Discover the keys to unlock your potential in essay writing. If you have a clever anecdote, an interesting memory, or a strong opinion, then you have an essay in you. These illuminating lectures explore many genres of essays, challenge you with stimulating writing prompts, and provide insights into how to write compelling essays. In mastering this versatile form, you gain skills to apply to any other form of writing.
Becoming a Great Essayist
Connect a personal experience, an idea, or a memory to the world outside of yourself. Discover the keys to unlocking your potential in essay writing with an award-winning author.
Rated 5 out of
5
by
joriki17 from
A clear menu of choices in the world of essays
Although I've been writing for years (including columns, which are basically essays) the array of distinctions to be found in the world of essays has given me new access to writing better and longer essays. I can see many possibilities for being able to select among the models she presents and trying them on, depending on what material I want to address. Very useful offering for someone who is actually writing or intends to do that, but is also interesting for someone who enjoys reading non-fiction.
Date published: 2023-09-11
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Reza K from
A great course
I enjoyed listening to this course. Very enjoyable & engaging. But not so easy. Difficult somewhat to follow in the gym while working out.
Date published: 2023-05-24
Rated 1 out of
5
by
Jay85 from
Preachy and Insufferable
I have over sixty Great Courses lecture series. Many have been life changing and all professionally presented to inspire curiosity. All but this one. Black presents as that quintessential arrogant progressive who abuses her teaching platform to bludgeon the listener with her pseudo intellectual sermons. And when she wasn’t preaching she was reading and reading and reading works from her students. This series is more about Woke ideology than how to write essays.
Date published: 2023-03-30
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Gary in Texas from
A Solid Course Poorly Named
This course should be named "Understanding and Appreciating Essays." Although it includes writing guidance, this information is for Fine Arts majors. It practically assumes you have enrolled in one of her writing classes on campus.
In my case, English was my worse subject in school. I avoided writing until late in life. I have now written almost thirty essays, but it is the topic that drives my writing, not the act of writing itself. I did benefit from this course, but that was because I had no idea how many types of essays existed. This course broadened my understanding of essays and improved my appreciation of this writing style. It did not teach me how to write an essay, which the course title implies.
Date published: 2021-12-30
Rated 5 out of
5
by
DrDAO from
Great Course/Great Course!
Such an excellent course! Over the course of these lectures, Dr. Cognard-Black's insights into writing have helped me, as an instructor in English & Humanities, finesse and refine my own teaching. You'll find within these lectures accessible content, useful tips, and precise methodologies that can assist the student-writer through scholar focus and more effectively craft their essays. Indeed, there are exercises, suggestions for reflection, and techniques throughout the program that empower and motivate any would-be writer so that they can develop into a more mature, confident writer.
Date published: 2021-10-09
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Smithcrew from
Enjoyed the whole experience
Listening to Professor Cognard-Black’s lectures is both an enjoyable experience and an invitation to go write something wonderful. Her excellent lectures provide the inspiration and the tools to create great essays.
Date published: 2021-07-10
Rated 4 out of
5
by
Moshen from
Imaginative and Engaging, But...
This course offers a creative synthesis of principles and examples for writing both traditional and untraditional essays. The professor grounds the instruction in classical rhetoric going back to Aristotle and Cicero, and includes many historical examples that the listener would probably not be familiar with. I especially appreciated her detailed analysis of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" from 1729.
Along with historical examples, the course looks at many contemporary essays and often weaves current issues of race and gender into the discussion. So if you're disdainful of that type of content, go elsewhere to learn about essays.
Also included are excellent exercises that may spur you to practice the principles the professor shared in a particular lecture.
As I am currently writing a memoir, I found some of her insights applicable to my work in progress, either as reminders or as idea sparks that helped me see a deeper meaning in some aspect of my story.
The professor has nearly impeccable articulation, and every lecture except one easily held my interest.
My biggest complaint about the course - and to me it is a serious flaw - is that the examples she shares almost all use very elaborate literary devices and elevated language. The novice student will therefore probably get the idea that essays must be "fancy" in style and form to be worthy of attention and praise. This emphasis does not match my experience at all. I've published about a dozen personal essays in national media (including the New York Times, the NY Times Magazine and NPR) and none of these would have been praised as poetic, daring or stylistically sophisticated. In my writing I rely on nothing more than subtle sentence rhythm, repetition, logical paragraphing and metaphors that do not call attention to themselves. Everything else is hardwon, third-draft insight and ruthless subtraction of every unnecessary word or point. Unfortunately, those are not qualities that this course much discusses.
Date published: 2021-06-22
Rated 5 out of
5
by
healingwords from
Beautifully Presented Course
Dr. Cognard-Black has done a remarkable job in this video class showing us by way of examples how to write essays that are powerful and memorable. She not only informs us but inspires us to write our own using the many tools and ideas she knows so well. I found her lectures interesting and learned so much. In every chapter she shows us excellent examples and describes what makes them remarkable. While watching the videos I would get insights about essays I wanted to write and was able to use many of the techniques and ideas from this class.
