Writing for Young Readers Opening the Treasure Chest

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.

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Syllabus

Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Week 1
Your Writing Identity
Week 2
Genre, Form, and Audience
Week 3
Structure
Week 4
Editing and Proofreading
Week 5
Publishing

FAQ

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?

Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:

What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?

When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

Reviews

This seems like a basic course but they give you a lot of useful information and it is very well done. The author interviews are informative and interesting too. I highly recommend the course.

All tools provided we great. I thought there would be a little more information on writing for children. However, all the information I received was valuable and beneficial for my writing career.

I learned some helpful tips on how to edit and how to better structure a story. But there were assignments particularly on the last two that should have used assignment two or three.

This course introduces writing in an easy to understand way. The interviews with published authors are very insightful as well. The exercises are a great avenue to practice what the Mooc instruct