Learner Reviews & Feedback for Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description by Wesleyan University

Helped marginally, visible change in my writing. I'm very happy.

The course was good and Amity Ma'am is a good teacher

It helped me a lot. Has good lesson content

Awesome course, awesome professors

Great knowledge. Time consuming.

This class was fun and helpful.

Very good course, thanks!

very useful and fun

One word: Plagiarism. This course was rather inspiring and taught me numerous amounts of skills for my future career. But, the problem was the peer-graded assignments. There were some people who did this course for the certificate and used a skill not taught in this course called: plagiarism. For example, BEHARA SAI SWESHIKA copied off my own assignment, and also plagiarised the instructor's "INSTRUCTIONS'. It was disgusting reading a plagiarised writing piece. Even more, grading my own writing piece that was said that it was written by BEHARA SAI SWESHIKA.

I got a lot out of the videos and exercises but other course features are not useful... no one participates in discussions and there are no teachers present. Don’t expect to get proper peer reviews. Most students do perfunctory reviews of a word or two just to pass through the automated system. Also, this is NOT an instructor led course... it’s just videos and exercises. It looks like there are supposed to be monitors but I didn’t see any evidence of participation from them. With that said, if you are a self-directed learner you’ll learn.

Honestly I know many of us are frustrated with the poor reviews. Week to week I get at least one good reviewer that actually understands the assignment and provide great feedback, so I’m happy for that.

You have to just focus on working on your craft and not be so consumed with the feedback because due to coursera not managing the feedback it will always be lacking in that area.

Coursera should group writers week to week so that we can communicate back and forth. That would help with the managing of poor reviews.

This course was interesting, but I did not find it particularly helpful or insightful. I felt that everything taught about setting and description was very elementary (I say this as a K-3 teacher who has regularly taught the concepts of setting and description) and not that useful for someone looking to take their writing to a more professional level.

I would have appreciated direct instructions instead of referring to some books and some time off. You don't get the full benefit of having an instructor when it is taught that way which would work at post-graduate level courses. This being an introductory course I would prefer more hands on instruction.

If you've not read a single book on writing, this class might be good. Otherwise, don't expect to get much about the ~30 minutes of lecture.

I didn't actually learn anything. This felt like a waste of time, with largely boring assignments.

Disclosure: I opted out of the course after the first week. This would be a great class for someone who's not familiar with creative writing or hasn't done this type of writing regularly. As someone who's been writing for a long time I didn't find it particularly helpful. One of the reading assignments, The Odour of Chrysanthemums, was no longer available to read. Also I'm not a fan of peer reviewed grading which seems to be inherent in many of the courses on Coursera.

Highway robbery. The Course material is good and the assignments are good exercises but $66 dollars for the quality of feedback you get is robbery. This is the second course I have taken in the specialization. I initially felt the first course was good but since then I have learnt a lot more about what else is out there. On two separate occasions the peer feedback appeared to be written by someone who was new to English. They were confused about the most basic aspects of my assignments while other reviewers were not. On two other occasions the person providing the feedback simply provided one word three times because this is enough to fool the computer system into believing you have provided feedback and allow you to move on in the course. For $66 you can get much much much better value in lots of other places.

Although Amity Gaige was awesome at teaching and inspiring me to write (she's my reason for the one star), I may as well have watched similar videos on YouTube for free.

The peer-review feedback for this entire specialisation so far has been a waste, and after completing 3 out of 5 of these courses, I have gotten only 1 constructive review - the rest have been one word answers or short lines (one even put full stops for feedback!) from people who seem to just want to get a grade.

For aspiring writers, especially if you're hard up for cash, your money may be better spent elsewhere if you are truly interested in developing your skills. If you're simply looking for a certificate, this course is for you.

The peer reviewed assignments are next to useless, as there is no oversight on them. I think there needs to be a basic comprehension assessment done first, before allowing fellow learners the ability to pass/fail students in the course.