A new session of each course opens each month, allowing you to enroll whenever your busy schedule permits!
How does it work? Once a session starts, two lessons will be released each week, for the six-week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends.
Keep in mind that the interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes 2 weeks after each lesson is released, so you’re encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The Final Exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the Final Exam has been released, you will have 2 weeks plus 10 days to complete the Final and finish any remaining lessons in your course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.
Week One
Lesson 01 - Writing: Your Dynamic New Tool
Wednesday
This lesson will teach you some important concepts to help improve your writing. You'll learn a strategy that will free up every bit of your existing writing skills and help you gain confidence when you write. Practice begins now with a new technique that will help you get your thoughts out onto the page so you can work with them. It's a great way to start on your goal of becoming a confident, accomplished writer. Whether you need to write on the job or you're eager to write for publication, this lesson will help!
Lesson 02 - Words: Picking the Right One
Friday
Prepare yourself for some major upgrades on your ability to choose effective words! In this lesson you'll learn to recognize what kinds of word choices work and why. You'll come away with an understanding about word choices that cause your readers to feel confused or uninterested. You'll have the pleasure of discovering how to find the word you want and also how to goof around with words so you enjoy writing more. Finally, you'll practice, practice, practice. It's fun, so feel free to dive in and splash around!
Week Two
Lesson 03 - Spelling: Tips and Practice
Wednesday
It's time for spelling practice. Not only will you review problem words, but you'll get acquainted with 10 helpful rules and five helpful tips to make you a better speller so you can spell better from now on. You'll identify your own particular spelling demons and learn a strategy to cope with them once and for all. This lesson is filled with the kinds of resources and spelling practice you've been looking for.
Lesson 04 - Usage: Which Word Goes Where
Friday
Here's your chance to get acquainted with common word usage difficulties and master them. You're about to learn to pick the right word at the right time and put it in the right place in your sentence. You'll practice choosing between similar sounding words that have different meanings and get helpful explanations about the tricky usages that trip you up daily. By the end of this information-packed lesson, you'll be much better at picking the correct words.
Week Three
Lesson 05 - Sentences: Writing Them Effectively
Wednesday
In this lesson, you'll integrate all that you've learned so far—how to capture your thoughts, choose effective words, spell correctly, and master word usage—by mastering techniques that will help you write effective sentences. Here you'll practice constructing sentences that have energy and precision by learning four simple tips, deciding which words to take out, and communicating your ideas logically.
Lesson 06 - Ending Punctuation: When, Where, and Why
Friday
Whisk through a handy review of the three main punctuation marks used to end sentences: the period, the question mark, and the exclamation point. But that's not all. You'll benefit from practicing how to identify and fix run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and the overuse of dashes and ellipses. Round out your exploration with the challenge of combining quotation marks with the ending marks. You'll get a fine update on what works and what doesn't with this first of three full lessons on punctuation.
Week Four
Lesson 07 - Commas: Mastery at Last!
Wednesday
Commas! Yes, you can master their use. This lesson is designed to give you confidence in your comma placement. You'll learn how to use commas to create energy and precision in your writing. Instead of memorizing an intimidating list of rules, you'll learn by listening, clarifying, and practicing. You'll realize that you're in charge of your commas rather than being a passive victim. You'll get answers to all your lingering doubts about using commas here.
Lesson 08 - Semicolons, Colons, and All the Rest: A Quick Review
Friday
It's likely been a long time since your school days, and your knowledge of the correct use of all the punctuation marks may be a bit vague now. The emphasis here will be on how to use punctuation marks like semicolons, colons, dashes, parentheses, ellipses, apostrophes, quotation marks, italics, and hyphens. You'll acquire a new understanding of the way these marks help you. You'll gain this understanding by discovering, through practice, how to punctuate for clarity and how to help your readers hear the way you want your words to sound.
Week Five
Lesson 09 - Paragraphs: How They Help You Communicate
Wednesday
You're building your knowledge brick by brick, and now it's time to tackle the most powerful organizing tool of all writing—the paragraph. Here you'll find tips on how to organize a paragraph, where to break one paragraph and start another, and how to sequence paragraphs for optimum understanding. As always, you'll get to practice these skills as you go, solidifying your knowledge and gaining new confidence. Dive in!
Lesson 10 - Formatting: Tools and Tips to Help Your Content Shine
Friday
Now it's time to find out how to put your writing into the right format so that you can communicate with power and precision. Formatting appeals to the eye of your readers and draws them into your content. It's a powerful tool and one that involves some creative choices on your part. Get ready to learn about your choices for overall form, as well as how to use basic and specific formatting tools to make your writing highly readable.
Week Six
Lesson 11 - Writing for Electronic Media: Quirks and Characteristics
Wednesday
Learn how to write effectively in today's electronic world. Explore how the techniques of writing various types of electronic media such as email, instant messages, and text messages, for example, differ from the techniques used to prepare messages that will be read on paper. It's a new world, and new rules are necessary to help you communicate well. This lesson will help you discover what works and what doesn't in these exciting and evolving media. You'll gain a new understanding of how to write powerful email, since it's the most common of all electronic message systems.
Lesson 12 - Putting It All Together: Writing Well!
Friday
Time to wrap up all you've learned! This lesson will help you practice using your new skills, working from freewriting to a finished document. You'll practice how to use both your creative and your critical skills while writing. You'll find out what kind of attitude will help you use your new skills and what good habits will help you continue to improve each time you write. You'll focus on revision, work with a revision checklist, and review good tips on proofreading. Finally, you'll put together all the new things you've learned so that your writing will continue to improve over time.