So You Want to Teach an Online Writing Course?

online writing class
Photo credit: joe bustillos via Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

This post was originally written in 2017 and updated in February 2021.


My first exposure to online writing education—for adults outside of degree programs—was Writers Online Workshops, a division of Writer’s Digest. Prior to that, my experience and prepared curriculum was entirely centered around the traditional classroom.

As I gained experience managing and evaluating online education through Writer’s Digest—and teaching online courses myself—I began to field more questions from authors who were curious about doing it themselves, but didn’t know where to start. And so I came up with the following tips.

One big caveat is that I am not an expert in curriculum design or creative writing pedagogy (either online or offline!). So I invite those who have more formal study and knowledge to share suggestions in the comments.


The primary motivation for adult writers who take online classes is to:

  1. Acquire new skills
  2. Complete a writing project (be motivated and be held accountable)
  3. Get personalized feedback and instruction

People also appreciate the immediacy of online education in serving their needs. Freedom and flexibility are often critical for adults deciding to take an online course—more important than even price.

A course’s success depends greatly on understanding or anticipating the needs of students, creating and delivering material that leads to learning and engagement, and thus producing the outcomes they most desire.

Deciding What to Teach

Here are some starting questions for those who have never taught online before.

  1. What will the course focus on? If you’re new to online teaching, choose a class you’ve taught multiple times, where you have confidence in your approach and knowledge base. It’s also easier from a marketing perspective to teach topics you’re well-known for, that you have demonstrated success in, or that you know would interest your community or clients.
  2. How long will the course run? Unless you’re enthusiastic about “boot camp” style courses that run in a weekend or a week, I recommend a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of twelve weeks for a craft/technique course. You could also choose to create a self-study, but this post focuses on writing courses with a specific start and end date. (The best writing classes typically have interaction and engagement with an instructor who can offer feedback/critique.)
  3. How much personal attention will be offered? This would include critique/feedback, live office hours of some kind, forum discussion, or even an in-person component. The more interactive the course, the more expensive it generally is, but obviously the more time the instructor must commit.

Course Benefit and Structure

With writing courses for adults, it’s important to focus on what the students will achieve or have in hand at the finish line. The course might focus on one large-scale project (first 25 pages of a manuscript, a completed essay or story) that is worked on and submitted to the instructor for feedback; or it might focus on completing a series of smaller assignments. While readings can help illustrate important principles or lessons of craft and technique, any energy devoted to group discussions about readings are almost never a good use of student time and energy.

Most online courses are best when there’s one goal, focus, or lesson per week. More often, and students won’t be able to keep up; less often, and students will become disengaged.

All courses to be effective must incorporate regular opportunities for Q&A with the instructor—basically, office hours. I recommend about one live session per week, whether through text-based chat or audio/video conference.

Course Lessons or Lectures

An online writing course should avoid relying on student production of material for critique (as in a traditional university writing workshop). The instructor should offer writing instruction in some form, usually on a weekly basis. What constitutes a lecture can be very flexible. It might be:

  • A live video conference session using software such as Zoom (and recorded for students who can’t attend). This is usually the most intimidating for new online instructors, as well as experienced—it’s more or less like doing a live webinar. I don’t recommend that you be merely a talking head, but that you have visuals to share, and budget plenty of Q&A/break time.
  • Recorded audio or video lessons using software such as Camtasia or Screenflow. 
  • Written lecture: using PowerPoint or Keynote helps incorporate visuals (preferable for some types of material), but text only can work well.

Always build in next steps or actions. Students will learn better if they’re given a specific task or action after watching a lecture or series of lectures. Make them put what they’ve learned to work, or get them writing. By incorporating action steps into your curriculum, you will see satisfaction skyrocket, because people feel like they are accomplishing, creating, or learning something. Progress toward goals is very inspiring.

Course Community and Discussion Area

Students will find a course more valuable if they meet other like-minded people with whom they might even continue a relationship after the course ends. For this to happen, the course needs a discussion and community area for posting. The easiest method by far is to create a private Facebook group for the course, but you could also create a private WordPress site with forum capability through a plugin such as BBPress.

Instructor Critique and Engagement

Instructor feedback or interaction is critical to a writing-focused course. A critique can be written or audio recorded and delivered in private, and/or done in a more traditional workshop manner, where all students can see and benefit from observing the instructor’s critique of the work. 

I’ve found that—unless students are in a university program—it’s very hard to mandate that other students give feedback. And usually, it’s not desirable to mandate feedback unless the students are insightful in giving it. Good feedback doesn’t happen by accident, and writers need training in how to give it, which may be outside the purview of the course being taught. In any event, in most non-degree writing courses, the students are seeking the insights of the instructor, and not the other students.

