by Larry Ainsworth

Clarity First

There is a special kind of hope that fills an educator’s heart and mind in the days before students arrive. During my 24 years in the classroom, I always looked forward to this time of year, because it is the moment when we as educators have the greatest opportunity to set a tone that will carry our students all the way to the end of the school year and beyond.

But hope alone is not enough. As a culmination of my 50 years of combined classroom teaching and consulting experience, I have come to believe that the single most important thing a teacher can do before students arrive is not to just decorate the room, set up desks and learning resources, and decide on classroom guidelines and routines— it is to get crystal clear, first for themselves and then for their students, exactly what is essential to teach and for students to learn during this new school year, and why.

That is what the Integrated Teaching and Learning System^© I created is designed to do. Here are a few of the foundational “timeless essentials” from the ITLS framework that can help you start this year with this essential clarity.

Know Your Destination: Essential Standards

Without this clarity, combined with the busyness of the first weeks of school, instruction can understandably be reduced to just opening the textbook on page one and beginning with whichever standard comes first, without regard for its relative importance to student learning. However, experienced educators know that not all standards carry equal weight. With as many as 70, 80, or even 90-plus standards in every content area at each grade level, no teacher can give every standard the same depth of instruction within the finite number days in a school year. It’s not enough to just “cover” each standard. There must be a deliberate focus on those standards that have been identified as being truly essential for students to learn.

This is why the foundation of the entire ITLS framework begins with identifying your Essential Standards — “a carefully selected subset of all the standards” that students must know and be able to demonstrate attainment of by the end of the school year. Doing so helps to ensure that students will be ready to enter the next grade or course with the prerequisites needed to begin learning the standards that are to follow. If your grade-level or course-level team has not yet met together to determine which standards are your priorities for the year ahead, doing so now, before school begins, is the ideal time to do it. And if that collaboration with colleagues is not an option, you can do this yourself. And here's how.

Begin by asking the questions that I always pose to an Essential Standards workshop audience, whether it is in-person or virtual: “Will proficiency in this standard be essential for your students’ readiness at the next level of schooling, for life beyond school, and for the summative tests your students will take? In short, these are the long-established REAL criteria for identifying Essential Standards: Readiness for the next level of learning; Endurance—concepts and skills necessary throughout school and life; Assessment--preparation for student success on standardized tests, and Leverage—interdisciplinary connections. When you can identify a standard that meets all four of these criteria, you have found an Essential Standard.

You may be wondering, “What about all the standards that are not identified as being essential? Do we just focus only on the essentials?” Definitely not. The other standards are Supporting Standards, those standards that support, connect to, or enhance the Essential Standards. Educators teach these standards within the context of the Essential Standards, but they do not receive the same degree of emphasis in instruction and assessment. Supporting standards serve as instructional scaffolds. They include foundational concepts and thinking skills that students need to learn first before they can achieve the more challenging Essential Standards.

Identifying Essential Standards means “prioritization, not elimination.” Every standard still gets taught — but the Essential Standards are the ones that require the greatest instruction and assessment focus.

Once you’ve identified your Essential Standards, the next step is to assign them and related supporting standards to units of study that each focus on a specific learning goal for a relatively short period of time (i.e., generally two to four weeks). If you are using a commercial textbook program that is organized by units or chapters, each with a specific learning goal, identify within your list of Essential Standards and supporting standards the ones that match that focus. In this way, your instructional resource can be used as the “delivery system” you use to assist your students in achieving those Essential Standards.

“Unwrap” Essential Standards for Teacher Clarity

“Clarity of intent is most important—if teachers know exactly what they want students to know and do, it will impact everything they do when designing instruction and assessment (W. James Popham, Keynote, Broomfield, Colorado, 2011).

“Clarity around understanding the standards and what must be learned and taught begins with the teacher... It is imperative that the teacher find clarity in the standards to translate clear learning expectations to students. If the teacher is unclear about what students must know and be able to do, it is impossible for students to follow or own their learning (O’Connell and Vandas, Partnering with Students, 2015, p. 54).

In John Hattie’s updated publication, Visible Learning: The Sequel (2024), his research shows an increase in the positive impact of teacher clarity from 0.75 to 0.85—an effect size representing two years of student growth in one academic school year based on a 0.40 effect size that approximates one year of student growth in an academic school year.

To achieve this necessary clarity for instruction, the next step is to “unwrap” the unit-assigned Essential Standards. In the education context, “unwrapping” means to analyze and deconstruct each Essential Standard within a unit of study. The purpose of “unwrapping” an Essential Standard is to pinpoint exactly what students need to know (the teachable concepts—declarative knowledge) and be able to do (specific skills—procedural knowledge) through a specific context (high-quality instructional resources educators use to teach students the identified concepts and skills). Supporting standards are generally not “unwrapped” so that educators can keep a sharp focus on the Essential Standards.

