Wiggins, G. (1989). The futility of trying to teach everything. Educational Leadership, 47(2), 44-48, 57-59.
The title of this article describes it well. Here, Wiggins highlights one of the premises behind the teaching for understanding perspective.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
This is the basic description of Wiggins and Tighe's approach to teaching for understanding. The website for the entire Understanding by Design (UbD) package provides information about UbD resources and training workshops, an opportunity to contact the UbD authors, and other UbD material. Some areas of the site are still under construction, and registration is required for full access to bulletin boards, etc.