MIT OpenCourseWare
Writing and Reading Short Stories
- Instructor
- Shariann Lewitt
- Term
- Spring 2012
- Level
- Undergraduate
- What's inside
- 1 lecture note · 2 readings · 23 other files · 3 web pages
- Materials open
- MIT OCW
About this course
Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 21W.755 Writing and Reading Short Stories, Spring 2012, Shariann Lewitt — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: none is claimed; materials are grouped by MIT's own sections. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.
Materials are grouped the way MIT organized them. A verified, course-wide order has not been established here.
Before you start
Prerequisites are not listed here. Check MIT's own syllabus for this course.
How this course was organized
What's here, and what isn't
- MIT lists a session calendar for this course, but it could not be verified well enough to build a sequence from it — materials are grouped by section instead.
Not included here
2 items from the source could not be safely included:
- MIT's page format for this item wasn't recognized clearly enough to place it safely. (2 items)
Materials by section
Grouped by section, as MIT organized them. Not sequenced or ordered.
Lecture Notes
22 files
- Potential Scenarios Download
- Points of View Exercise Download
- Workshops Download
- Session 1: Course Introduction Download
- Session 2: What is the Short Story? Download
- Session 3: The Seeds of Story Download
- Session 4: Emotional Truth, Discussion of readings Download
- Session 5: Detail Download
- Session 6: Character Download
- Session 7: Central questions for ANY story (not experimental) Download
- Session 7: Character Creation/Sketch Download
- Session 8: Plot Download
- Session 9: Creating Plot Download
- Session 10: Reality Download
- Session 11: Point of View Download
- Session 13: Description Download
- Session 14: Description Download
- Session 15: Revealing Information Download
- Session 20: Place Download
- Session 23: The Life of the Writer Download
- Sessions 17 and 18: Where to Start Download
- Sessions 21 and 22: Rewriting Download
Assignments
MIT OpenCourseWare, Shariann Lewitt, 21W.755 Writing and Reading Short Stories, Spring 2012.
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Spring 2012 · Open the original course on OCW ↗
Organized by RedLectern, independent of MIT and not endorsed by MIT.
Per-resource rights are recorded on each resource; All-Rights-Reserved items are link-only, never mirrored.
