, and most of the children were white and came from middle-class families. Roughly equal numbers of males and females were tested at each grade. Materials Three story types were used in the present study: (a) mundane scripts (Scr), (b) scripts with added excitement (Exc), and (c) suspense stories (Sus). The mun-

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dane script narratives conformed to the story grammar plan-based structure in that they related a sequence of events that constituted a mundane plan. (All stories are presented in Appendix A.) The first narrative describes a young girl who goes through the routine script of mailing a letter in a mailbox. The scripts with added excitement involved two instances of nonsustained exciting events that were added to the basic script structure. The two exciting events are unrelated to the basic plot of the narrative, that is, they do not put her in danger or prevent her from completing her plan. Thus, their contribution to a reader's affective response to the narrative was expected to be minimal. The suspense version conformed to the standard suspense discourse structure: The story began with an initiating event, intervening material was presented to sustain suspense, and then a resolution was given at the end of the story. In the first story, the reader is told early that a swarm of bees had been placed inside the mailbox. Intervening material permits the reader to experience suspense about the possible resolution of the story, and at the end of the narrative the story is resolved by having the girl succeed in mailing the letter without being stung. To permit within-subject testing, three base stories were written. The mundane script version was written first. The mundane script narratives described children doing common activities: (a) Nancy mails a letter, (b) Sam goes to bed, and (c) Susan goes to the store to buy groceries. Then each base story was rewritten to create the other two story types. The scripts with added excitement in each case were written so that two interesting but plot-irrelevant incidents were added. The suspense stories were created by placing the protagonist in some danger, although in each case the protagonist was unaware of the danger. In all three suspense stories, the suspense is resolved in a pleasant fashion, that is, the child escapes harm. Thus, three story types for each of three base stories were written, creating a total of nine stories. Procedure The purpose of the design was to insure that each child received all three types of stories but that no child received the same content more than once. Thus, an experimenter read each subject three stories: one each of the three base stories and one each of the three story types. A Latin square design was used to determine order of story presentation. Three story type orders were used: (a) Script (Scr), Suspense (Sus), Excitement (Exe); (b) Sus, Exc, Scr; (c) Exe, Scr, Sus. Three base story orders were used: (a) Mailbox (M), Evening (E), Grocery (G); (b) E, G, M; and (c) G, M, E. In conjunction, these constraints provided for nine orders. After each of the three narratives had been read to the child, the experimenter asked the child to indicate their liking of the story on a seven-point scale of liking (1 = don't like at all to l = like a lot). Before the testing session began, a brief training session was given to the child to insure that they would be able to use the 7-point scale. The child was presented with a figure depicting seven increasingly


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larger boxes with the numbers 1 to 7 printed inside. They were asked how they would feel if they had an ice cream cone of their favorite flavor. Most children spontaneously understood that the biggest box corresponded to liking something a great deal. Then they were asked how they would feel if they accidentally dropped the ice cream cone. Even the kindergarten children spontaneously understood that the smallest box indicated disliking. After each story was read, the experimenter would point to particular boxes and say, "Did you like the story a lot (#7), not like it at all (#1), or feel somewhere in between (#4)?" In addition to the rating of the story, a comparative ranking of the three stories in terms of liking was obtained at the end of the session. As each story was told, the experimenter laid out a picture depicting a couple of the elements in the narrative (e.g., a mailbox and a girl for the base story about Nancy). After all three stories had been read and the child had indicated their ratings of the stories, the experimenter brought the three pictures out again and briefly reviewed the stories as he laid them down in the order they were presented. Then the child was asked, "Of these three stories, which did you like the most?" After the child picked one, that picture was removed and the child was asked, "Of these two stories, which did you like more?" The experimenter could then record the ranked order of liking for all three stories. The last dependent measure was taken after a short buffer time period of a couple of minutes when the experimenter talked to the child about non-story issues (e.g., schoolwork, family, pets, etc.). The last question was, "Of these three stories I told you today, which would you prefer to hear again if I were to return?" Three liking measures were taken to avoid mono-operation bias (Cook & Campbell, 1979). The stories were read to the children rather than having them read the stories themselves in order to avoid the biasing effect of differential reading level of the youngest children affecting comprehension and liking of the stories.

RESULTS Since the three liking measures constituted three different types of data, each was analyzed in a different fashion. The 7-point rating scale measure provides interval data and was analyzed with a repeated measures ANOVA treating Grade of Subject as a between-subjects factor and Story Type and Time of Testing as the two within-subjects factors. Story type order and base story order failed to yield significant differences and were thus ignored in further analyses. Further, no differences were found for base story type, that is, the three base stories were equally liked. The ranking measure provides ordinal data and was analyzed with Friedman's nonparametric two-way ANOVA test. Finally, the preference measure provides cross-classified categorical data and was analyzed with a log-linear analysis.

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Seven-Point Rating Measure of Story Liking Two significant ANOVA results were found: (a) a main effect for Story Type, and (b) the interaction between Grade of Subject by Story Type. The main effect for Story Type, F(2, 156) = 4.18,p