Student satisfaction is often tied directly to how they feel the instructor interacted with their work, their forum/discussion posts, and/or their questions during office hours. Responding in the forum or otherwise being present in the forum, proactively posting questions and doing check-ins, and in general “showing up” is vital. Students can tell when you’re phoning it in, or just posting lessons then disengaging.

Protecting Instructor Time

I recommend two levels of registration for any class involving critique:

  • Basic registration: All curriculum, lessons, community discussion features, instructor office hours or Q&A opportunities, plus a basic amount of critique/feedback
  • Premium registration (usually limited in number): Everything in the basic, but allows for more material to be critiqued, more revision and feedback, or more one-on-one time with the instructor

Students love having a choice because they may not have the time or ability to produce a large amount of work during a particular time, and/or may be mainly interested in the curriculum.

Recommended Technology

I favor the following tools for online courses.

  • I use the Restrict Content Pro plugin installed on WordPress, although this isn’t an ideal solution for the average instructor (it requires considerable customization to work for online learning). A better beginner tool would be a plugin like LearnDash, specifically suited to online courses. When students register for a course, they receive login credentials and can immediately access curriculum on a schedule you determine. There are other teaching platforms available, some with extensive and robust features, such as Teachable, Zippy Courses, and Podia. Which tool you choose is mainly about your budget, your comfort level with technology, and how much customization you require.
  • Zoom: This is a great tool for office hours, live lectures, or webinar-style classes. It allows everyone to see and hear each other (assuming you have a webcam), plus you can share your screen and do text chat. Students can dial in through a phone number for audio only, and you can record sessions for students who miss. 
  • Camtasia or Screenflow: both are excellent tools for recording and editing audiovisual lectures.
  • Private Facebook groups work great for the discussion and community aspect of an online course because nearly everyone is familiar with it and logs in at least once a day.

For Video-Based Lectures or Lessons

These are some of the principles I encourage you to adopt.

  • For audiovisual lecture delivery: Hopefully, you already use PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, or some other slide-based presentation tool to accompany your lectures. If not, I suggest you develop slides unless you have other visuals. Ideally, your lecture doesn’t consist solely of audio with a static visual (or a talking head); this leads to student boredom and distraction. Use summary lists, imagery, graphics, and other visuals to reinforce the points you’re talking about. Images help engagement a lot. When you can’t think of anything, add a cat GIF. Attention will skyrocket. (Only half joking.)
  • Break up your lectures into 3-6 minute increments. If you’ve ever used Lynda, you know the model. It’s less daunting to tackle a video lecture when things are broken down into their smallest steps or components. (For efficiency, when you record a lecture, you can certainly do it all in one take, while giving yourself a pause between lessons or sections. Later on, using Screenflow or Camtasia, you can break up a long video into the intended lessons.)
  • For live lectures, build in question breaks. Almost every live lecture should leave 5-10 minutes at the end for student questions. I typically build in at least one additional opportunity for students to ask questions. This might be halfway through, but you should base it on when you think the most questions are likely to arise (e.g., during the most confusing or complicated material). If it makes sense, build in a third break for questions.
  • Rather than using your computer’s built-in external microphone, you may need to purchase an external microphone for best possible results. Apple’s standard-issue earbuds—the ones with a built-in microphone—also work very well.
  • Find an enclosed room where you will not be interrupted. Unplug your phone and turn off your cell phone ringer. If necessary, post a sign on the door that says, “Recording in progress.” There is nothing worse than being distracted during a live session or recording, trust me.
  • Be prepared to share your slides in PDF form. This will depend on the nature of the session, but one of the first things students will ask for is a copy of your lecture. If you’re uncomfortable doing this, you should prepare a handout with the key ideas, lessons, resources, websites, or tips from your presentation. Having something in writing, like a tip sheet, is very helpful with online courses, so that students don’t have to search through recordings to find that 1 minute when you referenced a particular resource.

It’s Your Turn

If you’ve taught online writing courses, I’d love to hear what has worked (or not) for you and your students. And if you’ve been a student in an online writing course, tell us about any positive experiences—what made the course valuable to you?

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Michelle

Thanks for this great post, Jane! After teaching for many years in MFA programs, in addition to teaching online for a Bay Area University, I now teach online novel writing courses and introductory fiction courses through my own online school. I earn my primary income as a writer, and enjoy teaching but not driving to a campus! Zoom works great for my classes. I tend to provide a lot of video and written lessons, using a range of media. The challenge is finding ways to keep students engaged in online discussion boards.

I find that assignments directly related to the lessons, along with targeted discussion questions and video Q&As, go a long way toward helping students learn and keeping them engaged. I also provide weekly writing assignments to keep students on track with specific projects.

Alan Horne

I am skeptical of the benefits of any kind of formalized instruction when it comes to writing, especially writing books.

