| Course | NUR 4073 Health Promotion |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 6 |
| Paper type | Health literacy revision paper |
| Length | 1,230 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | RN to BSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 4073 Module 6
From Grade 11 to a Pocket Card: Rewriting a Sun Safety Handout for the Workers Who Actually Read It
Student Name
American College of Education
NUR4073: Health Promotion
Module 6 Assignment
Instructor Name
December 7, 2026
Why the Handout Needed Rewriting
Health information only helps people who can read, understand and act on it. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the most recent national measurement of health literacy in the United States, placed 36 percent of American adults at the two lowest of its four health literacy levels, meaning they could manage only simple, concrete health information such as finding one piece of information in a short text (Kutner et al., 2006). Many clinicians overestimate how much of their written material patients can use, and the gap is widest for adults with less formal education, those whose first language is not English and older adults.
The handout in question is a single page the landscaping company distributes to new crew members, titled Solar Radiation Hazard Awareness. The company, crew and document are composites written for this assignment. After the sun safety toolbox talk planned earlier in this course, the foreman mentioned that most workers throw the handout away unread. A handout nobody reads is not a teaching tool; it is a record that teaching was attempted. Before rewriting it, the nurse measured what was wrong with it.
Measuring the Original
Three measures were used. The first was reading grade level using the SMOG formula, which estimates the years of education needed to understand a text from the number of words with three or more syllables in a sample of sentences (McLaughlin, 1969). The original handout of 612 words scored at about grade 11. Weiss (2007) recommends that patient materials be written at or below a sixth-grade reading level for general audiences, so the handout was five grades too hard for its readers before any other problem was considered.
The second and third measures came from the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, which rates printed and audiovisual materials for understandability, whether readers can process and explain key messages, and actionability, whether readers can identify what to do (Shoemaker et al., 2014). The tool was developed with expert review and tested for reliability, and in consumer testing materials rated more actionable produced better comprehension. The original handout scored 45 percent on understandability and 25 percent on actionability, well below the 70 percent level commonly used to mark a material as acceptable.
The item-by-item ratings showed where the problems lay. The handout used medical terms without explanation, such as erythema and actinic damage; it opened with statistics about skin cancer incidence rather than with what to do; it gave no specific amounts or times; and it contained no pictures. Its one instruction, apply broad-spectrum sunscreen of adequate SPF at appropriate intervals, was accurate and impossible to follow.
The Rewrite, Sentence by Sentence
The rewrite followed four principles: lead with actions, use everyday words, give exact amounts and times, and cut everything that does not help the reader act. The original opening sentence read: Occupational exposure to ultraviolet radiation constitutes a significant risk factor for the development of cutaneous malignancies among outdoor workers. The revised opening reads: The sun can hurt your skin at work. Here are four things that protect you. The revision replaces a claim about risk with a promise of something useful, in two short sentences.
The original instruction on sunscreen read: Apply broad-spectrum sunscreen of adequate SPF at appropriate intervals throughout the work period. The revision reads: Use sunscreen that says SPF 30 or higher. Use one teaspoon on your face and neck and one on each arm. Put it on again at lunch and at 2 p.m. Each sentence contains one action, and the amounts and times match what the crew practiced at the toolbox talk.
The original section on skin changes used the terms lesion, asymmetry and pigmentation. The revision reads: Look at your hands, arms and neck once a week. Show a nurse or doctor any spot that is new, getting bigger, bleeding or looks different from your other spots. A small drawing shows two spots side by side, one ordinary and one irregular. Every change moved the text from what the writer knew toward what the reader could do next.
The revised card has 118 words on each side, one picture for each of four actions and the same text in Spanish on the reverse, translated by a certified translator and checked by the bilingual foreman for the words the crew actually uses. Its SMOG score is about grade 5.
Testing With Real Readers
A readability score measures the words on the page, not whether a worker can use them, so the revised card was tested with readers before printing. The nurse re-rated it with the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, and it scored 83 percent on understandability and 80 percent on actionability. She then gave the card to five crew members who had not attended the toolbox talk, including two whose first language is Spanish, and asked each to read it and then explain in their own words what to do. This is the teach-back method applied to a written material rather than a spoken lesson.
Four of the five explained all four actions correctly. One worker understood the sunscreen and hat actions but thought the skin check meant looking for sunburn. The drawing was revised to make the irregular spot darker and the word sunburn was added to a separate line, so the difference between a burn and a changing spot would be clear. The card was then printed and laminated, and the company agreed to stop distributing the original handout.
What the Revision Left Out
Cutting the handout from 612 words to 118 meant deciding what workers did not need on the card. The skin cancer statistics were removed, along with an explanation of the difference between ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B radiation and a paragraph on the company's liability. None of that information was wrong, and some of it matters to supervisors, so it was moved to a separate one-page sheet for the foreman rather than deleted. The card keeps only what a worker needs at the truck in the morning or at lunch: when the sun is strongest, how much sunscreen to use and when to reapply, what to wear and what to look for on the skin.
