HAX UbD Stage 1 — Gaining Clarity on Goals

Unpack standards/topics into the desired results that anchor a backward-designed unit: big ideas, enduring understandings, essential questions, knowledge/skills, and predictable misunderstandings. This is Stage 1 of UbD — everything downstream (evidence, then learning plan) is derived from here.

When to Use

Trigger conditions:

• "What are the big ideas in X" / "write enduring understandings" / "craft essential questions"
• "Unpack this standard" / "turn this topic into goals" / "what misconceptions should I anticipate"
• You are hax-ubd-backward-design and have reached step 3 of its methodology

When NOT to use (with redirect):

• Picking the cognitive verb/level of an objective → grad-blooms (this skill frames the goal; Bloom's picks the level — they compose)
• Designing assessments → hax-ubd-stage2
• Sequencing activities → hax-ubd-stage3
• Page-level readability → hax-content-chunking-audit

Scope

Mutating. Writes manifest.stage1 plus OER schema fields and page-top stop-note/self-check blocks. Does NOT design assessments (Stage 2) or sequence learning (Stage 3).

Inputs

• source: a standard text, topic phrase, or existing content
• optional courseContext.programBigIdeas: program-level big ideas this unit nests under

Methodology

1. Unpack standards → classify each item into the three-ring priority filter (UbD Fig 3.3):

   • Worth being familiar with (outer ring — background, not the focus)
   • Important to know & do (middle ring — prerequisites, skills)
   • Worthy of enduring understanding (inner ring — the focus of this unit) Only the inner ring becomes understandings. The middle ring feeds K/S. The outer ring is context, not a target.

2. Name big ideas — linchpin concepts that are transferable beyond this unit (e.g., "form follows function," "rule of law," "supply and demand"). Test each: does it transcend this specific topic? If it only matters inside this unit, it is not (yet) a big idea.

3. Write enduring understandings as full-sentence propositions using the stem "Students will understand that…". Test each against the examples/non-examples (UbD Fig 6.1):

   • ✅ Proposition, not a topic ("Civil war tests whether founding ideals survive internal fracture" — not "The Civil War")
   • ✅ Requires inference, not just recall
   • ✅ Transferable to new situations
   • ❌ A fact dressed as an understanding ("Magna Carta was signed in 1215")
   • ❌ A topic noun phrase ("photosynthesis")

4. Derive essential questions — overarching (recur across the course/program) + topical (unit-specific). Test each: open (no single right answer), provocative, points at a big idea, arguable by thoughtful people. Add student-friendly entry questions that open lessons and point toward the EQs. (For the full starter bank, see the hax-ubd-essential-questions companion.)

5. List Knowledge / Skills (K, S) — distinguish prerequisite K/S (needed to perform the culminating task) from resultant K/S (the goal of the unit). Use grad-blooms to pin the cognitive level/verb of each skill.

6. Name predictable misunderstandings — the heart of the method. For each misconception the topic is prone to, specify:

   • preAssess: a HAX component + placement to catch it before/during instruction
   • confront: a HAX component + placement to evict it where the idea is taught UbD's central claim: teaching for understanding must anticipate, evoke, and overcome the most likely misconceptions.

HAX Component Map (Stage 1)

Output	Component	Placement
Goals / learning outcomes (G)	oer-schema (learningOutcome)	page metadata
Big ideas	heading structure + oer-schema	page framing
Enduring understandings (U)	"Students will understand that…" block + oer-schema	page body, visible
Essential / entry questions (Q)	stop-note (keep open, not collapsed)	page top
Knowledge / Skills (K, S)	editable-table	page body
Misconception pre-assessment	self-check, multiple-choice	page top (before instruction)
Misconception confrontation	stop-note + self-check	inline where the idea is taught

Full map (all stages): ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/ubd-element-map.md.

Output Format

# Stage 1 — Desired Results: {unit}
## Priority filter
{each standard → outer / middle / inner ring}
## Big ideas
- {linchpin, transferable}
## Enduring understandings (propositions)
- Students will understand that ...
## Essential questions
- Overarching: {recur across course}
- Topical: {unit-specific}
- Entry: {student-friendly openers}
## Knowledge / Skills
- K (prerequisite): ... | K (resultant): ...
- S (prerequisite): ... | S (resultant): ... [cognitive level via grad-blooms]
## Predictable misunderstandings
- {misconception} → pre-assess: {component + placement}; confront: {component + placement}
## HAX handoff
- OER schema fields: {learningOutcome = U; educationalAlignment = G}
- Page-top blocks: {stop-note carrying Q + entry Q}
- Pre-assessment: {self-check / multiple-choice targeting each misconception}

Acceptance criteria

• Every U is a full sentence starting with "Students will understand that…" — not a topic or a fact.
• Every Q is genuinely open. If a Q has one right answer, reclassify it as a leading question and move it to K/S.
• Both overarching AND topical EQs are present (overarching recur beyond the unit; topical are unit-specific).
• ≥1 predictable misunderstanding with BOTH a preAssess and a confront component specified.
• Every big idea transfers beyond this unit (if courseContext.programBigIdeas is given, each big idea nests under one).

Gotchas

• "The Civil War" is a topic, not an understanding. "Civil war tests whether a nation's founding ideals can survive internal fracture" is an understanding. If you wrote a noun phrase, rewrite it as a proposition.
• Don't smuggle activities into K/S. Skills describe what the learner can do, not what the teacher will do.
• Overarching ≠ topical. If an EQ only matters for this unit, it's topical. Overarching EQs must recur across multiple units — they are the program-level threads.
• Misconceptions are not "common mistakes." They are predictable, conceptually coherent wrong ideas (e.g., "evolution is purposeful"). Name the idea, not just the error.
• Bloom's composes, it doesn't replace. Use grad-blooms to choose the verb/level for each S — but Stage 1's job is the goal framing (big idea → understanding → EQ), which Bloom's doesn't do.

Dependencies

• Reads: grad-blooms (cognitive level/verb for each S); courseContext.programBigIdeas if available
• Hands off to: hax-ubd-stage2 (which reads manifest.stage1)
• Companion: hax-ubd-essential-questions (EQ starter bank)

References

• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/manifest-schema.md — stage1 fields
• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/ubd-element-map.md — Stage 1 component map
• ../hax-ubd-backward-design/references/design-standards.md — standards 1–4
• PRAW RULES.md: ~/Documents/git/haxtheweb/praw/RULES.md
• Source: Wiggins & McTighe (2005), UbD Ch. 3–6.