Writing Learning Targets for Student Clarity

Just as “unwrapping” provides educators with the clarity they need to fully understand the Essential Standards they are about to teach to their students, the way to communicate that same clarity to students is to “translate” those standards into age-appropriate student wording. These become Student Learning Targets, essence statements of the “unwrapped” Essential Standards that your students can understand and own.

Like the “unwrapped” Essential Standards, Student Learning Targets serve as the focal points of instruction, learning activities, and assessments. Their value lies in helping students make clear connections between what they are learning and how they can set a personal goal to achieve that learning.

When teachers reword the “unwrapped” Essential Standards as Student Learning Targets, they are careful to retain the rigor and intent of the original standards wording so that nothing is “lost in translation.” Otherwise, students may be able to show that they have learned less-rigorous learning targets but have fallen short of being able to demonstrate attainment of the more-rigorous Essential Standards. By retaining the rigor of the “unwrapped” Essential Standard in each Student Learning Target, educators are continually reminded to “teach up”, to match their instruction and related assessments to the same level of rigor.

Here are two examples of Student Learning Targets intentionally aligned to the rigor and intent of the “unwrapped” Essential Standards:

“Unwrapped” Essential WRITING Standard: “WRITE opinion pieces on topics or texts, SUPPORTING a point of view with reasons and information” (CCSS W.5.1)

Student Learning Target: In this unit you will learn how to write your opinion about a topic with supporting information.

“Unwrapped” Essential MATH Standard: “FLUENTLY DIVIDE multi-digit numbers USING the standard algorithm” (CCSS 6.NS.B.2).

Student Learning Target: In this unit you will learn how to use a math formula to solve a division problem with several digits.

Aligning Success Criteria to Student Learning Targets

Together with Student Learning Targets that communicate to students what they are to learn, Success Criteria show students how they will demonstrate that they have learned it. Success Criteria make clear for learners in specific, objective wording exactly what they need to write, say, and/or do as valid evidence that they have successfully “hit the bullseye” of the Student Learning Target(s). When students can see both the Learning Target and the related Success Criteria at the start of each day’s instruction, they are clear about their learning direction and how to achieve it.

This entire process ("unwrapping" Essential Standards, Student Learning Targets, and aligned Success Criteria) works in all grades and all content areas, PK-12. Here is one example of a Student Learning Target derived from a single “unwrapped” Essential Standard, accompanied by the related Success Criteria. Notice how the aligned Success Criteria provide specifically worded phrases to show students exactly how to achieve that target.

Co-Creating Success Criteria with Students

After educators become accustomed to, and comfortable with, generating Success Criteria on their own and then soliciting feedback from students to revise the Success Criteria to be more student-friendly, they may want to go one step further and begin co-creating Success Criteria entirely with their students.

Involving learners in the co-creation of Success Criteria is a powerful way to engage and involve students to a much greater degree than having them use criteria developed only by their teacher. Guided by their educator, students can eventually become active participants in the complete design of the criteria they will follow as the means to achieving their own individual success. Success Criteria provide specifically worded phrases to show students exactly how to achieve that target.

Initial Planning for Yearlong Benefits

Start small, build your clarity foundation slowly. Learn how to identify and “unwrap” Essential Standards in one content area or even for one unit of study. Create one Student Learning Target with aligned Success Criteria for a single Essential standard. Knowing the process, you can then continue using it as time permits throughout the year. The initial investment of time at the start of the year will produce amazing benefits for you and your students all year long.

Wishing you and your students a year of success that begins, and continues, with clarity!

Recommended CLARITY PATHWAY Reading/Resources: 

For more information on Larry's Integrated Teaching and Learning System (ITLS) and related “timeless essentials” (“Unwrapping” Essential Standards, Student Learning Targets, Success Criteria, Quick Progress Checks, Standards-Aligned Learning Tasks, and more), check out the following resources:

• ITLS books: Books 
• What is an Integrated Teaching & Learning System? Blog
• ITLS recent  blogs 
• Free Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe
• Online ITLS video courses: Courses

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If you have any questions that we can assist you in answering, please contact us at www.larryainsworth-claritypathway.com.

Thank you for all you do for the students you serve!

Copyright © 2026. Larry Ainsworth. Includes excerpts from Volume One of Integrated Teaching
and Learning: “Timeless Essentials” for Creating Integrated Units of Study. All rights reserved.