Leaving information out can feel like withholding it, and writers often resist it for that reason. The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool treats a focus on a small number of key messages as part of understandability (Shoemaker et al., 2014), and the reader test confirmed the choice: none of the five workers asked about anything the card had dropped. Anyone who wants more can ask the nurse or the foreman, and the card says so in one line at the bottom.
Conclusion
The original sun safety handout was accurate, complete and almost useless to the workers who received it. Measuring it before rewriting showed that it was five grades above a suitable reading level and scored far below acceptable understandability and actionability. Rewriting sentence by sentence around actions, everyday words and exact amounts produced a card at about fifth-grade level, and testing it with real readers caught a misunderstanding no score would have revealed. The work took a few hours, and it is the difference between material that records teaching and material that continues it after the nurse has gone.
References
Kutner, M., Greenberg, E., Jin, Y., & Paulsen, C. (2006). The health literacy of America's adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NCES 2006-483). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
McLaughlin, G. H. (1969). SMOG grading: A new readability formula. Journal of Reading, 12(8), 639-646.
Shoemaker, S. J., Wolf, M. S., & Brach, C. (2014). Development of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT): A new measure of understandability and actionability for print and audiovisual patient information. Patient Education and Counseling, 96(3), 395-403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2014.05.027
Weiss, B. D. (2007). Health literacy and patient safety: Help patients understand (2nd ed.). American Medical Association Foundation.
Reading the NUR 4073 Module 6 instructions
NUR 4073 Module 6 often closes the course with health literacy. The usual task is to evaluate a piece of patient or community education material and revise it for its intended readers. Expect to assess the original with at least one readability formula and a tool such as PEMAT, explain the problems you found, rewrite the material using plain language principles and justify the changes. Some prompts ask you to test the revision with readers or to compare before and after scores. Many sections expect you to revise material from your own earlier teaching plan. Papers here usually reach about four pages plus the revised material as an appendix. Check Canvas for the required tools and whether the original must be attached.
How the NUR 4073 Module 6 example is put together
The paper opens with the national data on health literacy, defining the below-basic category accurately, and ties the problem to this handout and its readers. The measurement section explains SMOG and PEMAT before using them and reports the original's scores against a stated target, with an item analysis that names specific faults and quotes one confusing instruction. The rewrite section pairs original and revised sentences, each with its principle, consistent with the teaching plan from Module 5. A testing section reports how actual workers, including Spanish speakers, read the new card, the one misunderstanding found and the change it caused. The last section explains what was left out, where it went and why, using the PEMAT items and the reader test.
NUR 4073 Module 6 rubric: what full marks look like
The rubric for this module generally rewards assessment of the original, quality of the revision, justification and evaluation. Assessment points require named tools, applied correctly, with scores reported. The revision criterion is usually the heaviest and rewards changes that follow plain language principles and fit the audience, best shown side by side. Justification marks go to each change explained with a principle or a source, such as Weiss on clear health communication. Evaluation points depend on checking the revision, by rescoring and ideally by testing with readers. Sources and APA 7 complete the rubric, with the SMOG article and the PEMAT development paper cited from their originals.
NUR 4073 Module 6 help from the desk
Revision papers most often shorten the material and call it revised, without measuring anything. Another frequent problem is relying on readability alone; short sentences can still use confusing words or leave out what to do. Students also forget actionability: the reader should know exactly what to do, when and how much. Keep numbers concrete, use the readers' own terms and put the most important action first. If you can, test the revision with a few people from the audience. Attach the original and revised versions if your instructor allows. Discharge instructions, a medication guide or a consent form can each be rewritten the same way, and the desk will build a custom revision paper on whichever one your section assigns.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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NUR 4073 Module 6 questions, answered
What does NUR4073 Module 6 usually ask for?
NUR4073 Module 6 often focuses on health literacy and asks students to evaluate and rewrite patient education material so a real reader can understand and use it. Many sections expect a readability measure and a before-and-after comparison. Your classroom's instructions decide which material to revise and which assessment tools are required.
Which tools can I use to assess patient education materials?
A readability formula such as SMOG gives an estimated reading grade level. The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, known as PEMAT, rates understandability and actionability. Readability alone is not enough, because short words can still be confusing, so pair a formula with PEMAT and with testing by real readers.
What reading level should patient materials target?
Health literacy guidance commonly recommends a sixth-grade reading level or lower for general audiences. Lower is often better for materials meant to prompt action, such as instruction cards. Reading level is only one factor; clear actions, exact amounts, pictures and plain words matter as much.
Where can I find a free NUR 4073 Module 6 sample paper?
It is right here and free: the full handout revision paper with the health literacy data, SMOG and PEMAT scores, the sentence-by-sentence rewrite, reader testing, what was cut, four references and notes for each section.
Is SMOG better than Flesch-Kincaid for health materials?
SMOG is often preferred for health materials because it was validated against full comprehension and tends to give a higher, more cautious grade level. Flesch-Kincaid is built into word processors and is easy to run. Either can be used, but name the formula and pair it with PEMAT.