What am I supposed to think about this and where do I begin? This question finds its way into our thinking on many occasions, especially when we are responsible for the success of children. Often the words of others assist us in understanding the imperatives we face. One proven strategy for setting the stage for action is to conduct a task analysis that creates a clear vision of the work to be accomplished. A task analysis is an essential step in presenting effective instruction that causes all children to learn.
“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.” Abraham Lincoln
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin
Lincoln gives us our first thought. In teacher talk, he tells us that when we know what children know at this moment and what future learning they are to achieve, we are more likely to find the strategies for moving their education forward. Franklin gives us the kick in the pants to begin action – in positive terms, by preparing for success, our success is prepared. Hard to argue with Ben!
Task analysis helps us to transcribe complex objectives into an instructional design. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics present teachers with an extraordinary set of objective outcomes for children to achieve as the result of each grade level of instruction. In their entirety and as individual statements, the CCSS are powerful aspirations for learning, however they are exceptionally rigorous, complex and complicated. In order to understand how a standard causes learning, teachers need to strip a standard/objective down to its parts and rebuild the parts into an instructional design.
The ELA literacy standard for writing for third grade children serves as a case in point.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1a Introduce the topic or text they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that lists reasons.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1b Provide reasons that support the opinion.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1c Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1d Provide a concluding statement or section.
In our task analysis, we must identify the component parts of the learning objectives. What is an “opinion” and an “opinion piece” and what do the children in this third grade class already know about opinions and opinion pieces. Each operative subject and predicate in these objectives must be parsed and a realistic understanding of Lincoln’s “first know(ing) where we are” must be established. If there are 20 children in the class, there could well be 20 different “where we are(s)” to be found. As an example:
| Incremental part of the standard | Children who already know/can do this | Instruction needed to firm this knowledge/skill |
| opinion | ||
| opinion piece | ||
| point of view | ||
| organizational structure |
Stripping the objective down to its incremental parts is necessary for our diagnosis of what each child needs to learn and how we are to instruct them. This allows us to answer, “Who needs to learn what and in what order do they need to learn it.”
We begin Franklin’s “preparing for success” processes by reassembling our assessment of the parts of the objective into an instructional design that might look like this.
- Verification of and/or instruction of background knowledge and skills.
- Class discussion of “meaty” topics from which they can form an opinion.
- Initial instruction of new knowledge and skills related to paragraph organization, supporting ideas, and writing skills.
- Modeling of new knowledge and skills
- Collaborative work for creating an “organizational structure” or graphic organizer of what the paragraph(s) might look like, including statement of an opinion, supporting sentences aligned with reason that supports the opinion sentence, and a concluding sentence.
- Individual work to write an “opinion piece” using the organizational structure developed collaboratively.
- Teacher monitoring of individual work and support of children with weaker background knowledge or skills (tutorials).
- Presentation of student work.
Task analysis not only addresses the immediate standard(s) to be taught, it also helps a teacher verify background knowledge for the learning of other standards in the future. The analysis entailed in a third grade literacy/writing standard confirms each child’s readiness of any other standard involving opinion, opinion pieces, the organizational structure of an opinion piece, and the process of using collaborative work to establish a framework from which individual work can be completed.