Why Continuing Education Is Important for Writers

Writers are in one of the professions that benefit most from continuing education. Why? First of all, the best writers have always been constant learners, with their eyes open to the world around them. The more they soak in, the more they can pour out on the page. Secondly, a writing refresher course or two is often just the thing to help a writer break through his or her writer’s block and get the creative juices flowing again. For emerging writers, courses about the publishing, editing and agency side of the profession are useful so they can learn the process their work must go through to be published and made available to the public. Courses in genre-writing may give a boost to your current project, whether it be a mystery novel, self-help book, a love story or creative nonfiction.

The Advantage of Taking Online Classes

Writers have a great capacity to learn independently, and are very often voracious readers. For this reason, online classes can be a great option for them. Online classes are well-suited for independent learners who do not necessarily need an instructor present for them to be able to digest lectures and complete the assignments given to them. At the same time, these classes still connect students to a stimulating online writing community. When you enroll in an online writing class, you will be able to communicate with your fellow classmates and your instructor through e-mail, discussion boards and live chat, where you can discuss not only your present assignments and projects, but also your personal writing and the latest authors you find interesting. The only thing you lose out with online classes is the commute.

How Free Online Classes Can Supplement Your Career

The growing amount of Open Courseware, or free educational classes open to the general public, is a relatively new development in higher education and has the potential to be an absolute boon for writers’ continuing education. And these free classes are nothing to sniff at, as they are developed by some of the nation’s premier writing professors and offered by some of the nation’s top learning institutions, including MIT, Yale and Notre Dame. These free classes touch on a number of relevant literary topics and writing techniques that can seriously improve your writing ability. Course listings include: Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice; Writing About Nature and Environmental Issues; Writing and Reading Short Stories, and many more.

• Interactive and Non-Linear Narrative: Theory and Practice: Explore how computers lend themselves to nontraditional narrative styles. [MIT]
• The Creative Spark: You’ll learn about the nature of creativity, including where it comes from and how you can use it, in this course. [MIT]
• Writing on Contemporary Issues: Imagining the Future: Learn how to creatively but appropriately treat "the future" in your fiction writing. [MIT]
• From Print to Digital: Technologies of the Word: 1450-Present: Track the evolution of the book here. [MIT]
• Introduction to Writing: Academic Prose: Become a better researchers and academic writer when you take this 16-week course. [MIT]
• Becoming Digital: Writing About Media Change: Become well-versed in the different types of media we rely on today, and how our relationships with them have changed. [MIT]
• Essay and report writing skills: This course’s lessons will teach you about developing a writing style, organizing assignment writing, improving your essays, and time management. [The Open University]
• Start writing fiction: Get tips on developing characters, picking a scene and genre, and building your story. [The Open University]
• Writing About Nature and Environmental Issues: Learn the elements of the environmentalist essay here. [MIT]
• Writing what you know: Find out what it really means to "write what you know."
• The Writer’s Notebook: 50 Tools You Can Use: This course will prepare you to use cutting edge tools that will improve your nonfiction and fiction writing. [Poynter]
• Rhetoric: Learn about every aspect of rhetoric and persuasion here. [MIT]
• The Building Blocks of News: If you want to be a journalist, take this course to learn the building blocks of news stories. [Poynter]
• Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More: Copy writers learn how to tighten up writing here. [Poynter]
• The Autobiography: Theory and Practice: Learn what’s needed and what’s not needed in an autobiography, and how your audience will interpret your work. [MIT]
• Get Me Rewrite: The Craft of Revision: Learn how to quickly edit your work and strengthen it. [Poynter]
• Writing and the Environment: Study the writings of famous scientists in this course. [MIT]
• Introduction to Technical Communication: Perspectives on Medicine and Public Health: Medical and public health writers get briefed on terminology and top issues here. [MIT]
• Exploring Social and Ethical Issues through Film and Print: Practice writing pieces that tackle social and ethical issues. [MIT]
• Writing on Contemporary Issues: Culture Shock! Writing, Editing, and Publishing in Cyberspace: Modern writers will learn how to balance criticism, personal experience and perspective as they write for digital audiences. [MIT]
• Anatomy of a Newspaper: Understanding the Business: Aspiring newspaper journalists will learn a lot about the different departments and people involved in building a newspaper. [Poynter]
• Introduction to Technical Communication: Ethics in Science and Technology: Learn about the ethical choices you’ll have to make as a science and tech writer. [MIT]
• Introduction to Technical Communication: Explorations in Scientific and Technical Writing: Learn about the career of a scientific and technical writer. [MIT]
• Writing About Literature: You’ll practice analyzing literature in this course. [MIT]
• Foundations of Western Culture: Homer to Dante: Review the ultimate classics that are still inspiring literature today. [MIT]
• Foundations of Western Culture II: Renaissance to Modernity: You’ll learn how to write social commentaries by studying these important works. [MIT]
• Local Readers and the Newsroom: The Credibility Gap: If your background is in print and you want to learn to write for the web, take this course. [Poynter]
• Writing and Reading the Essay: Study the evolution of the essay and its current role in society. [MIT]
• Writing and Experience: Exploring Self in Society: Read works by Flannery O’Connor and Tim O’Brien to learn how to create a sense of self that relates to a greater social context. [MIT]
• The Science Essay: In this course, you’ll learn how to relate scientific research and principles to the human condition and social issues. [MIT]
• Editorial Choices: Deciding What’s Important: Discover which stories are truly newsworthy and relate to readers. [KQED]
• World Literatures: Travel Writing: If you want to be a travel writer, learn about the craft here. [MIT]
• Advanced Essay Workshop: Learn how to write better essays using themes like sexuality, race, nationality, identity and more. [MIT]
• Writing Early American Lives: Gender, Race, Nation, Faith: Get tips for writing social commentary in your fiction here. [MIT]
• Introduction to Theory of Literature: Here you’ll find another literature theory class. [Yale]
• Introduction to Fiction: Compare and contrast narrative styles when you read books by Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and others. [MIT]
• Popular Narrative: Masterminds: Become better at developing characters who have an all-mastering intellect. [MIT]
• Major Poets: Become a better poet when you study the experts. [MIT]
• Digital Poetry: Review new digital poetry when you take this course. [MIT]
• Writing and Reading Poems: Become better at analyzing 20th-century poems and writing your own poetry. [MIT]
• Forms of Western Narrative: This is another good class to teach you about different types of narrative. [MIT]
• Introduction to Literary Theory: By becoming a better reader, you’ll become a better writer. [MIT]
• The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability: Find out how you can inject probability into your stories for added depth. [MIT]
• Does Poetry Matter: If you’re a poet, you’ll enjoy this course on the relevance of modern poetry. [MIT]
• Reinventing the Fairy Tale: Learn about fairy tales’ universal themes here. [Notre Dame]
• What’s the Use of Beauty?: Discover how to understand different forms of beauty, and how to portray it in your writing. [MIT]
• Rethinking the American Masterpiece: You may only write one great book in your time, but that doesn’t mean your other work is for nothing. Learn about other masterpieces that may have been forgotten about. [MIT]
• What is good writing?: Critique other writers’ essays to help you improve your own essay writing skills. [The Open University]
• Writing and Reading Short Stories: When you take this course, you’ll study the elements that make up a good short story. [MIT]
• Writing About Race: Explore different ways to tackle the race issue in your writing. [MIT]