Date published: 2021-06-12
Overview
About
Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black is Professor of English at St. Mary's College of Maryland, a public liberal arts college. She graduated summa cum laude from Nebraska Wesleyan University with a dual degree in Music and English. She studied under Jane Smiley for her M.A. in Fiction and Essay Writing at Iowa State University and received her Ph.D. in 19th-Century British and American Literature from The Ohio State University. Among her awards for teaching and writing, she was named a Fulbright Scholar to Slovenia, where she taught the American novel and creative writing. She was the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council individual artist award and was twice the recipient of the Faculty Student Life Award, the most prestigious teaching award at St. Mary's, selected by the students themselves. She was awarded Mellon Foundation grants on three separate occasions, and she won a gold medal in the national 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards contest for an anthology she edited. Nebraska Wesleyan University has named her a Distinguished Alumna and an Outstanding Graduate. Professor Cognard-Black's publications are extensive and eclectic, reflecting her intellectual background as both a writer and a literary critic. She is the author of numerous books, has published her essays and short fiction in a number of journals, and she has appeared on NPR.
Trailer
01: Steal, Adopt, Adapt: Where Essays Begin
First, learn what the essay is-and what it is not. See how the practice of writing essays has evolved over centuries yet has remained versatile, and examine the many uses of essays across the ages. Numerous essayists find starting out to be the most daunting part of writing. Professor Cognard-Black alleviates these hesitations, using examples from Aristotle to Michel de Montaigne to Edgar Allan Po...
34 min
02: Memory Maps and Your Essay's Direction
Much like a photographer who can change the angle, lens, lighting, and focus of a scene to evoke emotion from viewers, a writer colors an essay with his or her individual perspective simply by relaying his or her truth of it. This lecture focuses on looking at the world around you with a new lens, showing you how to convey those memories you've kept as an experience rather than just a recounting o...
29 min
03: Secrets, Confession, and a Writer's Voice
One of the most remarkable consequences of essay writing is the illuminating insights you discover about yourself. The nature of the essay doesn't allow for plot building or outlines-you simply sit and write, which means the story takes its own direction. Professor Cognard-Black encourages this process of discovery and shares stories of how many an essay she started on one topic turned into a diff...
29 min
04: The Skeptical Essayist: Conflicting Views
Many essayists find themselves doing an about-face as they write, sometimes because they may not have fully researched or thought through an idea before making claims about it. Essays that present conflicting views are not uncommon; Socrates would commonly switch sides in order to test all parts of an argument, and many others have followed his example. Learn how writing essays that provide both s...
30 min
05: The Reasonable Essayist: Artistic Proofs
Professor Cognard-Black introduces you to artistic proofs, which are grounded in your expertise and colored by your own observations and experiences. The most important artistic proof in any essay is ethos-the writer's ethical appeal or credibility. She demonstrates how to effectively use ethos along with logos or rationality to bring reasonableness into your essays, which vital to writing effecti...
31 min
06: The Unreasonable Essayist: Strategic Irony
After discussing the importance of presenting a reasonable essay, Professor Cognard-Black explores the world of unreasonable essays, often written for the sake of humor or irony, or to be provocative, such as Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." You'll explore an example of an essay that showcases conflicting views yet remains reasonable, and then look at examples where unreasonable writers use p...
31 min
07: The Empathetic Essayist: Evoking Emotion
Revisit Aristotle to master the craft of pathos-being able to express empathy for the subject of any essay. Learn how to elicit emotions from your readers while remaining authentic and not manipulative, clichéd, or contrived. Reflect on honest and moving uses of language from Maxine Hong Kingston and Barack Obama, who once perfectly summed up the importance of pathos in a speech by saying, ...
30 min
08: When an Essayist's Feelings Face Facts
To help keep your essays from becoming overly sentimental, Professor Cognard-Black discusses pitfalls for writers to avoid. You'll be introduced to three examples of what rhetorical theorists call logical fallacies and then take on the challenge of an assignment that brings together emotional appeals with rational ones to achieve credibility, empathy, and candor. You'll examine Naomi Shihab Nye's ...
30 min
09: Unabashedly Me: The First-Person Essay
The use of a first-person perspective in essay writing is a powerful tool that invokes intimacy, empathy, and witness. Ethos is more inherent in an "I" essay because the person sharing the story actually experienced the events. Learn how to write concisely to avoid an "I" story becoming simply an outlet for your own feelings, instead using your emotions to develop a broader appeal that will intere...
31 min
10: Essayists as Poets: Tapping into Imagery
This lecture opens by inviting you to "walk into" a photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1893 and reflect on what you would feel, smell, hear, and taste if you were actually in the scene. Only after you've noted the reactions of those senses are you then invited to describe what you might see. Using imagery in essays does more than describe and evoke a scene, however. When done well, imagery ca...
