How the school works:
We have three lengths of Standard course, 4-week, 6-week, and 8-week. Some courses are simply too short to be a 6-week course, so we provide the shorter 4-week length. A very few courses require so much work for both the students and teachers that we permit them to run 8 weeks. But as a rule we discourage that longer length.
We offer Extended courses too. These students have twice the usual time to complete the course. But — and this is important to remember — there is no additional course material offered, or teacher work involved. This is only a scheduling difference, not a content difference.
The prices for the Standard courses are $30/week. Of that, you earn 50 percent. Extended courses cost 25 percent more, so you earn slightly more on those. We pay you at the end of each course. It is your responsibility to notify us when you are done with the student, if that student deserves a Certificate of Completion and that we owe you some money. Checks are sent at once.
Students have ten days after the course starts to drop the course and receive a full refund. You don't get paid for those students. We sometimes give refunds after the ten-day period, in which case you are paid your share. We like our drop period policy because it reassures students that they will not buy something blindly that turns out not to be useful to them. In fact, it does not cost us much because very few students ever drop.
All courses start the Monday following the student's registration.
You will teach the students through email. Teaching means writing your reading material for the course and -mailing that to your students weekly (or posting it permanently on your own web pages - some teachers do that). You should also have at least some form of homework for each week's lesson. Students like that and get more out of the course that way. The homework-correcting varies with the number of students and the type of homework.
What we look for in teachers:
This is the biggest sticking-point for most because WritersCollege.com is not an academic institution and operates by very different rules. Specifically, we look for teachers with, in the following order of importance:
- Real-world experience in doing the thing they will teach. The more recent the experience, the better. The longer the writing career, the better
- Publication in widely-read media, and the more the better. Obscure scholarly journals don't count.
- Ability to effectively use computers, web sites, the Internet, etc., so that they may convey their knowledge to the students.
- Ability to relate to students' needs, and willingness to be flexible enough to meet those.
- Educational background that contributes to their subject, and ability to teach that subject.
We're not dogmatic about the above because circumstances and writing genres vary widely. But it's a starting point.
We look for courses that are not already being taught at our school. While some overlap is almost inevitable because so much of writing is common to all genres, we avoid duplicate courses. Your course must be unique within our catalog. Read over the catalog to make certain that your course (or something much like it) is not already being offered. If you have questions on this point, ask us.
Teaching on the web is a bit different from teaching in a classroom. Think of it as a correspondence school with faster access to the teachers. The way most of the teachers do it is to provide reading material in advance, as well as homework assignments, then take questions and assignments by email.
You need to have something to say that students are willing to pay to read. You need to have a background in that subject so that you may draw upon your experience in answering questions. You need the patience to see to it that each student receives the personalized help appropriate to their particular background and skills.
We do have three rigid rules:
(1) When you teach for us that is all we are permitting you to do on our site. We do not want you to be selling anything else to our students. If you have a "recommended" textbook, that's fine - so long as it is not required reading. If you offer other services or run other businesses, that's cool too. But you do that on your own time, and don't try to drum up business from our students.
(2) We do not mind if you teach the same, or similar course(s) elsewhere. But do not mix our students with your other students in any way, be it chats, round-robin messages (listserves) or whatever.
(3) You are the person hired to teach the course. Do not use assistants or otherwise subcontract the job without express permission from the Director. You aren't likely to get it; the situation would have to be extraordinary.
Some miscellaneous things:
Copyright:
Copyright is a big concern to you and to us. You are not to violate, in your lessons, any copyright laws or fair use rules. We do not wish to own your course or your lectures. Those are yours. Students, of course, are permitted, expected, even encouraged to download and print one copy of your lessons. They are also told not to make any additional copies or to pass your lessons around.
Vacation:
One major advantage of teaching using this system is that you earn money from your home, in your spare time, and don't have to make a career of it if you don't want to. But continuous teaching can get to be a drag, so vacations are permissible. You just sit out a few weeks. You have to tell us, though, and the farther in advance the better. We will put your course on hold and start a waiting list for you. You must either complete your current students or, if your absence is to be brief, make arrangements with the students to extend the course time and work around your absence. You MUST notify the Director of all this so we do not look stupid when students ask questions.
Lesson Preparation:
This is not an easy way to make money. Your initial preparation may take considerable time and you only earn that back over many students. So if you join us, join us for the long haul. Even if you teach now in a face-to-face setting you may be surprised at how much time it takes to convert your materials to the needs of an email-based school. Once you get your course reading material written, and have taught several students and shakene out the bugs, you can leave that alone and your time-per-course-cycle starts to look more attractive.
Management:
Stephen Morrill is the Director for the school. Steve has been teaching writing through online courses since 1988, and running this school since January of 1998. He has the experience needed to run an organization and also know when he sees good teaching and when he sees not-so-good teaching. Steve is a hands-on boss, there to help you with your problems. He wants the students to receive good value for their dollar and to want to take another course with us when they finish with your course.
Get more information and go from here:
Not Discouraged Yet? That's good. We really do look for new teachers, new courses, all the time. Teaching is a fun and rewarding way to share with others the thing you so love yourself. Now write to us at and ask for a course description form. Tell us too, in that initial e-mail and before you do a lot of work preparing lessons, what you are thinking about teaching.
Request a course description form
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