In this report of a project on curriculum planning, a new language is developed for analyzing and describing "the curricular-instructional subsystem." Some of the data come from the author's experiences in planning and directing the Experimental Freshman-Year Program (EFP) at San Francisco State College, but most were collected at the Berkeley Center for Research and Development in Higher Education. Chapter 1 contains an extended explanation of the study's subtitle and analyzes the supersystems to which the curricular-instructional subsystem belongs. Surveying the decade 1958-68, Chapter 2 analyzes the major grounds of dissatisfaction with and describes the major trends in attempts to reform the curricular-instructional pattern. Chapter 3 describes 6 basic elements of the curricular-instructional subsystem and explores some basic relationships among them. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze 2 pivotal elements: the grading system and faculty-student interaction in the classroom. Chapter 6 summarizes the method and the findings. There are 4 appendices: 2 interviews with faculty members, a transcript of a class session (with commentary), 4 innovative curriculum models, a description of the EFT, and an analysis of the word "model." (Author/JS)