Pressure exerted by parents, college instructors, and politically mandated accountability systems have forced English teachers to reevaluate the effectiveness of secondary school curriculums. The temptation to return to the rote-learning and grammar drills of the past, although accentuated by these demands, should not be yielded to. Real English "basics" can be evaluated by asking the following questions of them: (1) Is this objective consistent with some coherent theory of instruction? (2) Is there any evidence that having students work toward this objective will actually help them use language more effectively? (3) Is this objective consistent with the developmental pattern of the learner? and (4) Is the objective based on real expectations? An open, process-centered curriculum design which involves the student directly should be the goal of English educators. (KS)