Online courses directory (126)

The Victorian Period of English history (1837-1901) witnessed a set of complex political, social, scientific, medical and philosophical developments. Such developments influenced - and were influenced by - various modes of cultural production, most specifically the Victorian Novel. The reciprocal relationship meant that even as discoveries fed the imaginative worlds of fiction, fictive accounts helped a reading public re imagine the language of those discoveries. As the British Empire expanded its reaches across the globe, news of new societies and cultures circulated back to the British Isles to a degree never before witnessed in English history. At home, British intellectuals began raising important questions concerning the nature of the "Woman Question," or the proper place and role for British women in society, at home, and in the workplace. In addition, this period saw the rise of Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudian psychoanalysis - a set of theories that would forever change global society and culture. In…

African American literature grew out of the oral tradition of storytelling and spirituals.  In this course, you will consider these verbal modes and their impact on the literary production of African American authors from the Colonial period to the current day.  Along with considering the content of literary works, you will examine the cultural, historical, and political contexts of the literature, as well as how the issues of gender, race, and class affect the production and meaning of these works. In this course, you will examine the development of African American literature in seven units: Oral Traditions; The Literature of Slavery; Reconstruction to the  New Negro Renaissance Movement; Harlem Renaissance; Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism; Black Arts; and the Contemporary Period.  This course begins with a unit that studies African American literature’s inception through oral tradition.  This unit will teach you about the beginnings of narrative and will ground your understanding in the develop…

No matter what career you pursue, you must be able to communicate effectively and clearly if you want to be successful.  This course will enhance your ability to do so by sharpening your critical thinking and writing skills.  We will begin with a unit designed to change the way in which you think about writing.  First, you will learn to think of writing not as a solitary act but as a conversation between yourself and an audience.  In this light, writing becomes a dynamic, interactive, and creative rather than a rote practice.  You will also begin to value writing as a process an admittedly difficult one  rather than a product.  You will come to see that writing is an act of discovery rather than a recitation of prefabricated ideas. Because this course is designed specifically for students in a university setting, the second unit will focus on academic writing.  We will learn how to respond to an assignment or test question by using the “PWR-Writing” or “Power-Writing” Method (PWR: Pre-write…

The ability to research topics and incorporate information from your sources into your work is an important skill both in college and on the job.  This course will reinforce the concepts you practiced in English Composition I by introducing you to basic research concepts and techniques.  It will also give you a chance to put these new concepts and techniques to work as you develop a final research paper.  We will begin by looking at how to build research into an effective writing process.  First, you will learn to think of researching not as a requirement for getting a good grade on a paper but as a valuable tool that can make your writing more powerful and convincing.  You will learn how to build research into your writing process so that you can add persuasive power to your finished work.  Through rigorous practice of the fundamental techniques, you will come to see that, like writing itself, research is an act of discovery rather than a search for prefabricated ideas. The intent of this course is t…

Spanish 277 is the prerequisite course for minors and concentrators in Spanish. This course combines online self-instruction of Spanish grammar with an introduction to literature in Spanish. In-class discussions will focus on literary concepts and will integrate the study of grammar usage in the readings. The online materials include print handouts, PowerPoint presentations, audio mini-lessons, and links to online grammar explanations, all of which will allow students to bring their grammar skills up to the desired level. There are also self-correcting electronic exercises, all of which provide feedback on correct/incorrect answers. Course Level: Undergraduate This Work, Spanish 277 - Reading, Grammar, and Composition, by Dennis Pollard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Great managers are made, not born. Learn about the qualities and skills of great managers in this Business 101 course. Instructor Sherri Hartzell holds both an MBA and Ed.D., so she's an excellent choice to teach you about principles of management.

Start by learning about the different levels of management in organizations and then dive into how good managers lead to great employees. Students of business, budding entrepreneurs and independent online learners alike can benefit from these short, engaging video lessons and interactive online quizzes. Business 101: Principles of Management can prepare you to earn real, widely transferable college credit by taking the Principles of Management CLEP exam or the Excelsior Principles of Management exam .

