10 Universities Offering Free Writing Courses Online

Writing Courses: A General Introduction
Adult writing classes are a great way to improve your writing skills. Free writing courses are appropriate for any adult learner, as writing permeates nearly every profession. From drafting professional e-mails to writing a creative story, investing in your written communication skills is a great use of your time. Sometimes finding an in-person class is as simple as typing writing classes near me into a search engine. However, it is now easier than ever before to take accredited writing courses online, allowing for a more flexible schedule.

College writing courses can be helpful for nearly any profession
adult writing courses
Some common topics you might encounter in free writing classes are:

Basic mechanics
Journalism
Blogging
Business writing
Resume building
English composition
Creative writing
While it may seem unlikely that a university would make online writing classes free, it is actually more common than you think. For your convenience, this article has rounded up the best free online writing courses for new writers or experienced writers.

Online Writing Courses (for Credit)
For individuals interested in pursuing a career in writing, many schools offer free writing courses and materials through OpenCourseWare (OCW) projects. While formal admission isn’t necessary to access lectures and other materials, these free online writing classes don’t usually award college credit. Students looking for the same ease of access and opportunity to apply their study time towards a degree or certificate program might want to consider online writing courses for college credit through Study.com.

Students trying to improve their writing can check out English online classes like English 104: College Composition. Chapters in this course include:

Conventions in Writing: Usage – Instructors discuss tips for developing clear sentence structures, good diction and a strong writing style.
Parts of an Essay – This chapter covers prewriting strategies and methods for organizing an essay. The importance of a strong thesis, smooth transition sentences and an engaging introduction are also discussed.
Essay Writing – The differences between persuasive and personal essays are covered alongside strategies for addressing the audience and anticipating opposing views.
How to Revise an Essay – Instructors demonstrate strategies for using sources in an essay and evaluating an argument’s logic or evidence.
Using Source Materials – Tips for writing a bibliography or works cited page and avoiding plagiarism are covered in this chapter.
Free Online Writing Courses (Non-Credited)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Through MIT’s OCW program, students can download a variety of undergraduate and graduate-level online college writing courses that cover topics in areas such as essay, expository, and technical writing for students interested in exploring a technical writing degree program. Course activities and formats include assignments, exams, lecture notes, and video presentations.

Writing and Reading the Essay focuses on the essay as a popular literary genre. The syllabus indicates two essay anthologies as course texts, which can be purchased online. Course activities include a reader’s journal and a series of personal writing assignments.
Writing and Reading Short Stories offers students the opportunity to study character development, plotting, and point of view. Featured authors include Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, William Faulkner, and John Updike.
New Jersey Institute of Technology
The New Jersey Institute of Technology is a scientific and technological university that offers online writing courses and materials.

Technical Writing is geared toward the advanced writer. In this free writers’ course, which consists of about 40 video-taped lectures, students apply theory to analyze and solve complex communication problems. Course topics include audience awareness, document design, ethics, gender equity, and rhetorical theory.
Open University
The Open University is the largest educational establishment in the United Kingdom, as well as the country’s only distance-learning school. The university’s free online writing courses may not provide access to the same resources used by formally enrolled students, but course formats might include Web- and print-based content as well as the ability to interact with other students through a comments feature.

Start Writing Fiction is a 12-hour, free online writing course for beginners that can provide students with the inspiration and tools they need to put their words on paper. The course emphasis is on developing character and settings within a variety of fiction genres.
Writing What You Know is designed to help students improve their descriptive writing skills. This eight-hour, introductory class encourages students to view their everyday lives from a new perspective, demonstrating how an author’s personal life can serve as a source of inspiration.
Purdue University
Through Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL), students and teachers around the world can enjoy 24-hour access to a variety of Web-based resources, including handouts, podcasts, and PowerPoint presentations from online writing courses. These include topics in grammar and mechanics, professional and technical writing, English as a Second Language (ESL), research, and writing style.

Professional and Technical Writing provides a list of varied Web-based resources that can show students and professionals how to research and write business letters, memos, and other office-related documents. Topics include audience analysis, parallel structures, and writing tone. Additional technical writing resources include information on how to write scientific abstracts and white papers.
The Writing Process includes a list of mostly text-based resources and exercises that cover everything from overcoming writer’s block to proofreading strategies. Additional topics include pre-writing, thesis statements, outlining, and audience analysis, which can be applied to a wide variety of writing tasks.
University of College Falmouth
The University College Falmouth is a specialized art institution based in the United Kingdom that offers free creative writing classes. The non-credit classes offered through the school’s ‘OpenSpace’ project allow students to work at their own level and pace but don’t provide all the materials from the original course. Although registration isn’t required to access assignments, lectures, and other materials, registered students may be able to participate in online chats and peer reviews.

Introduction to Novel Writing was designed to provide graduate-level students with the structural skills to organize and develop extended pieces of creative writing. In addition to writing assignments and suggested readings, open course materials include YouTube videos by Joyce Carol Oates, Salmon Rushdie, and Amy Tan.
Writing for Children introduces students to the genres and styles integral to the market and helps them find the right age group for their story. Open course materials include assignments, background reading, examples of children’s books and an online lecture.
University of Iowa
The Writing University is a Web-based resource for the school’s literary and writing community, providing direct access to a number of free audio presentations. Recent podcasts have included presentations on the sentence, creative nonfiction, and experiential writing.

Flash Fiction introduces students to the concept of the super-short story and its emergence as a mainstream literary trend. Listeners can learn how brief experiences or even a life story can be condensed into a paragraph or a couple of written lines.
How to Find the Short Story Within Your Novel helps listeners identify the dissimilarities between these two literary forms. Students learn how to extract a quality excerpt from a longer piece of prose and how first-time authors can prepare their work for publication.
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Critical Reading and Writing is designed to help students achieve college-level reading and writing skills through a critical exploration of U.S. foreign policy. Students have access to the course syllabus, an assignment list, and website. Through the course site, students can open and download text documents and PowerPoint presentations on topics like critical analysis strategies, brainstorming, and building concepts, as well as documents and links to online resources on foreign policy issues.
University of Michigan
This university participates as a member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium by providing free access to educational materials and course content through its Open.Michigan website.

Principles of Research and Problem Solving is a PowerPoint presentation breaking down scientific writing skills, such as within research proposals.
Utah State University (USU)
Utah State offers OCW materials in several academic departments. Students may be able to apply the knowledge gained from use of these open materials to pass exams to earn credit. USU may give credit to students who pass subject tests offered by individual departments, the International Baccalaureate Organization, or CLEP exams, among other options.

Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode provides access to 16 weekly lessons, with links to readings and related writing assignments. Students learn how to engage in various components of the writing process while developing critical reading and thinking skills. Topics include writing about controversial topics, argumentation styles, source documentation and how to use multimedia resources.
Introduction to Writing: Academic Prose is an online complement to a graduate-level course. The course materials are presented in a similar 16-week format, with links to several online readings and assignment descriptions. The syllabus begins with assignments related to debate and dialogue, cultural myths, and visual literacy. Additional writing activities include a family narrative, a school board project, and a media analysis.
Stanford University
Online courses can be found at Stanford through the school’s OpenEdX platform.

Adventures in Writing is an innovative approach to teaching writing skills. Developed by a group of lecturers, the course teaches written communication skills through a series of learning modules drawn and formatted in the style of graphic novels.