Open to: Grades 7 - 12
Formats: Email or Web-based with CD-ROM,
Challenge Level: college freshman
Prerequisite: Writing for an Audience or qualifying verbal/reading score
Recommended School Credit: 0.5 credit
Session Based: Session Dates and Application Deadlines
Length: 20 weeks, 12 weeks Early Summer (email only), or 6 weeks Intensive Mid Summer (web-based only)

This most popular writing course uses the personal essay to explore narration, description, and reflection. Students learn to use vivid descriptions, specific details, figurative language, and variety in  sentence structure. Students experiment with techniques for organizing paragraphs, transitioning between ideas, and composing effective beginnings and endings. Voice (consistent diction and psychology) and its interaction with audience and purpose are also examined.

In response to student essays, instructors comment on form, style, and content, generally holding students’ work to college-level standards. Critiques explain successes and delineate problems needing further work. Sentence-level issues of grammar are not the main focus of instruction. Rather, instructors help students understand that conventions of Standard Written English are part of what, for many audiences, marks a careful, learned writer, but that writing is always much more than that.  Instructors introduce methods of revision, and several assignments are expected to be intensive revisions of essays previously critiqued.

Although the two formats cover the same concepts, they differ in their approach.  In the email format, students email finished essays to instructors and receive detailed critiques of those essays.  Assignments in this format can be individualized to address a particular student's needs; thus, the assignments may vary by instructor and from student to student. The web-based format provides a process-oriented approach. Students work through lessons on a CD-ROM and receive instructor feedback on prewriting exercises during the process of writing the essay as well as a detailed critique of the finished product.  In addition, students participate in an online peer review workshop in which students critique each other’s writing. Integral to both formats is a substantial metacognitive dialogue with the instructor about writing.

In the web-based format, although interaction is frequent, it is not real time. Interaction is conducted asynchronously, not via chat, I.M, or whiteboard. Students can work morning, noon, or night, so long as they meet the deadlines. Students deliver work by uploading it to a private space. They download instructor responses from the same place. Virtual classrooms are provided by a WebCT course management system. Please do the WebCT browser tune-up, then test a WebCT Classroom.

Sample assignment - web-based format
Sample assignment - email format

Read a sample essay and instructor critique - web-based format
Read a sample essay and instructor critique - email format
Read an award-winning essay composed for Crafting the Essay

Time Required

Learn more about the summer sessions.

Get more information from Frequently Asked Questions.

Detailed Course Information - web-based format

Detailed Course Information - email format

System requirements

Course code - email: ema3

Course code - web-based: cdw3