Lauren Baily, a freelance education writer, contacted me about posting on my blog, and she's posting on a topic close to my heart: improving the craft of writing. I'm incredibly grateful to the wonderful teachers I've had. Over the years, I've spent thousands of dollars attending workshops and conferences, taking courses at my local college, pursuing any avenue I could find to hone my craft. Now, instead of traveling hundreds of miles to find the right teachers, we have instant access to masters of the craft through the internet.
Amazingly, some excellent online writing courses are free. Check out what Lauren has to say:
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Some writers are just naturally-gifted and need
little or no training to get their work published and read. Others, like
myself, occasionally need some assistance from a few experts in the field to
help guide them in the right direction and improve their overall writing
skills. While there are exceptionally qualified English and Literature
professors scattered across the nation to help students develop and nurture
their craft, attending college can be a bit pricey.
Thankfully, there are some online courses offered
for free that can do the trick as well. Some of the most
prestigious institutions in the country like MIT and Harvard publish old
coursework material as a gift to the community—granted you may have to purchase
appropriate textbooks or readings to get the full experience and there are no
professors to give you feedback or grant you credit, but completing some of the
writing exercises and workshops outlined in the syllabi can help improve your
skills for an array of various writers.
If your main struggle
with the whole writing process is finding your muse and uncovering that much
needed "creative spark" within, then this appropriately titled
undergraduate course can really help you establish some methods to help you
unleash your creativity using various techniques. [MIT]
Fiction writing is one
of the more popular ways to express one self, but it's also sometimes one of
the more difficult—after all, there are several different genres within fiction
writing an it can be quite daunting developing characters and choosing the
appropriate setting for your piece of work. This class, the title suggests, is
specifically designed to help you start writing fiction. It will teach you how
to brainstorm as well as bring your ideas to life on paper. [The Open
University]
If you're interested in learning how to master
writing short stories, then this undergraduate course is perfect for you.
Students will learn the tricks of the trade by not only completing various
workshops that the professor has created, but will also learn from the
"Greats"—the course heavily requires the analysis of different
well-known short stories. [MIT]
Lastly, is the
"video-lecture" course Modern Poetry. In this 9-part series, students
will learn all there is to know about modern poetry including how to include
the best techniques in your own writing as well as how to resolves various
concerns by discussing some of the best poets in the industry including Yeats,
Eliot and Frost. [Yale University]
Lauren Bailey is a
freelance education writer for Bestcollegesonline.com,
an alternative learning website. She welcomes your comments.
1 comment:
Thanks for your post, Lauren. I didn't know about these great courses.
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