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How to Teach Creative Writing With Moodle

Creative writing is a form of writing that does not fit into clearly-defined categories, such as narrative or expository writing. This form of writing requires students to use their creative side to solve problems and come up with unique solutions to intriguing issues. For example, a short story may be classified as creative writing because the student is required to think outside of the box and come up with a creative solution to a mystery or suspense.

The purpose of this blog post is to provide you with an overview of how you can integrate creative writing into your curriculum and teach it to your students using the popular open source learning management system, Moodle.

Moodle Introduction

If you are unfamiliar, Moodle is a free, MIT-licensed learning management system that allows you to create a digital classroom where you can post assignments, hold live chats with your students, and communicate with them through various online tools.

Moodle is a popular choice amongst educators because it is reliable, flexible, and easy to use. It was originally designed for use by teachers and students within single-sex classrooms, but it has grown to accommodate the diverse needs and preferences of today’s learning environments.

How To Teach Creative Writing With Moodle

To integrate creative writing into your curriculum and teach it to your students using Moodle, you will need to do the following:

1. Define the goals and the required skills for this course. What will your students know and be able to do after taking your course? What do you expect them to be able to contribute to society?

It is important to set specific and measurable goals for your course, so that you can assure your students and yourself that you are making progress. Measurable goals allow you to track your students’ progress and allow you to modify or update your curriculum as needed. For example, if you notice that your students are having a great deal of trouble with the grammar portion of the course, you might decide to re-design the course to include more explicit instruction on the proper use of the English language.

Setting specific and measurable goals is critical because it allows you to chart your student’s progress over time, as well as compare their performance to that of other students in the same course or district. For example, you might set the goal that by the end of the semester, your students will be able to write a short story that is at least 1500 words in length. This is an interesting and creative writing challenge that will stretch the students’ creative muscles and foster critical thinking skills while allowing them to experience the fun and freedom of creative writing. If your students are unable to meet this goal, you might want to revisit the goal and find a way to make it more achievable.

2. Determine the level of proficiency that your students should possess before they can begin advanced training in your subject area. Are your students at a point in their education where they are prepared for your creative writing course?

There are a variety of levels of proficiency that your students should possess before they can begin a creative writing course. The first and most basic requirement is that your students must be able to read and comprehend basic writing tasks and instructions. For example, if you are teaching creative writing and your students are not at this level of proficiency yet, you might want to consider taking a smaller class or holding an extension class for them.

If you are teaching a digital marketing course to junior level students, you might want to require them to have a working knowledge of social media and be able to use HubSpot, Twitter, and LinkedIn to name just a few. Your students should also be familiar with concepts like online branding and digital marketing research. In this case, it would be beneficial to have a tiered system where each tier requires your students to possess a different set of skills. For example, the first tier might only require your students to be able to read and do basic math, while the second requires them to be able to do some basic research online and use a variety of search tools effectively. This allows you to assess their proficiency level without risking that they will be overwhelmed by sophisticated concepts. Furthermore, if you are teaching a course in a blended learning environment, where some of the lessons are delivered online and some are delivered in the classroom, determine which ones will be handled online and which ones will be handled in-person. This will help you to account for the varying degrees of engagement that your students might have when taking your course. For example, if the course involves a great deal of independent learning, where your students need to look up and find the information that they need without overly relying on you, then online learning might be the best option for the course.

3. Distribute copies of the thesaurus, dictionary, encyclopedia, and other authoritative reference works that you will use during the semester. These are usually provided by the publisher, and they will be invaluable to your students as they explore new ideas and words. Make sure that these works are of good quality and that the language is easy to understand. If you are purchasing these books individually, you might want to get a few copies of each.

The distribution of such reference works is a great way to demonstrate to your students the importance of referencing sources. For example, let’s say that you are writing a research paper and you come across a new word or concept that you are not familiar with. In cases like this, your students will appreciate the fact that you have provided them with a thesaurus or dictionary. It is also important to show your students how to properly use these sources to find the information that they need. For example, if you are writing about Abraham Lincoln and you come across the word “martyr”, you would look up this word in the dictionary or thesaurus to find its meaning. You would then look up synonyms and determine the best fit for your paper.

What Next?

After you have answered these three questions, you will have a clear foundation for your course. From here, you can expand upon the topics that you are most interested in exploring while teaching creative writing to your students. Remember, this is a free blog post. You have unlimited topics and ideas that you can use for your curriculum. It would be wonderful to see what you come up with!