The inner-city high school in Washington, DC, that Guillaume Gendre joined as an assistant principal had a modest reputation for achievement but was nevertheless challenged to raise expectations for student work. In other schools, Gendre had used assignments--a specific kind of instructional task in which students are charged to think about an aspect of a discipline's content--to improve student achievement. Gendre knew that assignments create a ripple effect, causing instruction to become more thoughtful and students to be more challenged, and he hoped to jump start the curriculum by making them the centerpieces of each discipline's course work. Gendre's strategy paid off: his high school earned a commendation for achievement last year, the only secondary school in the city to do so, and he credits assignments as playing a role in that success. (Contains 3 resources and 5 online resources.)