Let me start by saying this: the teachers throughout this specialization were great. I took each individual course in the specialization and learned a lot. However, the other students were less than great. This specialization places your scores in the hands of other students, NOT the teachers, in order to pass. Unfortunately, out of all the times I submitted work for peer review, only once did I get constructive feedback from another student. If you want a serious peer review, you should look elsewhere. This course is saturated with "students" taking advantage of the online platform to get an easy pass and complete the certification with no real effort. They do not review your work and simply give you a passing grade just to move on to the next part of the specialization. The remaining 99% of my submitted work was met with remarks like "..." or a simple "good" from the other students, just to complete their "feedback" without actually doing the work. My work was not reviewed for clarity or consistency, which I depended on other students to provide so that my writing could improve. Regardless, I did my best to provide constructive feedback to the students that I reviewed. It's quite disappointing that I spent so much time and effort to learn the material and no one wanted to take 10 minutes to help their fellow students succeed. Unfortunately, all reviews are anonymous so these students cannot be reported for skimping on a large part of the work. So, all in all, if you want some help with starting your learning journey, the teachers are a wonderful resource. Just don't bet on your writing actually being worth the effort when asking the other students for feedback.

For those of us with dreams of writing a novel, the Creative Writing Specialization helps you get the ball rolling. The Wesleyan professors are very good, and each course is a good introduction to plot, character, scene and style. I have now joined a real-time creative writing workshop class. Because, as a professor myself, you do miss out on the in-person teaching that a asynchronous class can never give you. The discussion boards are not helpful, because most of the threads are students begging for reviews or are old. Also, Coursera needs to find a better way to encourage students to follow directions. (My professor pet peeve). We were tasked to write one-two page reviews of our classmate's work, and most times we only received one line. One student wrote, "Great." This isn't how you workshop. So, this is why I could only give the course 3 stars.

It had some very useful advice, and the people that I got to review my work had some useful things to say.

However, I had been in need of advice for an assignment and so I asked the discussion forum. Time passed and the assignment's due date was literally hours away, so in the end, I was forced to use my own devices. A day or so after I submitted my assignment I got a response. By that point, the advice was virtually useless, as feedback kindly informed what I had failed to notice -I lost points over that. This happened twice. Four, if you count the times when I received no response at all.

I understand that people are busy, but just as well for I course that I paid good money to use you would think that I'd receive better responses. They wouldn't have to be prompt, just before the due date.

The instructors are excellent, offering many helpful suggestions.. The assignments are thoughtful and encourage students to practice skills. However, since neither instructors or monitors review the assignments, students are dependent on fellow students for feedback on writing assignments. While some students make an honest effort to provide critical feedback, there are many who simply offer one word of critical feedback (or even less) in order to meet the requirements of the course without doing any work. Unfortunately, nobody is monitoring this behavior so everyone suffers. This is why I've offered only three stars. The certificates are worthless if not properly earned.

I must say that the information on writing in the course was good, and the example of sanding, giving a critique etc. was very useful to me as a writer just putting her work into the world. I was extremely disappointed that after laboring through 3 long stories, only one formatted in the way the course specified, and trying to write at least one page of comments on each that what I got in return was on good critique and two that were only two lines long. I was on scholarship so I did not pay for the course but it was disappointing that there was no moderation of the peer review side of the homework.

It would be a great idea to get feedback from the course creator on the final submission. One individual submitted something, which was only 5 pages for a 15-page story. It appeared it was a first draft being submitted over and over. I didn't want to be rude, but I couldn't give all 5's for something that didn't meet the course standards although I made my feedback positive. However, I'm left wondering if my story is worth of seeking to have it published or understanding if I should make it part of an anthology. It would be great to hear from the creator of the CAPSTONE. Thank you.

Other students provide minimal, to no, feedback that doesn't meet the requirements for feedback and there is no way to report this. It makes me feel like any work that is accomplished is more of a joke because of the people who skate through the course like this.

There are a lot of kinks to be worked out in this course. The teaching aspect of the Craft of Writing is in the four previous courses, this one is basically write a story, get reviews.

With all due respect, this module felt like a case of the barely sighted leading the blind!

Course material was was good, and interesting throughout. The peer review system however was almost useless the majority of the time. There is nothing to stop people not reviewing or giving no feedback of any kind which very much undermines the product. As consequence there's no way for students to know if they are improving at all. A large number of students are also not complying with the task requirements and are submitted garbage (for what reason i have no idea), but still appear to be progressing. Without removing both these categories of people the course will continue to suffer. It's a real shame as the material is good but the marking system is incredibly poor. This is particularly the case in Capstone where feedback is so essential but i received absolutely nothing during this phase. I honestly have no idea, despite having completed the entire course, if what I'm writing is any good at all, or if I have improved in any way which is very disheartening.