Another school district has decided to offer an online curriculum option (http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20120712/NEWS01/207120321). I’m all for online learning just as I am all for finding what works best for each student. As a matter of fact, I have applied for a grant for my public school classroom to purchase what is considered an e-course in writing. But this all reminds me of…

Many years ago, my husband, Bill, went to the doctor. He had been sick for awhile and kept thinking that it was a virus and if he rode it out, it would go away. It didn’t so he finally got an appointment with a doctor to see what was up. When he got home, he was a bit concerned. He had a prescription and planned on taking it, but he was still a bit worried.

“The doctor had this book, like the encyclopedia of medical symptoms.” Bill’s eyes narrowed before he continued. “I told him my symptoms. He flipped the pages and would ask questions like, ‘Is it a dry or wet cough?’ then flip some more until he came up with a diagnosis, wrote me a prescription and sent me on my way.”

He held up the prescription bottle like it was snake oil.

And isn’t that what an e-course does? At least the smart ones. You do some work. It has a program which will diagnose where you are having trouble and it sends you on a path to practice those problems until you “get it”.

The trouble is the program is flipping through a book, its program. Bill could have looked up his symptoms and diagnosed himself, like many of us do today on the internet. But we still end up going to the doctor to get confirmation and a course for getting better. Only a person trained in the field is able to do this.

As I said, I think on-line courses are great, but not a complete picture. To really improve in any area, you have to go to someone who knows more, who can diagnose what is going wrong with your writing.

This week I am attending the Tin House Writing Conference because I need help. Some of my essays are not getting accepted for publication. Something is wrong, and my workshop leader – Stephen Elliott – pointed it out to me immediately. Okay, many things were wrong, but the major thing – he saw it right away and told me the course to take to make it better. (He didn’t solve my acne or my aching back.)

If you are going to use an online curriculum with your child, student, learner – be sure to augment it with a tutor, someone who is an actual audience reading your child’s writing, someone who has enough experience to see exactly what is ailing a writing project, and someone who can send the writer on a path to making things better.

Improving one’s writing is always what we want, as writers and students. A tutor or writing teacher will always send you on the path to improvement.


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