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Back to Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description

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

4.7
stars
1,342 ratings

About the Course

In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to the techniques that masters of fiction use to ground a story in a concrete world. From the most realist settings to the most fantastical, writers will learn how to describe the physical world in sharp, sensory detail. We will also learn how to build credibility through research, and to use creative meditation exercises to deepen our own understanding of our story worlds, so that our readers can see all that we imagine....

Top reviews

EB

Jul 1, 2020

Great course, it taught me things that I would have never learned otherwise, in this course you must take your time, don't rush, because if you do you will miss the most important points of the curse.

MR

Sep 13, 2023

This was course was incredibly fun and engaging to do; the skills I've gained are wide ranged, and the assignments and activities were surprisingly helpful in streamlining many of my existing skills.

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401 - 425 of 432 Reviews for Creative Writing: The Craft of Setting and Description

By Naomi G

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Nov 9, 2020

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

By Pawee S

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Jan 8, 2018

It helped me a lot. Has good lesson content

By Eternally P

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Apr 27, 2020

Awesome course, awesome professors

By Perni

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Nov 1, 2016

Great knowledge. Time consuming.

By Lisa D

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Apr 30, 2018

This class was fun and helpful.

By Ritu G

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Apr 20, 2016

Very good course, thanks!

By Wendy C

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May 20, 2021

Too many guest authors.

By Diana G

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Nov 23, 2020

very useful and fun

By Andy S

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Feb 14, 2024

Course material was was good, and interesting throughout. The peer review system however was almost useless the majority of the time. There is nothing to stop people not reviewing or giving no feedback of any kind which very much undermines the product. As consequence there's no way for students to know if they are improving at all. A large number of students are also not complying with the task requirements and are submitted garbage (for what reason i have no idea), but still appear to be progressing. Without removing both these categories of people the course will continue to suffer. It's a real shame as the material is good but the marking system is incredibly poor. This is particularly the case in Capstone where feedback is so essential but i received absolutely nothing during this phase. I honestly have no idea, despite having completed the entire course, if what I'm writing is any good at all, or if I have improved in any way which is very disheartening.

By Susan C

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Oct 16, 2023

The course was really good, but the peer review system leaves a lot to be desired. I enjoyed the opportunity to practice my writing skills, but at least 2/3 of the peer reviews were complete bunk: one word answers like "Yes", or "ok", or just gibberish "dddddd". I understand that for the price you don't necessarily get personalized instruction from professional writers, but it should be trivial for Coursera to implement in their SW platform some screening of students (or bots?) generating garbage instead of constructive contributions. I really appreciate the efforts and interesting content from the professors and writers leading the class; it's a shame the Coursera system doesn't enable a way for it to be used more productively. Expect that you will hear from interesting teachers; don't expect that you will get a lot of useful feedback on your own writing.

By Editha S

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Jan 23, 2022

I greatly enjoy the lectures, readings and doing assignments however the feedback system is appalling. It seems that a very large number of "students" are NOT doing the assignments or the reviews. They type a single letter or number and click the submit button. They use the same system for reviews and then they all approve each other's non-submissions. I'm a retired university professor and have always spent time and effort in teaching and guiding students. This feedback system is, with rare exceptions not working, It is a good way for the course to gain popularity and money but you might as well auction your certificates to the highest bidders and devise another method of giving feedback to your serious students. By my estimate only about one third of those taking the course are actually doing the very interesting and well planned assignments.

By Joseph S

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Jun 10, 2022

The course itself is good. The writing assignments are fun and you are given the opportunity to really express yourself though detail and description. However, the peer grading system is ridiculous. I would estimate that 80% of the feedback I received on my writing assignments from my "peers" consisted of the following comments: "Yes" or "-" or "lkwffkw" The majority of the reviewers provided no critique or feedback of any kind on my writing. How is a learner supposed to improve their craft if the reviewers are too lazy to provide meaningful feedback? This is true of every module of this specialization and I believe it's a major flaw. If you are looking to improve your writing skills, don't count on any help or guidance with these courses.

By Gunn Y

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Jun 17, 2020

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.

By Anne M

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Jan 26, 2021

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.

By Shay S

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Nov 4, 2020

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.

By Colleen M

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Jan 24, 2024

The professors at Wesleyan and the videos are all useful, helpful, and educational. Coursera's distribution of student's submissions, feedback, has been terrible. Often incomplete submissions, blank pages, or different language. As if there is NO quality control measures conducted at Coursera. The feedback portion of these courses are basically nonexistent. Therefore it would be absurd to take the 5th course of submitting a short story for feedback from peers because these peers don't actually exist!

By MANIKANDAN M

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Sep 24, 2022

I started the course with great enthusiasm. Unfortunately the objective didn't get fulfilled compkletely. Why because I was doing the course to know the strength and weakness of my writings, only through reviews. But the reviews I got for most of the assignments were 'YES', 'OK.', '...' like that. Coordinators should seriously consider updating the user interface so that a review will be accepted only if it contain certain number of different words with some meaning. Otherwise it was good

By Amanda Y H

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Feb 12, 2018

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.

By Donna M B

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Nov 15, 2021

I appreciate the effectiveness of the videos in the teaching of this class. I was especially challenged by the assignment to write 350 words about an elapsed time of 10 seconds. It was my greatest learning in this segment of the series.

However, there is a serious lack of worthiness in the peer reviews.

By Syam M

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Feb 24, 2021

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.

By Pamala B

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May 22, 2021

Loved the course! However, the peer reviews are a farce. Most of the reviews I received were not reviews at all but someone going through the criteria and entering 'yes' or '1' in each grading criteria just to satisfy the requirement. No actual reviewing being done at all. Very disappointing.

By Mohammed D

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Oct 12, 2023

Content is good initially but week 4 was terrible. If no better way of delivering its ideas exists, I would suggest deleting it. Also fix the peer-review, people reviewed me with "-" and gibberish.

By Payal A M

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Sep 16, 2023

The instructor Amity Paige has a style that captivates the listeners. Some of the exercises didn't seem necessary but were interesting no the less.

By Digant K

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Apr 11, 2016

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.

By Kaitlyn B

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Aug 31, 2019

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