The Diploma in English Language and Literature gives you the opportunity to gain comprehensive knowledge and understanding of important aspects of English language and literature. It is ideal for people who have always wanted to study English language and literature in greater detail, as well as learners who are studying English as a second language.<br /><br />The English language modules cover the fundamentals of grammar, effective speaking, and writing skills.<br /><br />The English literature modules analyze literature with an emphasis on renowned authors and poets, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Arthur Miller and William Shakespeare.<br /><br />A qualification in this free online diploma course is the ideal way of demonstrating your proficiency in the English language.<br />

Great managers are made, not born. Learn about the qualities and skills of great managers in this Business 101 course. Instructor Sherri Hartzell holds both an MBA and Ed.D., so she's an excellent choice to teach you about principles of management.

Start by learning about the different levels of management in organizations and then dive into how good managers lead to great employees. Students of business, budding entrepreneurs and independent online learners alike can benefit from these short, engaging video lessons and interactive online quizzes. Business 101: Principles of Management can prepare you to earn real, widely transferable college credit by taking the Principles of Management CLEP exam or the Excelsior Principles of Management exam .

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.

Princess stories have been popular for centuries and remain so today around the world; we’ll dive into what these fairy tales mean, and trace the history of these narratives back to their source material, examining contexts all along the way. We’ll borrow tools from cultural studies, literature studies, and film studies to help us analyze these phenomena and what they mean to our society. Many of us may associate princess stories with modern-day products (much of it marketed to small children) or with Disney movies and theme parks. We’ll examine these current versions of fairy tale mythos as well, using our new interpretive tools to uncover not just what’s been changed in the moral and message of the narrative, but what the stories mean as told now.

This seven-and-a-half week online course will introduce you to basic writing skills, especially as they pertain to novel writing. This includes everything from basic story construction and character development, through the intricacies of plotting. You’ll learn to identify skill strengths and weaknesses. You’ll also start thinking like a writer by developing your writing and analytical skills. During the course, you’ll learn to talk about writing as working writers do, and develop a toolkit of techniques, which you’ll use throughout your career. This course will offer both a badge and, certificate of completion. Cost of enrollment: $65.00 Required Materials: The textbook for this course is 21 Days to a Novel by Michael A. Stackpole It is available as a PDF from Stormwolf.com Cost: $20 The sample novel for this course is Star Wars X-wing Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole. (I am using this book as an example because I am absolutely certain I know what the author was thinking when he was writing this book or any passage in it, and that I can reliably relate the author’s true thoughts and intentions.) The book is widely available in paper or ebook format. There is one other book each student should read: any novel published in the last two years, written by an author after whom you would like to style your writing. In the first week you'll share your draft-choice novel with others. These shared books should form a solid library of examples to study. (Writers must read other writers.)

What the what? A course about swearing? (No need to put a quarter in the swear jar; it’s totally academic.) An honest-to-goodness linguistics professor will guide you through the study of taboo language, including syntax, semantics, phonology & morphology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, second language acquisition, and cross-linguistic comparison. See? No four-letter words here, so you know it’s for scholars. Enroll today (unless you’re averse to obscenity) and learn everything you always wanted to know about bad words, but were afraid to ask your mother. Required text: This Book is Taboo: An Introduction to Linguistics through Swearing Available for purchase at Kendall Hunt Hard-cover: $54.60 E-book: $43.68 Students who successfully complete this course will receive a certificate of attendance. This course is offered through Instructure as a non-credit course created by the University of Utah. Students enrolled in this course are not considered students of the University of Utah.

