Essay & Opinion Writing I is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. It’s for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
Do you enjoy sharing your viewpoints? What do you think of, say, global warming or the latest water-cooler TV show or the forgotten value of handkerchiefs? No topic is too major or minor to warrant exploration. There are many places to air your views—magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs, books, newsletters—and many forms to encapsulate them.
People will be eager to hear you out…if you know how to elucidate your thoughts better than the average loudmouth on the bus. Here you’ll learn about the leading forms of viewpoint writing—personal essay, lyric essay, op-eds, reviews, and others—as well as writing craft and how to market your work.
Whatever you have to say, we’ll show you how to say it effectively and compellingly.
Notes
A personal essay is similar to a memoir; both incorporate elements from the writer’s life. But a personal essay focuses more on the viewpoint, and a memoir focuses more on the story. Gotham also offers courses on Memoir Writing and an Intensive on Personal Essay Writing.
This course gives you a firm grounding in the basics of essay/opinion writing craft and gets you writing an essay or opinion piece (or two). Course components:
- Lectures
- Writing exercises
- Workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times)
Online classes
- Week 1
- Introduction to Essay & Opinion Writing: The different forms of essay and opinion writing—personal essays, reviews, op-eds, persuasive essays, exploratory essays, lyric essays. Creative nonfiction structure—lede, nut graf, body, kicker. The basics of framing.
- Week 2
- Purpose and Meaning: Your point (and you do have one). Finding an essay’s guiding principle. The role of theme in creative nonfiction.
- Week 3
- Description: Putting the “creative” in creative nonfiction. Finding the right word. The art of selection.
- Week 4
- Voice: Elements of voice. Role of voice in essay writing. Finding your writer’s voice.
- Week 5
- Personal Essay: Blending the personal and universal. Using your experience to shed light on a larger subject.
- Week 6
- Review Writing: Structure of reviews. Balancing honesty with mutual regard.
- Week 7
- Op-Ed/Persuasive Essay: Logic in creative writing. The art of persuasion.
- Week 8
- Reported/Exploratory/Lyric Essays: Reported—narrative nonfiction using style, dialogue, and description. Exploratory—essays that begin with a question. Lyric—nonfiction that experiments with rhythm, sound, and syntax.
- Week 9
- Revision: The art of revision.
- Week 10
- The Business: Finding the right market. Making your pitch.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
About
- The Online classes bring students from all over the globe to Gotham—New York City’s most famous writing school.
- The Online classes happen asynchronously—not in “real time.” You can participate in class any time, day or night, but the classes advance week-by-week, and certain things should be accomplished within that week-long session.
- You can take an Online writing class from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. The majority of our Online students are located in the U.S. but we also draw students from practically every country in the world.
- Tech support will be available.
- Aside from the convenience of time and location, you have a record of everything that transpires in class, which you can print out and keep for future reference. (The material is text and image, not video.)
