Class blog tips | Part 2 – writing and content

In this section we’ll look at how we arrange our content and how, with a few extra minutes of care, we can engage our readers. But also make the text more readable and inviting.

What a class blog already has from the start is an audience. Parents, relatives, friends and students will follow you for years, loyally through rain and shine even before you’ve written a single word. It’s a bit unique — most people have to fight to build an audience and then fight to keep it. It’s also something we should take care of. One question I often get about class blogging is why no one or very few people comment on the posts. That can of course have many causes, but most often when we go through the text the question can be turned back — what is it they are supposed to comment on?

We’ll use the classic weekly newsletter as an example in this article. Something some love to write and some don’t love so much. But by spending a few extra minutes on it — that’s all it takes — we can raise the quality and maybe also get a comment or three as a bonus. Use these examples as exactly that — examples — and take them as inspiration and tips for how you can view your own weekly newsletters. There really isn’t a single absolute right way. Many of you also know what I’m going to cover, since it’s the stuff you teach the children. And with your hand on your heart, maybe it becomes a bit of the “shoemaker’s kids…” sometimes, when it comes to our own texts. ;)

Example 1

In example 1 I want to show how a weekly newsletter can look and how it looks in many places. Let’s pretend I’m the homeroom teacher and that I’m going to write a weekly newsletter for my class blog. I have a few things I want to convey and this is how it looks when I’ve published it. Did you see what I wanted to convey? What was important? Does it feel easy to read? Did you even read the whole thing? Did I have a good headline? Were you tempted to read it? Was there any prompt to comment? Okay, let’s break it down into example 2.

Example 2

1. Everything starts with a clear headline. We should be able to understand what the post will be about, but it should also tempt us to want to read it. Think tabloid headlines and clickbait. What do you think their (somewhat sensational) headlines are for? In my case I think the most important things I want to convey are reading comprehension and signs of spring.

2. After that I focus on a lead. Here I try to make a short summary of what the post will be about that will entice my readers to read on. We again pick out what we want to highlight as important. I also set the lead in bold.

3. Review the text and break it up so there’s some air between paragraphs. Put some important words in bold if needed. Use subheadings and put all the best and most important stuff at the top of the post.

4. Mini assignment. In the first example I said we would look at signs of spring and that it would be fun if someone suggested some. We skip that and instead create a mini assignment that I give to everyone. An assignment that the whole family can solve together. The words they come up with must be posted on the blog.

5. I move next week’s activities down and put them last (unlike example 1) under their own subcategory. This is a pretty long weekly newsletter and I don’t want parents to just skim the part about next week’s events and then stop reading.

6. Save the post as a draft and preview it. When everything now feels good we read what we’ve written by previewing the post. It is here and now you will find typos and odd sentence construction. Many more than if you just read through it directly in the editor window. Then we look at example 2 published and finished. Do you think it looks better or worse? Does it feel more readable? Airier? Are you more tempted to read it? Do you think we’ll get more comments?

Example 3

Now that we’re starting to feel satisfied we might still think it’s a bit long. Or could we do it another way? In this example I plan to split the weekly newsletter into two different posts. Because I know there are two really heavy pieces of information parents want to know — the menu and if something special is happening next week that they need to prepare for (swimming = swimwear etc.) — I want to move that information to its own post so the other information isn’t just skimmed and forgotten. Therefore I now create a new category and post on our blog that I call week’s days [A] where only that type of information is found. I lift the rest of the weekly newsletter out and create a new post with an even juicier headline [B]. I don’t even call it a weekly newsletter. Let’s look at it. First we have our mini assignment. I’ve also added a nice image that helps make the post a bit more attractive. [B] Mini assignment [A] Week’s days

The whole blog series

Read part 1 - Distribution

Read part 2 - Text and Content