Lessons From My Grade School Writing

As I’ve mentioned previously, when I was a kid, I liked to write. Recently, I was reflecting on the quality and kinds of writing I did as a kid, and I realized that some lessons I learned back then that still hold true in my role as a communication professional.

Allow me to escort you down Memory Lane…

1. Know your $&%#.

When I was in the fourth grade, I decided to write a story about a pair of middle school girls. In the story, the girls picked out lockers next to each other, and there was a fire in the school, and their lockers melted.

I was completely oblivious to the fact that (1) school lockers are assigned, not picked, and (2) metal lockers probably aren’t going to be the first or only things that melt in a school fire.

Clearly I knew very little about middle school or fire dynamics. That was probably cute for my teacher. It would have been a disaster if I were a professional writing a report about fires in middle school buildings.

You don’t necessarily need to have extensive training to write about a topic. I was trained in adolescent development, preventive interventions, and research methodology, but I’ve developed products that communicate about topics like occupational health and safety, food and housing insecurity, and diversity/equity/inclusion. What matters most is knowing where to find credible information to educate yourself and having at least one product reviewer who is an expert on the topic at hand.

2. Let people see themselves in your work.

I was not a popular child in school. Let’s just say that, as a ten-year-old, I had crooked teeth, a mullet, a cowboy shirt with a bolo tie, and an overinflated perception of my own intelligence and morality.

You wanna know which piece of my writing went over SMASHINGLY in my fifth grade class? A story in which an evil witch substitute teacher in our classroom turned the students into vegetables. Every student was mentioned by name, and listeners learned the circumstances and outcomes of their vegetal transformations.

People love to see their data represented in products. What do YOU do when a list of school rankings come out? You look to see if your alma mater is on it. What do you do when a real estate agent sends a flyer with recent local home sales? You look for the houses and owners you know, and for houses that are similar to yours. Representation promotes engagement.*

3. Visuals promote understanding.

In multiple middle school classes, I had How To writing assignments. Specifically, I remember having to write instructions for “how to tie a shoelace” and “how to dry off after a bath or shower.” The teachers and other students took great pleasure in following these instructions as if they’d never done these things in their live, pointing out all of the missing and unclear steps.

Recently, my fifth-grade son did a similar activity. Hearing about it took me back to my middle school days and, given what I now do for a living, I started to rage a little. In The Real World, no one would ever try to convey these kinds of instructions only in writing!! There would be pictures! Diagrams! Videos!

So, yeah, any time you need to explain how to do something, please include visuals. (Here are even more scenarios that benefit from visuals.) Even if finding, developing, and distributing visuals takes more time, effort, and money than writing alone. Even if those visuals are stick figures.

What lessons from YOUR school days do you use in your professional life? Comment below!

* But be sure to also consider the potential risks of representing individuals and groups. Will this compromise confidentiality? How will a person or group feel about the way they’re represented?