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Back to Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest by Commonwealth Education Trust

4.7
stars
1,253 ratings

About the 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....

Top reviews

DB

Feb 6, 2016

I am a beginner wantabee author and publisher, first steps are elementary, as I need. Self paced, life can get in the way. Instructors are wonderful, as are the guest speakers and interviewees Thanks.

SV

Aug 25, 2023

its one of the best courses I have completed. just wonderful..very precise, revelant subjects and topics and very good activities. thankyou coursera. it was like meditation to me doing this course.

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376 - 400 of 517 Reviews for Writing for Young Readers: Opening the Treasure Chest

By Jaouad B

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Jan 8, 2017

Fantastic ...

By LaVonia A S

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Sep 21, 2015

Great course!

By Luis C P D l R

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Aug 23, 2015

Great course!

By ANKIT K

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Apr 28, 2022

nice course

By 罗詹妮

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Jan 2, 2016

stimulated.

By Candice H

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Feb 28, 2017

A very goo

By regina k

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Apr 1, 2016

wonderfull

By Anna A

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Dec 16, 2015

Wonderful!

By Ricardo P

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Aug 22, 2015

Inspiring!

By Evelyn M P

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Mar 9, 2016

The bese

By Afraz G

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Sep 18, 2016

Perfect

By Ellen C

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Feb 6, 2020

Great!

By Zhengyan W

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Aug 3, 2016

Really

By Deleted A

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May 8, 2020

Fun

By Sana U

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Feb 3, 2018

nic

By Sandra L

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Sep 27, 2015

:D

By Melanie W

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Aug 13, 2022

By Diego C

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Oct 6, 2017

M

By Hilda O

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Sep 6, 2015

E

By Cecilia A

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May 9, 2016

This course has some very distinct and informative material which was terrific for learning about writing for young readers. I particularly found Maria Gill's modules very informative, encouraging and well presented.

What I found REALLY disheartening, was that we as students (who aren't qualified and at times, have questionable English literacy skills), were the ones who were given the task of assessing all of the assessments in this course. I was really hoping for feedback from the industry experienced course creators :( . The other thing that was frustrating is that 'word count' was a criteria. Some students were brutal in their grading because one was over the word count by a few words, so be aware of that, if you are going to undertake this 'course'.

This is not so much a course which leads to some sort of exam or qualification (dictionary.cambridge.org) but an independent information acquirement experience.

I learnt quite a lot about writing and publishing and would encourage you to do this course, as it does contain some great information and tips, just be aware that grading is based on newbies like us and sometimes the feedback can be a bit disheartening but just persevere and you will learn lots. These people really know what they are talking about.

By Oreoluwa L

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Dec 27, 2020

This course was wonderful. It provided what I needed at this moment, which was useful guidance on developing characters, plot and dialogue. It also provided an overview of the editing, proofreading and publishing process.

I particularly enjoyed the author interviews, which really inspired me as I look to develop my writing skills. I thought the instructors David Hill and Maria Gill were excellent, explaining concepts easily and speaking clearly.

I also enjoyed the assignments which gave me the opportunity to practice the concepts taught. The peer reviews were my least favourite aspect of the course. While I had some very useful feedback, much of it was basic and did not provide any guidance in writing better. I was also penalised for technical difficulties that the reviewer had (this was rectified by the course organisers once I flagged it). It would have been helpful to give guidelines on how to critique other people's work. This was lacking in the course.

There was not much that was specific to writing for children. Instead I felt that it was a good course for anyone looking to write for any audience. It was a very course generally-speaking and probably more useful to beginners.

By Rekha C

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Oct 8, 2020

I thoroughly enjoyed the Course and was glad that it was so flexible! I learnt a lot of Organizational skills and I think my Creative skills were sharpened!

I was able to do most of the reading on my phone, which was most comfortable and time-saving.

Mr. David Hill has an excellent way of presenting the course material and he also extracted relevant and helpful ideas from the guest speakers. He gave us good examples of Writing, before giving us the Assignment. Thank you, Sir! Good luck to you in your future ventures!

Ms Maria Gill has also done her best. I wish relevant examples are given before the Assignment, and leave it to the creativity of the Student to come up with something original. Thank you, Ma'am! May we see many more of your Publications!

The course material should include live examples of important aspects like Writing an Inquiry email, a Proposal and a Resume, otherwise, like Ms. Gill warned us, our manuscripts can end up in the slash pile!

Thank you Alex for promptly attending to the tech glitch and resetting my grades!

I wish you could come up with more courses on Editing and Proofreading, so that we can work from home and give Professional help to Researchers, etc.

By Evi P

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Jul 23, 2020

This was a short course packed with useful tips. The process inspired me to write. The videos were pleasant to listen to. I might go through all the materials again, just to keep my writing going. The course is just an introduction really, and for those expecting a highly advanced or detailed course, this is not it. What I did not enjoy so much is that I mostly had non-English reviewers or works to review, and while this is not an issue per se, most of them did not bother to follow instructions, use a basic spell checker, or bother to comment at all. This made the review process less useful. I would encourage new students to really be serious about reviewing other people's work. For me, that is the main reason why I don't like to pay for this course: the lack of feedback or just poor feedback through peer review. That aside, I would love to see another course like this one or maybe more detailed or advanced, and would definitely be willing to pay if there is at least some feedback to the assignments from the organizers. In the meantime, I've taken 2 other writing courses, and this one has by far been my favorite. Thanks so much! I really hope there will be another one.

By Kim S

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Jan 14, 2016

This is a great course to get you writing. The interviews with writers are particularly helpful. The assignments are well thought out though there was some confusion when it came to peer reviews and how to assess word count which the staff are trying to sort out. Peer reviews were very varied as some people just wrote one word down which was no help at all, while someone inexperienced wil struggle with this I think the course should include an early module on reading and critically as reviewing someone's work is a great aid to writing and editing your own work. Course paperwork could include a critical checklist to help with peer reviews. I would have found that helpful so that I could be confident Of doing a good job. I think you should also be able to edit your reviews as a mistake will mean your fellow writer could be marked down. All in all though well worth doing. Many Thanks to the tutors, staff and guest writers.

By Daniela A

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Aug 9, 2022

Great course to begin writing or fine-tune writing for young readers. I agree with the other reviews about lack-lustre peer editing but I understand it's how the program runs. I trust that Coursera will continue working to improve all their programs based on feedback and reviews.

I enjoyed the lectures and interviews; I've learned of some new authors I plan on reading more of. The 500 word minimum assignments can be a bit challenging, and I saw that in the work of my peers, but it's great practice in getting rid of unecessary words and phrases, which is necessary for editting. The publishing module was helpful in that it gave a sample enquiry letter - I appreciated that and used it as a template for my writing assignment.

Overall the course covers all elements of story writing and we're given the opportunity to practice as well as read the work of others. I'm happy I enrolled and completed it!