Writing Instructional Content

Our second Collaboration Activity is an instructional lesson for a topic or subject that you may teach eventually or that you have already taught in a face-to-face classroom. So...

What Kind of Writing is Instructional Writing?

FYI

This course concentrates on writing for on-screen reading. Other kinds of instructional writing include: 

audio scripts, 
video scripts, 
technical manuals, 
stories, 
glossary definitions, 
interactions (for simulations and games), 
microcopy (feedback, instructions, discussion prompts), 
copywriting (to promote your course or training event),
and test questions.

Recall the types of writing we are taught in freshman English:

1. Expository – informative writing, explaining the subject to the reader.
2. Persuasive – writing intended to influence the reader of the importance of something or a writer's point of view.
3. Narrative – usually storytelling, involving an account of connected events.
4. Descriptive – a type of expository writing that uses the five senses to create a visual image for the reader. It's more detailed than other types of expository writing.

Which of these do you think you will use to write your instructional course content?

When you teach, do you...

inform?

try to convince people of the value of something... say, critical thinking? 

describe processes?

share personal experiences?  

I expect you said yes to all of those.

The Instructional "Narrative"

When instructional designers refer to "the narrative", they mean the detailed text that accompanies visual aids like PowerPoint slides, pictures, and diagrams. The narrative is what provides context, fills in the gaps, completes the whole view of the subject. If the bullet points in your PowerPoint deck are the bones of the lesson's content, the narrative is the flesh. 

In this sense, narrative is not necessarily storytelling — though it could be.

What is Online Instructional Content?

Content in an online environment should be built for that environment. You can’t just re-purpose your face-to-face classroom materials and think that will work for an online course. It won’t. 

Here's why. 

When teaching face-to-face, you don't write down everything you have to say before you go into the classroom. You might have some notes or an outline or PowerPoint to guide your talk, but you probably haven't scripted what you're saying to your students. 

Online, you do. The whole course needs to be complete and available on the first day. All your lectures, all your assignments, all your discussion prompts, all your assessments. Everything.

Unless you teach a case-based* online class, as some law and business programs do, you have to compose detailed text for each learning module. Even if your approach uses a lot of outside sources and activities, you, the instructor, still have to compose your commentary to accompany and support it. Writing the content of the course ahead of time is all part of the job.

One way to think of an online learning module is like a chapter in a book. The whole chapter will include pages of text, discussions, assignments, and other interactions you may build into the lesson. 

For your Collaboration Activity in Part 2, you only need to compose one page within your chosen learning module topic. Assignment details are available under 'Quick Look Items.'

Food for Thought

As you think about what you will write, look at what your learning objective is. Harry Calhoun, a content developer in the IBM Design and Information Development “On Demand” group suggests asking...

Are you writing your course to:

• Make your learners recall information?
• Enable them to question their existing notions on the subject?
• Help them apply the knowledge that they have acquired in the way you want it applied?
• Help them apply the knowledge that they have acquired based on their judgment of what they have learned?
• Persuade them to analyze what they have learned in relation to what they already know?

* In courses that do employ the case method of teaching, the instructor still must do a lot of writing in the discussion and debriefs of those online case analyses.