There has been a significant paradigm shift in foreign language pedagogy from measuring language achievement to measuring proficiency. The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (1986) sought to reach consensus about describing and measuring language abilities. With the widespread recognition of these Guidelines have come far-reaching changes in our approach to language instruction. Proficiency baselines have been suggested for the first years of college instruction, and some institutions have tied proficiency standards to their language requirement or to their major. Proficiency guidelines are also changing our approach to curricular design. This article investigates the implications of the Proficiency Guidelines for second-year German curricular design, examining the standards for the Advanced level. It considers how the development of this skill can become a central emphasis of the second-year curriculum by requiring students to summarize the texts they read in class. As text selection plays a critical role here, the article then discusses recent research by cognitive psychologists on how we learn from texts, which points to the importance of text structure in facilitating recall. Finally, the article presents an overview of some of the materials that were developed for second-year German at the University of Nebraska, presenting examples of the scaffolded activities that are being used in preparing students to summarize the texts.