This course revolves around the work of revising writing, learning, and engaging with language and community. You will explore who you are as a learner as you write about yourself and your language use, as well as consider who you are as a communicator as you critique texts, persuade audiences, and collaborate with others. We've designed this course to help you revise how you write and to help you collect a toolkit of effective reading, writing, and learning strategies. Each of the four modules integrates academic and social contexts (e.g., Facebook, ELI peer review application) to encourage a wide application of the skills you acquire during the course. The skills you will practice in this course (like narration, summary, etc.) are fairly typical for writing classes at many U.S. universities; however, our course focuses on you as a writer and thinker. Recognizing specific learning and communication practices and considering ways to employ them can make you more successful in future coursework and in all communication.

Intended for English language teachers and students, world language teachers and students, and everyone else wishing to understand the structure of English, this course explains English holistically by describing the fixed order of the sentence and the interrelationship of its parts. This course is not a series of independent lessons, but a deeper, more focused, unified look into the structure of English. Participants quickly discover that all English sentences follow the same principles by identifying the places contained in every sentence and the types of relationships and phrases found in those places. From day one, participants describe English sentences in a simple, straightforward manner and are able to apply this information for editing purposes. These skills facilitate the teaching and learning of other languages as well. Course content is taken from linguistics and adapted to language teaching and learning. Course content is cumulative, applies directly to every sentence, and becomes the method for describing how words and phrases are combined into sentences to create meaning. X-words (traditionally called auxiliary verbs or helping verbs) are our keys for unlocking and revealing the hidden structure of every sentence. Class content is provided through the X-Word Grammar online video series available at the X-Word Grammar Store. Subscription cost is $15. The philosophy of X-Word Grammar: The simple sentence is a unique approach and quite different than any other grammar you have ever studied. It is logical, useful, and interesting! If you want to learn about the structure of the English sentence, this class is for you. Try it. You will like it!

This course will introduce you to the range of drama written and performed in England and Continental Europe between roughly 1660 and1800, a period often termed “the long eighteenth century.”  In this course, we will refer to the “long-eighteenth century” as the period that began with the Restoration of the English monarchy with King Charles II following the English Civil War and concluded with the first years of the nineteenth century.  During this period, drama flourished in England, France, and Germany.  After quite a long period in which theater was not in vogue, the emergence of brilliant new dramatists, the development of novel forms of plays (including derivates of the Italian opera, comedy, and the musical), and the passage of laws that finally allowed women actors on stage sparked renewed interest amongst theatergoers.  In this course, we will explore the major plays, players, and playhouses from this era in conjunction with a thorough and in-depth historical contextualization. This cou…

This course will be beneficial if you wish to learn how to communicate with the sounds and music of American English. The purpose is not to increase your vocabulary, nor to improve your grammar, but to deal with the sounds of the words that you speak. Your message is of primary importance, but it may not be understood if your pronunciation is imprecise, inconsistent, or regional. This course is particularly useful for actors or for others who need to speak to diverse audiences, such as when giving a business presentation. You will have the flexibility of time to experience, at your own pace, aural and visual aspects of a sound. Within the course, students are assessed on their ability to recognize each sound in a variety of contexts and are given feedback on their particular answers. You will learn to: Articulate sounds and words using the dialect of Standard American English. Listen and think in terms of symbols for sounds, using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Use the International Phonetic Alphabet to transcribe from the Roman alphabet into the forty-four sounds of Standard American Dialect and vice versa. Analyze texts for phrasing, operative words, intonational patterns, degrees of stress. Achieve a proper use of weak forms for certain parts of speech in the English Language, making your speech clear and efficient.

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.

Build your earth science vocabulary and learn about cycles of matter and types of sedimentary rocks through the Education Portal course Earth Science 101: Earth Science. Our series of video lessons and accompanying self-assessment quizzes can help you boost your scientific knowledge ahead of the Excelsior Earth Science exam . This course was designed by experienced educators and examines both science basics, like experimental design and systems of measurement, and more advanced topics, such as analysis of rock deformation and theories of continental drift.