This module offers a regular and intensive review of your writing in one of the following genres: poetry, crime writing, prose fiction, biography, drama, scriptwriting or writing for children. You will be advised on how to strengthen your knowledge of the codes and conventions of your chosen genre to produce a substantial piece or collection of work that will reflect your knowledge of and engagement with your chosen genre. You will apply detailed feedback on your work to your writing as well as using your increased knowledge of your chosen genre to make your writing more effective. These elements will help you improve the key transferable skills of analysis and implementation that will feed forward into your dissertation module and into all analytical/practical tasks you subsequently undertake.
The aims of this module are to: provide the opportunity for you to write extensively in a popular form or genre of your choosing enable you to master the codes and conventions appropriate to writing in your chosen form, through ongoing, in-depth and expert feedback from published, working writers and develop your capacity for critical and creative thought and the development of practices of self-reflection, editing and redrafting develop your knowledge of the skills necessary to work effectively with others in the generation and improvement of material, through offering and receiving constructive criticism.
On successful completion of the module, you will be able to demonstrate: mastery of the skills needed to produce well-edited, well-considered creative writing in the genre and form of your choosing in-depth knowledge of the codes and conventions of your chosen form or genre, effective and constructive uses of critiques of writing, both those that you offer to others, and those that you receive considerable knowledge of the relationship between form and content in your chosen genre, the ability to work towards the generation and improvement of material with the help of your tutor and peers, the support of your personal tutor, and the guidance given by CASE, the academic skills centre.
The curriculum will be devoted to your own creative writing in the form and genre of your choice. The module will be devoted to the study of your drafts of work in this form and genre, and to mastering its specific codes and conventions.
Key features: Draft work to be reviewed may include for example, poetry, prose fiction, writing for the stage, or screenwriting in a choice of genres such as crime writing, fantasy fiction, writing for children, historical fiction, science fiction, romance and autobiography. You will be advised on how best to strengthen your knowledge of that form or genre in order to reflect critically and constructively on your own writing. Attention will then be given to the production of a substantial piece or a collection of pieces of creative writing which reflects your knowledge of and engagement with your chosen form or genre.
This module will be delivered by means of a weekly two-hour seminar. The group will prepare for the seminar by reading examples of students' own work in drafts that will be pre-circulated to allow for thoughtful discussion. This will be done on a rota basis. Emphasis will be put on practical criticism and on the codes and conventions of particular genres. There will be an expectation that students will incorporate ideas and understandings drawn from their wider reading, from the prescribed, personalised booklist and elsewhere.
Feedback on this module takes place during discussion/presentations in your seminars and is aimed at feeding forward towards your assessment. It will come from both your tutor and your peers. Feedback also comes from the detailed written feedback you receive on your assessments, which will feed forward towards your dissertation. You are also encouraged to attend office hours for discussions of your work or to ask questions about the module. You should also attend the university's academic skills centre (CASE) for advice on formatting your work and on general improvements to your formal written skills. An online discussion forum will also allow students to peer review their work outside of formal class time.
Each student will also be given a Personal Tutor to guide them through their studies through a series of one on one and group meetings. These are not module specific and are intended to help you think critically about the most effective use of you time on the programme, as well as pointing you towards ways in which you can become a professional writer.
| Definitive UNISTATS Category | Indicative Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching | Writing workshop | 22 |
| Guided independent study | 278 | |
| Total (number of credits x 10) | 300 | |
Assessment for this module is designed to test your knowledge of the relation between the codes and conventions of published writing in your chosen form or genre, and your own developing creative writing in that form; as well as your ability to produce a substantial piece or a collection of pieces of creative writing in that form.
ELEMENT OF ASSESSMENT
1. Creative Writing Project: 100 %
A creative writing project of not more than 5,000 words in length in the genre or form under study, together with the drafts of that project. The piece or pieces will be developed in consultation with the supervisor and will reflect your awareness of the codes and conventions of that form or genre.
| Learning Outcome | Assessment Strategy |
|---|---|
| mastery of the skills needed to produce well-edited, well-considered creative writing in the genre and form of your choosing | Creative Writing submission |
| in-depth knowledge of the codes and conventions of your chosen form or genre | Creative Writing submission |
| effective and constructive uses of critiques of writing, both those that you offer to others, and those that you receive | Creative Writing submission |
| considerable knowledge of the relationship between form and content in your chosen genre | Creative Writing submission |
| the ability to work towards the generation and improvement of material with the help of both your tutor and peers, as well as the support of your personal tutor | Creative Writing submission |
| Description of Assessment | Definitive UNISTATS Categories | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Creative writing project | 100 |
| Total (to equal 100%) | 100% | |
It IS a requirement that the major category of assessment is passed in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.
There is no set bibliography for this module. Tutors give you a tailored reading list according to your creative interests.