George Hillocks on bad goals and objectives

In the Introduction to his book Teaching Argument Writing, Hillocks talks about bad objectives, good objectives, and how each calls for a different instructional sequence. Bad objectives can lead to ineffective teaching. Some bad goals and objectives: Students will write a persuasive essay about a school problem of concern to them. Students will explore the imagery of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The class will discuss the various conflicts that Trueson faces in Light in the Forest. Students will study the meaning of twenty vocabulary words. Students will write an essay analyzing Mark Antony's funeral speech over Caesar's body. "These objectives are all either assignments or stipulations of how class time will be spent. They do not stipulate what students are to learn. Furthermore, they do not indicate how the learnings, whatever they are, will be assessed. Consider the final objective... My guess is that this is either an assignment or test item for students after they have read the speech alone or in the classroom. More importantly, we need to ask what instruction prepared students to make the required analysis of Antony's speech. If the instruction simply involved some classroom talk about the speech, talk that supplied some analysis, then the objective is merely about recall. Can the students remember what the teacher said about the speech and how it uses irony to undercut Brutus as an "honorable man"?" Here's a better version of the same objective: "Given an unfamiliar passage, such as Mark Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral, students will write an essay identifying the uses of irony and interpreting its impact on the meaning of the passage." "This objective requires a totally different instructional sequence.... The focus will not be on remembering the teacher's interpretation of a passage but on learning how to interpret irony." "Shaping objectives in this way demands a reconceptualization of teaching and even the curriculum. Neither can be any longer simply a matter of covering topics or works and making assignments and hoping that some of it rubs off on students. It becomes necessary to ask, How will what we do in class today help students become more expert in dealing with specific tasks tomorrow?" Here's a better objective for arguments of fact: After independently examining a set of data concerning a certain problem, students will write an argument about what the facts of the matter are. The argument must provide a claim with support including four to five pieces of evidence, warrants explaining how the evidence supports the claim and is relevant, qualifications about the limitations of the claim and warrants, and counter arguments dealing with possible opposing views.