solution fluency style blog writing - the basics
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Solution Fluency-Style Blog Writing: The Basicsby GDC Team | May 7, 2015 | 0 comments
Are you or your students looking for a way to help your thoughts flow freely and constantly as you write blog articles?Tired of wasting valuable time and losing focus? For a special treat today, we’re going to give you an inside look behind thescenes of blog writing for Global Digital Citizenship Foundation.
We put our money where our mouths are and really put into practice the 21st Century Fluencies, especially in the blogwriting process. So we’ll show you how we do it, the tools we use, and the thought processes that are entailed, especiallyusing Solution Fluency as a template for flowing smoothly to completion. Of course, all other fluencies make appearancesas well.
First, a general overview:
1. Using Asana as our collaboration tool and task manager, Team A comes up with blog ideas and lists them in Asana
as tasks under “Ideas.”
2. Members of Team B (writers), look over the list and choose from the titles and assigns themselves the blogs that
they want to work on.
3. Using Google Drive, each member of Team B creates a working blog document from a copy of a template,
renaming it according to their blog topic and placing it in a separate shared folder, making it open for all team
members to comment upon either in the document itself, or using the comments section in Asana.
4. Back in Asana, they attach the document to its corresponding task, linking it to Google Drive. From here on out,
there is no need to go back to their Google Drive; simply fire up Asana, find the task, double click on the working
document attachment, and it launches a new browser tab in Google Drive and the working blog.
5. Team B writes the blog using Solution Fluency as a template.
6. Once a blog is finished, it then moves to Team C who checks citations, adds graphics, relevant links and cleans up
wording and formatting.
7. Blog is published.
That’s the overall process and embodies Collaboration Fluency nicely. While all teams have an important part, it’s in theblog writing process where the 21st Century Fluencies thrive. Based overarchingly on Solution Fluency, our blog templatethat we use follows a specific flow from beginning to end.
The Solution Fluency Blog TemplateThe template we use is available here: SolutionFluencyBlogTemplate
It was modified from a Hubspot blog where you can find more great resources on blog writing. No doubt you’ll find othernumerous tips all over the web. Once you know the ins and outs of “SEO” keywords, it will be time to get creative!
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Vision > The Fluencies > Services > Blog Resources U
Based on Global Digital Citizenship Foundation’s own Solution Fluency, our template guides the writer in a quick,comprehensive way of organizing your data, references, information, ideas. Once all your thoughts are gathered, you canbegin drafting the blog.
Solution Fluency Blogging Step-by-StepAs you know, Solution Fluency encompasses 6 processes: Define, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, Debrief. Theseprocesses are deeply rooted in Bloom’s Taxonomy and also happen to be a great roadmap to creating a substantive blogor any report that you want, for that matter.
DefineRight off the top, we go into the Define Process. This entails deciding who your audience is and deciding your keytakeaway. We call it your “Big Ideas,” or “the end in mind.”
There are other Define steps, but keep in mind that when you lose focus on your blog, you can easily scroll up and bereminded of your task. At the same time, don’t be afraid to change your key takeaway, if during the writing process youneed to change direction. This template is meant to be organic and can change as your thoughts take shape.
DiscoverThe next step of the process is Discover. In this section, we gather all links that you visit for research and are related toyour Key Takeaway. Links to videos, websites, infographics, pdfs, quotes.
Don’t limit yourself to Internet resources either. Maybe you have a document of your own in Google Drive—you can insertthat link as well.
The goal is to create a repository of resources so you can easily go back for attribution when your blog is done, or
insert related links quickly. It’s also a good idea to add a short description of the link or an excerpt from the site
for easy identification.
Take time to really read your resources thoroughly. Internalize the information and don’t rush. Remember this quotefrom Honest Abe: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Additional Fluencies used: Information Fluency, Media Fluency
DreamNext, we go to Dream about what direction we want to take. Start dreaming with a title, like before a baby is born whenparents are already dreaming up names. This could direct your focus as well. Again, think of different possibilities. Yourtop choices might fluctuate as you write.
Begin to imagine how your blog will look in the end. Will you use an infographic? Charts? Will you include catchy
references to popular culture? Will the text be of the more serious, academic nature?
Write down your thoughts in this stage. These may or may not find their way into your final draft.
At this stage, it should be a good idea to put yourself on a timer so that you don’t get carried away. You’ll need to producesomething soon, especially if you’re on a time limit! Think rough sketches here, which will subject to change.
DesignThe Design stage is the next step before fleshing out your blog. By now, you should have an idea of what your post willlook like and its specific components. Take the time to jot them down (there’s a lot of pre-writing before you get to theactual writing—and that’s a good thing!)
DeliverThis is the writing process in its highest-order stage. You are now full of information and ideas that simply need to beapplied to a canvas. Here is where you do a lot of cutting, pasting, rewording, and starting over from scratch. In ourtemplate we highlight this section in green, to set it off from all the other thought organizing material..
Within this space, the Creation Fluency is most meaningful as you constantly reflect on your work,rewriting the parts thatdon’t come together, and revelling in the parts that reflect your true genius.
Additional Fluencies used: Creativity Fluency, Media Fluency
DebriefThe Debrief section is a space for you to evaluate your day’s work before coming back the next day or hour, after a longbreak to allow your brain to digest.
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As you wrap up your blog—whether you toss it to another team member for clean-up and adding graphics or finish upyourself—the last step is to go over the blog for proper attribution of your sources. Since you compiled those in thebeginning, it should not be too hard. This practice honors the final component of the 21st Century Fluencies, which isGlobal Digital Citizenship.
Using a template brings the writing process into a context that is succinct and meaningful. As you utilize the template andbecome familiar with the process, you may find that you need to tweak it for your own use.
Happy blogging to you and your super-creative students!
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