The Elaboration Theory of Instruction is an alternative to organizing instruction in terms of a hierarchical task analysis. The hierarchical organization results in an instructional sequence that begins with highly fragmented, small pieces of the subject-matter content, which many educators have found to be demotivating. The elaboration theory calls for beginning the instruction with a special kind of overview--one that epitomizes the instructional content rather than summarizing it. Then it calls for elaborating on that overview, by adding detail or complexity in "layers" across the entire breadth of the content, one layer at a time, until the desired level of detail or complexity is reached. A brief list of references is provided. (Author/RAO)