Teacher Notes on Instruction-Writing Exercises

Exercise 6: Stuffed baked acorn squash

Context for this case:

Prerequisites:
  • Flawed but unworked case.
  • Guidelines for reference.
  • Sample raw acorn squash.

Cognitive Apprenticeship Features:
  • Successive approximation toward a better version.
  • Modeling of cherry-picking edit technique.

Supporting References:
Relevant CA Content Standards  
Goal:
To improve draft instructions that look good but that still contain latent logical problems.
Strategy:
Exercise 6 involves instructions with problems a little more subtle than many of those in Exercises 4 and 5. That the draft text here already contains (a list of) instructions is clear and where each falls is also clear, but important flaws still lurk within them.
APPROACHES:
As with Exercise 5, a good strategy here is to read over all of the baked-squash instructions before correcting any of them. Then edit iteratively, working from easy repairs to harder ones. Since every step should begin with an action verb and steps 5 ("Into") and 7 ("Before") obviously do not, they merit student attention at the start. Step 5 can simply be edited into a shorter version (an overt command) with the verb ("pack") first. Step 7, however, is in the wrong place, and needs to be moved as well as edited.
ISSUES:
More careful attention to the details of steps 1 and 3 reveals logical problems within them too. There are no skinless oranges, so step 1 contains a hidden prestep ("peel the orange"), as in Exercise 2. Step 3 needs crucial added details about the direction of the cut. Bringing to class a real acorn squash, or a photograph or drawing, will show students that cutting in half crosswise (midway, around the "equator" between stem and tip) would yield two halves that would not sit flat and so could not be stuffed. Hence the squash must be cut lengthwise (from tip to stem) instead. Such crucial details are often important when making instructions more usable. If you want students to supplement Step 3 with their own drawing of how to make the cut, take a look at the comments on Exercise 8 for hints about good technical illustration. (For a noncooking exercise very similar in scope to Exercise 6, see Exercise 11.)
STUDENT VERSION:
This is another scaffolded but unworked example.
ANNOTATED VERSION:
As with the first annotated version of Exercise 5, this shows the solution to each problem as a comment along the right side, but not fully implemented. Because the original instructions here are quite explicit, implementation is easy to imagine, but students could optionally rewrite the recipe to overtly implement the solutions in appropriate places themselves.
Case:
Student version:
(6) Stuffed baked acorn squash

1. Cut into small pieces
   1 apple, with skin
   1 orange, without skin----------------PROBLEM:
                                         SOLUTION:

2. Mix
   fruit pieces in a bowl with
   1 tablespoon margarine

3. Cut
   an acorn squash in half---------------PROBLEM:
                                         SOLUTION:

4. Remove
   the soft, stringy insides
   and seeds from each half
   with a spoon

5. Into each clean half------------------PROBLEM:
   squash you can now start              SOLUTION:
   packing half of the
   fruit mixture.

6. Bake
   at 350 degrees for 1 hour

7. Before you put the squash-------------PROBLEM:
   into the oven, place the              SOLUTION:
   halves on a baking dish
   and add 1/2 cup of water.
Annotated version:
(6) Stuffed baked acorn squash

1. Cut into small pieces
   1 apple, with skin
   1 orange, without skin----------------PROBLEM: HIDDEN STEP
                                         SOLUTION: (FIRST step =
                                         "Peel 1 orange")

2. Mix
   fruit pieces in a bowl with
   1 tablespoon margarine

3. Cut
   an acorn squash in half---------------PROBLEM: NEEDED DETAIL MISSING
                                         SOLUTION: add
                                         "from tip to stem, lengthwise"


4. Remove
   the soft, stringy insides
   and seeds from each half
   with a spoon

5. Into each clean half------------------PROBLEM: NO OVERT COMMAND
   squash you can now start              SOLUTION: reword--
   packing half of the                   Pack
   fruit mixture.                         half of the fruit mixture
                                          into each clean half squash.
                                          (30% fewer words)

6. Bake
   at 350 degrees for 1 hour

7. Before you put the squash-------------PROBLEM: WRONG ORDER
   into the oven, place the              SOLUTION: make an overt command
   halves on a baking dish               and move BEFORE step 6
   and add 1/2 cup of water.             (could also be 2 steps)
Note:
This exercise most closely supports the following 1998 California English-Language Arts content standard(s).
Reading:
Grade 7--"Analyze text that uses the cause-and-effect organizational pattern" (p. 42).
Grade 9/10--"Critique the logic of functional documents by examining the sequence of information...in anticipation of possible reader misunderstandings" (p. 57).
Writing:
Grade 7--"Revise writing to improve organization and word choice after checking the logic of ideas..." (p. 44).
Grade 8--"Write technical documents...identify the sequence of activities needed to design a system, operate a tool..." (p. 51).

Contact: T. R. Girill trgirill@acm.org