am not a Renaissance Man-in any sense of the words-I intend only to deal with what he has to say to those of us who teach and/or theorize about teaching the English language, especially writing. Several major ideas, all relating to the central idea of language as a tool, recur in Bruner's work. I will deal with four, beginning with language as a tool for thought, then going on to consider language as a vehicle for promoting cognitive growth, next to consider how some of his basic ideas and results of research