30 min
11: The Visual Essay: Words + Pictures
Writing a visual essay requires you to detach yourself from how you have been taught to view images your whole life. Rather than passively observing and judging, you must challenge yourself to get into the visual. Repeated and lengthy viewings of visual artifacts are one step. Once you start writing, though, the goal is to not recreate the exact image that you saw, but instead to reimagine it-to v...
31 min
12: Writing Inch by Inch: From Draft to Polish
Professor Cognard-Black guides you through Aristotle's process of inventio or invention, which is that period of discovery as you write your first draft. You'll examine openings from a number of published works, gaining a powerful toolkit that can help you craft the first sentence of your first draft. From there, Professor Cognard-Black provides a multitude of invaluable tools for revising, editin...
30 min
13: Short Forms: Microessays and Prose Poems
Learn how essays can break the rules of conventional writing, allowing you to design essay forms to match your needs rather than being forced to fit the rules of more conventional forms. Examine structures that reimagine the essay, such as the microessay and the prose poem or "proem." Professor Cognard-Black shares her own students' work to explore what elements went into these examples to make th...
30 min
14: The Memoir Essay
A memoir is often confused with a personal essay, but Professor Cognard-Black shows you the difference, once again using examples from her own students' work. She then provides numerous tips to help you recreate your memories and turn them into fascinating pieces of writing. Learn techniques that allow you to get as detailed as possible in your descriptions while still maintaining a central focus ...
31 min
15: Lyric Essays: Writing That Sings
From the Greek "lyre," a lyric poem expresses a writer's thoughts and feelings through the intimacy of the first-person narrator, evoking a strong emotional reaction in the audience. Professor Cognard-Black demonstrates the similarities between a lyric poem and a lyric essay and shares a moving example of a lyric piece written by one of her own students that uses memory fragments and figurative la...
29 min
16: The Epistolary Essay: Letters to the World
Professor Cognard-Black reveals a common form of communication that is rarely thought of as an essay, though it often is: the letter. Coupled with an engaging activity, you'll see how a handwritten letter differs from any other form of direct communication. You'll explore the similarities between letters and the epistolary essay as they both speak to a specific audience and convey a strong sense o...
31 min
17: Portrait Essays: People in Words
One of the most important parts of portrait essays is to understand that any depiction of another person-whether a famous stranger or a family member-is also a depiction of the writer. With this lecture, you'll delve into this dynamic between a subject and its writer and examine this power struggle as it plays out in a portrait essay. Using examples from Truman Capote and Scott Russell Sanders, yo...
32 min
18: The Essayist as Public Intellectual
While public intellectual essays don't step outside personal reflection, they do grapple with social issues, often myth-busting popular beliefs. This style of writing is distinct from a portrait or lyric essay. Professor Cognard-Black demonstrates this difference through her own examples and those of well-known public intellectuals, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Salman Rushdie. You'll learn how ...
33 min
19: Polemical Essays: One-Sided Arguments
Originating in the medieval period, polemical essays are the form for writers who wish to focus on a topic from one perspective only. They are often written to be deliberately polarizing. Refusing to shy away from volatile issues, it takes a strong writer to turn an antagonistic rant into a persuasive, polemical argument. Professor Cognard-Black shares examples of both well-written and overly stri...
31 min
20: Historical Essays: Past as Present
See how non-artistic proofs are immensely important when crafting a historical essay, especially since history is subjective, and the way you tell the story shapes how it will be understood. The non-artistic proofs of research and data set the scene for a historical essay, which connects personal memory to a larger project of human history. Professor Cognard-Black shares samples of strong historic...
32 min
21: Humor Essays
One of the most surprising insights into humor essays is the revelation that most humor comes from misfortune. This idea has been around for centuries, as even Aristotle noted that laughing at tragedy is cathartic for both the writer and the audience. You'll delve into how self-deprecating humor lends itself to creating ethos or credibility in this particular form of essay. Professor Cognard-Black...
31 min
22: Nature Essays
Nature essays can easily come across as unrealistic. Since the first nature essays were written in the 19th century, such pieces have often romanticized the natural world-but there is value in not sentimentalizing the great outdoors. Examining works by William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Deb Marquart, and Michael P. Branch, Professor Cognard-Black explores the various takes on nature that off...
33 min
23: Food Essays: My Grandmother's Recipe Box
Professor Cognard-Black shows you how a simple recipe is itself a story. As she explains, "It sets a scene, forms a plot, arrives at a climax, and ends with a denouement." Recipes form the basis of edible essays, which start out as instructions and ingredients, but when you mix in personal connections between a dish and your own culinary culture, add a dash of imagery, and stir in the history behi...
32 min
24: Sharing Your Essays: From Blog to Book
The modern form of the essay may be seen daily in blogs, although not all blogs are essays-instead, many are no more than personal journals, rants, or fantasies without broader connections and appeals. Professor Cognard-Black provides examples of what components are required for a piece to be a fully formed blog essay. While looking at examples from her students and professional writers, including...
34 min
