Writing for learning needs to have a flavour of excitement about it. When we learn things and how to apply them can cause an adrenalin rush so write for your learners not because you have to write how to do something . . . how will they feel when they have read your writing.
Here’s some more thoughts on writing great learning:
- Talent is overrated: What’s required to write great learning is:
- An understanding of your audience
- A good process to generate ideas
- Another process to turn tiny ideas into valuable training
- A grasp of reader psychology so you can captivate people and encourage them to engage in your writing for learning from your first to your last word.
- Writing is uncertain
The thoughts in your mind never quite flow onto paper or your screen as you expect. But when you establish a solid writing process you can turn any rubbishy draft into a decent piece of training.
Writing for learning is different from the process of writing an article or essay.
When writing an article, you need to define your idea first, and you have the freedom to shape that idea to suit your article. For instance, you can narrow down your idea to create a better focus in your article.
When writing for learning, there’s no real idea generation to start with. Instead, the writing for learning process starts with assembling all the information you want to transfer to the learner, and a list of why they will benefit from having this knowledge
The writing for learning process is less a creative process, and more a process of assembling persuasive arguments.
- Take breaks
Breaks are a creative super-power. Your brain will continue processing ideas (even when you sleep) so you can make fresh connections and come up with new ideas.
Next time I will share some more writing for learning tips, and I hope that you can pick up something useful from this scatter of ideas.