The Online Learning Experience at Storywriting School
Seven-day, self-paced online writing courses
Writers have to read a lot, write a lot, and meet deadlines. That's also the online learning experience at Storywriting School. On Day 1 of your class, you'll have access to coursework in the form of text lectures and writing exercises. You'll have seven days to go through them at your own pace. While you accomplish those exercises, a writing coach will review your work and give feedback as necessary.
Inclusions
You'll do the coursework at your own pace, but as with most writing projects, you'll have a deadline.
The moment you join the class in Google Classroom, you'll have access to all the coursework (text lectures and writing exercises), which you're meant to go through at your own schedule while aiming to finish within seven days. This mimics the typical working conditions of a writer: you have control over how you get your writing done, but your boss or client will likely have deadlines for you to meet.
As you accomplish your coursework, a writing coach will review you your writing exercises. Your Coach will give you feedback, as needed, pertaining to your accomplishment of the exercise objectives.
Meet the deadline, receive a digital certificate.
If you finish all the required exercises on or before the deadline, we'll send you a digital certificate. In case you don't finish by the deadline, you may continue working on the exercises on your own, without receiving feedback from your Coach. (Note: We also allow you to pay for additional weeks of coaching and extensions of your deadline, but we'd really rather you finished on time!)
Apply what you've learned by submitting your draft or outline for a story consultation.
After the end of your seven-day online course, you'll have 28 days to submit a draft or outline (maximum 2,500 words) for a complimentary story consultation. We will have 2-3 story consultants comment on your work.
Get exclusive access to community events and perks that we offer in partnership with Story Sandbox.
We hold community events on the Story Sandbox Discord server. We have a writing conference or party once a quarter, as well as live audio calls to record the Ask A Writer podcast. We'll send you an invitation to the Discord server after your course has ended.
Your Online Writing Workshop
After you register and pay, here's what you can expect from an online writing class:
Beginning the Class
Sometime after 12:00AM GMT/UTC+0:00 (8:00AM Philippine Time) on the first day of class, the Class Administrator sends you an email with the Google Classroom details and other briefing points.
You join the class by following the instructions in the email. The course content—text lectures and writing exercises—is under the Coursework tab of Google Classroom.
Your assigned writing Coach gets in touch with you regarding a schedule for a coaching call. In the call, your Coach tries to understand your context and personal goals, and notes potential ways for the class experience to be customized to meet your needs. Note: You may opt out of the coaching call. Just inform your coach when he/she gets in touch with you for a schedule.
Core Period
Days 1-7 (Published course dates)
You go through the coursework at your own pace; some students prefer to do a lot of work over the weekend, while others spread the work out across the class schedule. Note: We encourage those who are studying or working full-time to put in 6-12 hours of work on Days 1 and 2.
As you go through the coursework, you post any questions you may have in Google Classroom. The Coaches and the Class Administrator respond to students' posts at least once a day. Your Coach gives feedback on your writing exercises as needed.
If you finish all the required coursework by the published end date ("Core Period") of the class, you receive your digital certificate, plus a bonus gift for finishing on time. The Class Administrator does this within seven days of the end of the Core Period.
Grace Period
Days 8-14
If you don't finish on time, you're given a seven-day Grace Period to finish all the coursework. Assuming you meet this deadline, the Class Administrator sends you your digital certificate the following week, but without the bonus gift.
Note: We give this Grace Period gratuitously because... life happens! However, we do encourage an early finish, hence the bonus gift for those who finish within the Core Period.
Another note: Students who are enrolled in bootcamp mode are not entitled to the Grace Period.
Extension
Additional 7 or 14 days
If you still hadn't finished by the end of the Grace Period, you may opt to:
go through the coursework on your own (you will not receive a certificate from Storywriting School); or
email an extension request to the Class Administrator within 24 hours of the end of the Grace Period, and pay for the extension within 48 hours of the end of the grace period.
Note: You will need to pay US$19.99/PH₱1,000 for every extension, which will add seven days to your previous deadline. You are allowed a maximum of two (2) extensions.
To be clear: We'd rather you finished early! Past students have shown that all of our courses can be finished within 7 days. However, we acknowledge that some of you might need more time, so we charge the above amount to cover the overtime pay of our Class Administrators and Coaches.
After Your Deadline
Story Consultation
After the end of your seven-day online course, you'll have 28 days to submit a draft or outline (maximum 2,500 words) for a complimentary story consultation. You will also be asked to submit the following:
Logline (You'll learn how to write one in your online course.)
What you like about your output
What you don't like about your output
Q&A with Dr. Joem
At any time during your online course, you may submit questions for the course creator, Dr. Joem Antonio, to answer. A few times every quarter, Dr. Joem records a podcast to answer the questions submitted by students. You may join the Story Sandbox Discord server (after your course is done) to join the recording sessions live.
Online Writing Event
At the end of each quarter, Storywriting School hosts an online writing event. This is free to Storywriting School's students. In these online events, we have writing games, discussions, and live chats. It's our chance to socialize after getting our writing work done.
What happens to my online course's content after my deadline?
The class in Google Classroom will remain active. Your exercise files are in your own Google Drive and will remain there as long as you keep them there. You may continue viewing the lectures and working on the exercises if you want, but after your deadline, our team will no longer review your output or respond to your comments. Students for succeeding quarters will be added to the class later on. We advise that you turn off notifications from the class after your class has ended.
Storywriting School makes no guarantees that our classes will be online indefinitely. Google has control over the policies that govern their products, e.g. Classroom, Drive. Storywriting School might also discontinue using Google products at some point. So, while you may access course content even after your deadline has ended, we encourage our students to finish the course within the schedule or at least within a month.
On students aged 8-12
Our courses each have a minimum age requirement (please refer to the respective course page for that detail). This means that the lessons' concepts will be apt for that age and older, as proven in our live, face-to-face classes. However, our online courses are self-paced and require the use of technology. We've seen that our younger students have difficulty managing their online coursework on their own. They generally need a lot of handholding, which our writing coaches cannot provide. Therefore, we require students of this age to be accompanied by a parent, guardian, or tutor to give them a better chance of finishing the class.
The parent, guardian, or tutor will need to initiate having the child go through the lessons, i.e. reading the lectures and answering the writing exercises. Also, since the courses are written to benefit a wide audience, some concepts may require some explanation so that a child will grasp them better.
To keep the experience pleasant for the child, please make sure that he/she is truly eager to learn how to write stories. Without this, the class will feel like a chore. Our young students who are eager to learn have a smoother experience. They often do better than their adult counterparts because they don't have the bad writing habits that grown-ups have acquired. They usually love reading stories and, many times, have attempted writing their own already.
All dates and times follow GMT/UTC+0
London: GMT/UTC+0 or +1
Manila: GMT/UTC+8
New York: GMT/UTC-5 or -4