The University of Edinburgh is offering free online course on “How to Read a Novel”. This course is for anyone who enjoys reading. Students don’t need any past experience.
Get underneath the skin of a novel by understanding some of the main building blocks of modern fiction. The course will start on July 24, 2017.
Course At Glance
Length: 4 weeks
Effort: 2 hours/week
Subject: How to Read a Novel
Institution: University of Edinburgh and Future learn
Languages: English
Price: Free
Certificate Available: Yes
Session: Course starts on July 24, 2017
Providers’ Details
The University of Edinburgh has been influencing the world since 1583. Consistently ranked as one of the world’s top 50 universities, the University of Edinburgh is globally recognised for its research, development and high-quality teaching, attracting some of the world’s leading thinkers to work and study there.
About This Course
On the course you’ll discover four of the main building blocks of modern fiction: plot, characterisation, dialogue, and setting using examples from a range of texts including the four novels shortlisted for the James Tait Black fiction prize. You’ll also explore the formal strategies authors use, how they came to be, and how they affect us as readers.
Why Take This Course?
This is a free online course. This MOOC will be offered with Video Transcripts in English. Applicants can get a verified certificate.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify key strategies used by authors to alter the temporal progression of the narrative.
- Reflect on the effects generated by a narrative frame.
- Evaluate novels for signs of narrative unreliability.
- Discuss my reading of contemporary fiction with a large online learning community.
- Explore ways of understanding character, such as behaviour, speech, and motives.
- Explore the impact of various settings on the development of character and plot.
- Evaluate the effect of different ways of presenting dialogue, and the impact of dialect speech.
Requirements
This course is for anyone who enjoys reading. You don’t need any past experience.
Instructors
Alex Lawrie
She is a Chancellor’s Fellow in English literature at the University of Edinburgh. My main research interests are in modern and contemporary literature.
How To Join This Course
- Go to the course website link
- Sign Up At FutureLearn
- Select a course and Join
- Once a course has started, applicant will be able to access the course material
- After the start date, students will be able to access the course by following the Go To Course link on My Courses page.
- Applicants can buy, to show that they have completed a FutureLearn course.
- On some FutureLearn courses, learners will be able to pay to take an exam to qualify for a Statement of Attainment. (These are university-branded, printed certificates that provide proof of learning on the course topic(s)).