At present, before the Available date of an assignment, students can't see the text in the instruction box for the assignment.  It would be helpful if we had an option to show the instructions before students were allowed to do the assignment.  Alternatively, there could be separate boxes for text to be displayed before vs during the assignment period.

Example: I require students to submit a "reading statement" on the assigned reading before every class.  I put the reading assignment in the text box for the assignment.  Sometimes I post reading statement assignments before the preceding class (just to keep ahead of things), but I make the assignment unavailable to prevent students from posting reading statements to the wrong assignment.  (In the ps, Iast, if there were two reading statement assignments that were available, students sometimes posted their statement to the wrong one.)  However, I want students to be able to see the upcoming reading assignments.  Of course I could post those somewhere else, too, but then I have to post the assignments twice, and keep them in sync if I make changes.  Or I could post the assignment only somewhere else, but it's easier for students to keep it all in one place.

(btw I'll note that I object to Instructure's policy of only allowing suggestions via these forums, voting, etc.  It's a bad system imo, that reflects a lack of serious interest in feedback, I feel, but Instructure forbids employees from receiving suggestions to improve the product any other way.  I've communicated my view about this to Instructure many times in many ways.  There's no point in discussing that here.  I mention it to make clear that by using the "ideas" forum I'm not endorsing the policy.)