Taking Online Classes

For the past five or six weeks I have been taking online creative writing classes via the UCLA Extension program. I had never taken an online class before, although I know some universities are starting to incorporate them into their coursework, so I did not know what to expect.

As of now, I am about halfway through the courses, and I am enrolled in three classes, where I am practicing writing for children, writing flash fiction, and writing creative nonfiction. I'm not taking these classes for a grade, but I'm the kind of person who needs deadlines in order to be motivated to write. I'm hoping by the end of these classes I'll have enough material that needs to be revised that I'll be motivated to do the work on my own.

These creative writing classes have been somewhat similar to creative writing classes I took in college. There are weekly readings that we have to discuss our thoughts and reactions, and we comment on each other's work. But there are some differences. I had one fiction writing class where we all sat in a circle twice a week and discussed each other's work, but each person had a copy of the story, and the author of the story was always anonymous. This allowed people to give brutally honest critiques, since there was no face to connect the story to. I had another class, a creative nonfiction course, that was held in a computer lab and all of our work was done online. Every week, two people would read their stories aloud to the class, and then we would take a few minutes to discuss it, but then the rest of the class was spent posting comments on the online discussion board. Still, the main difference between my college classes and these online classes is that there are no face-to-face interactions. This can be good because it allows me time to really think about what I have to say, and then I can edit my comments before I post them on the discussion board. But on the other hand, sometimes the comments do not sound as thorough as they might sound if we were facing each other in an actual classroom setting.

Still, there are a lot of benefits to an online class. I can choose when to turn in my homework, which allows me a flexible schedule where I can choose how to manage my time. Also, all the teachers insist on a safe critiquing environment so everyone is quite polite with their comments, even if they disagree about a piece of writing. Like any other class, I get out of it what I put in, so to learn the most about writing, I have to make sure I do all the readings and other assignments. Sometimes it seems a little overbearing, I think taking three creative writing classes at one time may have been a little too ambitious, but overall I am practicing a variety of writing styles and I think I am becoming a better writer for it.