Activity 3.3 – The Course Objectives and My Expectations

What are the stated course objectives and outcomes? The objective of the BBC Children’s Fiction Course is to “Discover how to write stories which will grab children’s attention with exciting characters and situations.” The course includes knowing your audience; developing characters; avoiding the moral high ground. There are no stated outcomes on the website.

What are my expectations …

What outcomes do you expect to achieve? I expect to improve my writing skills and learn more about the fundamentals of writing. I also hope to compile a short book with at least 3 short stories by the time Christmas comes around to give as a gift to my two cousins who I am hoping the book will give encouragement and enjoyment to, but as we are only required to complete 4hrs of the course I expect to complete one short story.

What do you expect the learning experience to be like? I expect the learning experience to be challenging as I will be learning independently and will need to really try and tap into my creative side. I also need to organise my time better so that I stay commited to the project and need to keep an eye out for inspiration for my stories.

What type of support are you expecting from the course? I expect to find links to additional resources to help supplement our learning and I expect there to be some form of feedback mechanism that we can use.

At this stage of my process I feel very excited about starting the course. I have many ideas floating around and also have ideas about how I can aid my online learning such as borrowing children’s books from my local library, getting input from my young cousins and collaborating with a few of my design friends to bring to life my characters visually. I think the reason why I am excited is because it’s something different and I am confident that I can create something that will truly be enjoyable.

I’ve already posted my course selection on the discussion board but am still waiting for a reply from Mark but hopefully it will come soon because I really want to get started!