Students of all ages spend a good amount of their time in classrooms engaged in some type of academic work (e.g. worksheets, workbooks, scientific projects, essays, research papers). On average, students from elementary through high school spend approximately one-half of their classroom time working by themselves ("seatwork") or in groups ("group work"). This time estimate does not include work to be completed at home ("homework"). Because most of this work is assigned by teachers, each piece of work is often referred to as an assignment. The authors of this booklet prefer the term "task" because the concept of task gives purpose to the assigned work. That is, TASK = ASSIGNED WORK + PURPOSE. For students, tasks provide the answer to the often heard question, "Why am I doing this assignment?" Because tasks are so prevalent at all school levels, they are often forgotten as a focus area in attempts to list the characteristics of effective teachers or "best teaching practices." The purpose of this booklet is to describe the central role that tasks play (or, perhaps more accurately, "should play") in school learning, particularly in efforts to improve the quality of education for economically disadvantaged children and youth. In this booklet, the authors offer a set of eight principles that, when properly applied, should enable teachers to: (1) understand more fully the tasks they are using; (2) increase awareness of the reasons for using the tasks; and (3) design, select, and use tasks more effectively with economically disadvantaged children and youth.