It’s not something to celebrate, but the fact is, people are reading less than ever.

Any digital writer will tell you to avoid long blocks of text for that exact reason. Skim-ability is key. As educators, our instinct is to fight against reading slide, but as communicators, we gotta work with it.

So, let’s talk visuals.

GIFs will animate & illustrate your writing.

First off, hard g or soft? It’s pronounced jif, like the peanut butter.

See what I did there? I made the sentence come alive by finding a GIF to match my point. And it took 5 seconds. You can find a pre-made GIF on any topic or make one yourself, at giphy.com.

People love them and it dead stops the skimming eye.

Memes, for when you’re feeling witty.

A meme is a bite-sized piece of cultural info that spreads by imitation. Memes get their start from a specific image that captures the public’s eye (say, a US senator wearing huge mittens slumped in a lawn chair at the inauguration). Then, folks riff off it. You can make them here — it’s free, there are endless pics to choose from, and formatting is a breeze.

Here’s an example of a popular meme adapted for school comms:

Lastly, the picture that’s worth 1000 words

Add a picture to any block of text, 5x your readers. Create a zig-zag pattern with the picture placement, and you direct your reader’s eye. One good place to get free open-source photos, no account needed, is unsplash.com. You can search for any keywords, or even inspiring quotes.

Here’s that zig zag pattern:

There you go: three fun ways to bring your school newsletter to life. Here’s a pre-formatted template to get you started!

p.s. 😎 are👌, too! 😉

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