This is a second post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Taking writing courses can help writing teachers become better writers, mentors, and readers. There are several free university level writing courses that can be taken online. Credit is not available for any of the courses and degrees are not awarded, but the opportunity to build new skills is undeniable. Here are 10 self-paced writing courses to explore in your spare time.

Creative Writing Course - The University of Utah's Department of English offers a creative writing course that covers fiction, poetry, playwriting, and creative non-fiction. The course is designed to provide general information about creative writing and improve writing skills.

Short Fiction Course - This short fiction course consists of pre-recorded class content from a writing course at the College of DuPage. You will listent to readings of several pieces of short fiction (The Necklace, A Rose for Emily, The Rocking Horse Winner, and The Chrysanthemums) as well as discussion on each story to facilitate understanding of the short story form.

Poetry Course - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) provides a free course on reading and writing poetry. The course includes assignments, recorded poetry readings, and reading recommendations.

Advanced Writing Seminar - This post-graduate seminar, also from MIT, explores different types of writing. The course includes lecture notes, a full set of assignments, and videos of student presentations. From the course description: "The class is an opportunity to write, review, rewrite and present a point of view both orally and in written form. "

Prose Fiction Course - This Open University course focuses on different ways of approaching prose fiction. The course is designed to help students learn how to read and analyze writing at the university level.

Screenwriting Course - Author and screenwriter Steve Barnes provides a slightly modified version of the nine-week screenwriting course he used to teach at the University of California-Los Angeles. The course includes both instruction and assignments.

Literature in English - This course from the University of California-Berkeley surveys major works in Anglo-American literature and includes lectures on close reading. The course is available in audio form and includes 28 lectures.

Warwick Writing Challenges - The director of the University of Warwick Writing Programme guides writers through more than 20 creative writing challenges. Each challenge can be played online or downloaded as an mp3 file. These challenges are also great practice for writing students.

Writing Tools Workshop - News University offers this course to visitors who register for a free account. The course introduces 50 writing tools to diagnose story problems, improve story architecture, and refine the writing voice. This course is based on Roy Peter Clark's great book Writing Tools which can be purchased from Amazon and is highly recommended for any writer or writing teacher.

Text as Property - Available through Connexions, this Rice University course explores ownership, authorship, plagiarism, and associated topics. The course is split into three parts and can be downloaded as a PDF or zip file. As the course introduction asks, do you know when plagiarism is art and when it's a crime?