Granted, there are tons of good materials out there for people wanting to learn: podcasts, conferences, books, etc. But the only education that is going to make a lick of difference for the apprentice writer is the self-motivated kind. Formalizing that education, with assignments and the like, is like dissecting the frog: it can technically be done, but the thing dies in the process.

Shelley Souza

Hi Alan,

I don’t think the problem is formalised instruction when it comes to writing books. How dry or how inspiring a class is depends on who’s teaching and who’s learning. I think the real challenge for fiction writers these days is to resist having their unique voice—not style or narrative voice (point of view), but their writing voice—usurped by sets of rules mostly adapted from screenplays and play writing. That said, no one can drive a car without becoming skilled in the art of driving without having to think about the mechanics of the art. The driver’s attention must be free enough to pay attention to the road and the destination they intend to reach, otherwise, they will likely cause an accident. The same is true of writing. The mastery of craft is as important to the writer as talent, and the desire to write.

The driving analogy may appear simplistic but it is exactly how mastering craft in any art form works. Just as the driver no longer thinks about how to drive their car long before they slip behind the steering wheel and turn on the ignition, so it is with a writer who no longer has to think about craft when they sit down to write. Then the issue becomes how best to use words, which are tricky, to convey what is most important to the writer, in a way that makes it equally important to the reader.

Self-motivation is a key factor in accomplishing anything. But there is no concert pianist who learned to play highly complex compositions without practicing scales and other exercises for years, in addition to memorising musical notation. Concert pianists still have to practice the pieces they intend to perform until these are committed to both body and mind memories; and they may resort to practicing certain exercises in order to master a particularly difficult passage.

No one has ever become great without a great deal of practice, unless they are that rare anomaly of the gifted mind, such as Mozart or Shakespeare.

I am currently teaching a class online to writers who are all deeply grounded in craft and who are all strong writers. My class focuses on understanding why a writer’s voice can never be wrong although the story’s voice may not be the right one for the story. This distinction between story voice and writer’s voice is rarely made, but I feel it is critical for a writer’s words to be true to the writer’s intent.

For the new as well as experienced writer, that practice may come, as Ray Bradbury advised, in the form of one short story a week, if dissecting frogs is anathema. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

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[…] A course’s success depends on anticipating and understanding the needs of writing students and producing the outcomes they most desire.  […]

Malcolm

Thanks for this interesting post, Jane. It might be worth mentioning that there are some good free platforms out there for online courses. I’m not saying Zippy Courses is not good value, I haven’t used it, but for someone putting a first toe in the water a free one might be a better option. I created a rather innovative online novel writing course and used Eliademy.com as my platform. It’s a free online school software designed for philanthropic reasons by two former Nokia executives. I found it more than adequate for my needs, and seemed to work well. The real difficulty was promoting the course and attracting students. But then that is the difficulty with everything, isn’t it? It was easy to start with, I just mails hotted all my former students and filled two classes right off. After I’d exhausted that resource it became much more difficult. I also teach Writing Fiction’ online for Oxford University (www.conted.ox.ac.uk) and they use Moodle which is open source software, and in my opinion a bit of a user-experience (and tutor experience) mess.

Icy Sedgwick

I wanted to teach an online writing course but when I gauged interest, I found most writers want to know about branding, marketing or publishing rather than actual writing. As I’ve been teaching graphic design for five years, I’m going to offer a short course on branding for authors 🙂 I was half tempted to actually do a course on teaching methods and learning styles to help other course creators!

Wendy Beckman

Jane, these are great tips. I wished I’d read this before I taught online courses (also for Writer’s Online Workshops, among others)!

One issue I had with teaching online classes, which eventually led me to give it up, was that if the instructor and participants’ motivation or “drive” aren’t synchronized, it’s difficult to develop the online relationship. Of course, many students are proactive and actively responsive — doing the work, participating, critiquing others’ work. However, many students also leave their assignments until the last minute and then expect the instructor to work around the clock to respond to them all. This situation would have been remedied by more frequent, shorter, or more real-time activities. With a “bricks and mortar” class, you have a concrete (sorry, pun intended) start time; with an online class, the time constraints are often looser. I’m also a morning person, so when students wanted to chat or submitted their work at midnight, I wouldn’t see it until the next morning.

Two of my favorite relationships, however, were *because* of our different physical time zones. One of my students was a soldier deployed in Iraq, and another was the wife of a soldier stationed in Germany. We all went out of our way to find times when we could connect in real-time, despite the time our clocks displayed.

For people wanting to teach online workshops, go for it. Just make sure everyone’s expectations about response time are clearly understood.

Shelley Souza

Wendy,

I particularly liked this. Especially in the current climate of uncertainty and exclusion in the world at large.

