About this course: This course is for curious students and aspiring authors with a passion for writing for young readers. Participate in a dynamic online community of writers as you experiment with your own writing and develop your voice. This course will guide you with a combination of video lectures, online readings, peer reviews, and guest appearances from world-renowned children’s authors. As you work through the writing exercises, you will give and receive feedback from your peers and gain tools and techniques for improving your writing. During this course you will identify stories that matter to you, explore cultural significance and boundaries, and shape your identity as a writer; become familiar with standard elements of narrative (character, setting, plot, theme, language, dialogue, point of view); reflect on your own work and practice essential self-editing skills; see the different ways in which words and art interact, and the possibilities of longer narrative forms; come away with practical insights into publishing options; and create a plan for pursuing your enthusiasm for writing. By the end of the course, you will have ten to twelve extracts of writing that you can develop into a portfolio. Join a dynamic community of many voices from around the world. Find inspiration in your own voice, heart, and place so that you can tell the stories for young readers you’ve always wanted to tell.
Taught by: David Hill, Author
Taught by: Maria Gill, Author
Taught by: Alex Alexandrou, Dr
| Commitment | 8-15 hours |
| Language | English, Subtitles: Spanish |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.
Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.
Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.
I particularly enjoyed the writing prompts and Maria Gill's portions of the course.
Thank you so much for this wonderful course!!! It was a wonderful experience! The teachers and the writers are incredible!!!
This course was a great help for learning how to write stories so that they are engaging to young readers. I found that the peer reviewed assignments were challenging, but fun as they brought out my creative side. The assignments also helped me to put the knowledge I learned throughout the course into use so that my stories flowed better and had a mixture of dialogue and action. Thank you, teachers, for this excellent course. Also, thanks to Coursera!
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AK
This course was perfect for me! The wisdom of David Hill and Maria Gill, and the guest speaker interviews are inspiring and filled with the right mix of knowledge, tips, ideas, and practical assignments. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and would highly recommend it for novice writers. Beautifully done! I was honored to be in the virtual presence of seasoned authors. What a joy! Sending you a thousand thanks!