How Does a Curriculum Writer Spend a Workday?

Organization

No matter what business you are in, getting and staying organized is part of the essential work of the day. For the curriculum writer, this means dealing with paperwork and financial issues promptly, answering telephone calls and emails, communicating with clients, editors and assistants, and keeping research materials orderly.

A curriculum writer will also need to spend a portion of the day looking at deadlines, schedules and work needed to perform in order to meet the deadlines in place.

Research

Writing curriculum at any level requires an excellent ability to research, a thorough attention to detail, and an absolute no-errancy standard when it comes to getting the facts right. That means that a curriculum writer can't just hop on the Internet, find a webpage, and cite it as the main source for a portion of the curriculum being written. A curriculum writer will need to access the Internet, certainly, and use resources there in the research process. In addition, part of the day will be spend in reading and researching books, magazines, journals, studies and other relevant printed material.

Writing

When enough research for a particular section of the curriculum has been done, the writing begins. Some curriculum writers may divide their time into several days of research followed by several days of writing. Others may prefer to spend half the day, like a full morning, in doing the research, and then the remaining half of the day on the actual writing process. Either method works, as long as the research is still fresh enough to be recalled to mind while the curriculum writer is getting the organization, structure, and details of the information down on paper.

Editing and Submitting

Of course, curriculum will be edited by someone other than the writer, but most curriculum writers will want to spend some time making sure there are no obvious errors or missing parts to the manuscripts they submit. After the editing work is done, the curriculum writer will submit what has been written. It is most common now for the work to be submitted online via email attachment or some other form of file exchange, but in some cases the curriculum writer may need to print and mail a copy of the finished work to the client.

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