Two of my favorite relationships, however, were *because* of our different physical time zones. One of my students was a soldier deployed in Iraq, and another was the wife of a soldier stationed in Germany. We all went out of our way to find times when we could connect in real-time, despite the time our clocks displayed.

Shelley

Sandra Haven

I recommend two levels of registration for any class involving critique:

Basic registration: All curriculum, lessons, community discussion features, instructor office hours or Q&A opportunities, plus a basic amount of critique/feedback
Premium registration (usually limited in number): Everything in the basic, but allows for more material to be critiqued, more revision and feedback, or more one-on-one time with the instructor
Great points, Jane. Last year I signed up for Course Builders Lab to turn my years of editing into writing workshops. They suggest first learning what people want help with (in your field) rather than focusing on what you THINK they want. They teach ways to hone in on “problem language” to discover your course niche. Then how to BETA test it. I discovered writers wish they had a handle on how to create a viable plan for writing a series, which correlates with my expertise. I BETA tested and agree with you: Zoom (a great way everyone can “meet” each other); Q&A is essential; instructor feedback invaluable; and a specific goal with distinct assignments important. However, I found student participation sketchy—some very interested and others not at all. Only half of my students were FaceBook enthusiasts, so I’d gone the WordPress route, but found that awkward. I’m now using Thinkific (vs. Zippy) which provides all the elements I need, including a better discussion format.

Richard Gilbert

These are great tips! Thanks, Jane. I have taught lots of in-person writing courses and along the way took lots of online classes. My motive for the latter, I’ve realized, was at first an audience, then largely community, and finally fellow readers and stealing ideas/materials for my own teaching.

With rare exceptions, feedback from fellow students came to seem poor or irrelevant to my actual work and struggles. And relationships were rarely made or lasted—I think a real hurdle for online relationships is that humans seem to require knowing that the other person is “okay,” basically a good person. (This would also seem to be another irrelevancy or something that could be taken for granted but isn’t; I think this affects even submissions to journals.)

I agree what everyone wants is instructor feedback. That’s where the hard work is on the teacher’s part, so much concentrated, risky effort. The two-tier enrollment is a great idea and practice for everyone, reducing teacher and student burden overall. Mostly I have experienced great teachers, which basically means generous, organized, trying.

Here’s a pet peeve. Instructors typically say the class is about new work, but in practice favor obviously polished work. Who can help it? And I’ve been less stressed when I’ve used classes for work already in progress. New work is rough, has problems by definition, but it’s a real art to balance feedback with encouragement. As you know, it can take years for something to find its form, which makes so much feedback irrelevant (that word again!) or possibly harmful.

Shelley Souza

Hi Richard,

You wrote: Here’s a pet peeve. Instructors typically say the class is about new work, but in practice favor obviously polished work. Who can help it? And I’ve been less stressed when I’ve used classes for work already in progress. New work is rough, has problems by definition, but it’s a real art to balance feedback with encouragement. As you know, it can take years for something to find its form, which makes so much feedback irrelevant (that word again!) or possibly harmful.

I think the key to looking at new work is not to critique it but to ask questions. Even so, this too can be difficult. I realised several years ago that when I put my work out there for a response too early I became defensive when the responses came because I hadn’t finished articulating everything I felt but hadn’t yet found the way to say it. Especially questions for which I didn’t yet have the answers! But once I knew I had done my very best, I was (I am) completely open to any and all feedback. Once I know I’ve done everything I can and said everything in exactly the way I want, I am no longer attached to the writing itself. I have a clear sense of what is helpful feedback and what is not, and I feel no need to defend any of my words. However, not every writer is like me. Some are fine with putting up brand new work; and I suspect, in my case also, depending on the nature of the writing, it would also be fine to put up a rough example of a new work. The key, I think, to writing well is to know oneself and what one wants or needs in terms of feedback.

I have a writer in my current class who is working on the first draft of a story idea she’s tried in earlier drafts before but that didn’t work for her. So this is like a new draft altogether, even though she’s been working on the idea of the story for sometime. I basically leave her alone. She knows she can show me something if she wants my help. I talk with her about things I think may help her overall to strengthen her writing process.

Also, I do not believe every exercise is the right exercise for every student. In my class I put up exercises and students can do them or not. However, I’m teaching a class on the writer’s voice, and there really aren’t any formal ways of teaching something that cannot essentially be taught.

Recently I put up an exercise for my students in which I selected the first 200 or so words of openings of two writers they said they admired (each student had different choices; as much because they’re writing in different genres); and then I selected the first 200 or so words of their openings so that they could see how near or how faraway they are from writing the kind of story that calls to them, and draws them, in as a reader. I think a great deal about writers whose work inspires me. I think about what draws me to their work and how I can put that feeling of attraction into my own work with my voice, which is, in my way of making language my own.

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