You want to make your information easy to learn. Most educators and writer’s focus upon delivering good content. Content is important, but there is a hidden dimension to learning that is off your radar that can undermine learning success. Let’s examine this problem and how to solve it now…
Does Your Writing Make Sense To Your Reader?
You are an expert teaching a subject. As an expert your map in your subject area is densely filled with information. On the other hand, your learner often has a blank map and has no concept of your familiar territory. A learner’s map is called their schema. Schema is what determines if information is meaningful or not.
Many writer’s present information to their learners without respecting their fledgling maps. Have you ever read a difficult math or science book where the writer states:
1. It’s easy to see.
2. It’s obvious.
3. Everyone knows
How did you feel when you didn’t get it? Terrible. It wasn’t easy, obvious or something you knew. The writer understood the information, but failed to properly use schema to make it meaningful to you.
Never presume people know what you are teaching to them. Always present the full details and share what is in your map making it easy to comprehend. Let’s see a good example of how this works in practice.
The Magic Of Schema
The following passage lacks schema, so pay attention to how confusing it is to you:
“This is an easy thing to do. If possible you can do it at home, but you can always go someplace else if it is necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This can be an expensive mistake.”
Now watch what happens what I repeat this same text with a title that has schema. Watch how every word suddenly becomes meaningful….
Laundry
“This is an easy thing to do. If possible you can do it at home, but you can always go someplace else if it is necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This can be an expensive mistake.”
Suddenly everything makes sense. You need to make certain that your schema matches the schema of your learner.
Where Does Schema Lurk?
Schema is easy to spot. It is the nouns and verbs of your text or put another way. Schema is the people, places, things, and their actions. How can you make your schema easier for people to comprehend? Let me show you a simple writing strategy to make it work.
Making Technical Information Easy
One of the pitfalls of writing is using technical words or jargon. For the expert, they contain great meaning. For the learner they are often meaningless and confusing. However leaving out the technical words might insult a more advanced learner. So what is the solution? It is very simple.
When using words or ideas that might confuse your learner, you can use an appositive. An appositive means you offer your word or idea, and then follow it with a comma and then a definition that makes sense. Let me demonstrate:
“The female Agelaius phoeniceus, a red wing blackbird, has a red patch on her wing that the male lacks. Notice what we just did. We offered the technical word Agelaius phoeniceus so anyone recognizing it would feel comfortable, but we also provided the definition so the novice learner also easily understood the meaning. We told people it was a red wing blackbird.
Let me give you another example of this.
1) Howard Berg taught Maximum Power Reading.
2) The world’s fastest reader taught Maximum Power Reading.
3) Howard Berg, the world’s fastest reader, taught Maximum Power Reading.
Notice how we used the subject twice: (1) Howard Berg, and (2) The world’s fastest reader. Placing the comma after Howard Berg, and explaining who he is in the third example gave far more meaning and significance than either of the first two sentences.
With very little practice, you will soon be able to integrate the power of schematic clues into your writing to make your information easier to learn and far more meaningful.
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