Writing and Revising

Module Provider: English Literature
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:5
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites: English Part 1 or A-Level (A*, A or B)
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Module version for: 2016/7

Summary module description:
This module allows students to explore a specific mode of creative writing, whether that is poetry, fiction, drama or a screenplay, and to develop their skills in the composition, criticism, revision, and polishing of creative work. Students will be expected to provide texts for discussion in the weekly sessions and to contribute to the discussion of presented work. Students will also produce a critical essay relating their work to oeuvres, traditions, genres and practices in the body of literature in English.

Aims:
By the end of the module students will be expected to:
? Show skills in careful and considerate textual analysis of their own and others work
? Prepare typescripts of writing to a level suitable for submission to publishers or agents
? Demonstrate an ability to think from the points of view of a reader or an audience
? Display knowledge of the relationship of their work to historical precedent and generic convention
? Show an awareness of theoretical issues generated by their own and others? texts
? Engage constructively and critically with work and ideas discussed in seminars
? Construct and express coherent arguments, both orally and in writing

Assessable learning outcomes:
By the end of the module students will be expected to:
? Show skills in careful and considerate textual analysis of their own and others work
? Prepare typescripts of writing to a level suitable for submission to publishers or agents
? Demonstrate an ability to think from the points of view of a reader or an audience
? Display knowledge of the relationship of their work to historical precedent and generic convention
? Show an awareness of theoretical issues generated by their own and others? texts
? Engage constructively and critically with work and ideas discussed in seminars
? Construct and express coherent arguments, both orally and in writing

Additional outcomes:
This module provides students with knowledge and understanding of issues surrounding the practice of creative writing, revision and the pursuit of publication. It aims to promote skills of composition and critical self-reflection, both of students? own work and that of others.

Outline content:
Students will submit a preliminary portfolio of work, or of proposals for work, at the beginning of the term. They will offer samples of work for discussion in weekly seminars. The content of the seminars themselves will depend on what is offered; however, there will be some thematic structuring of the course around topics such as implied readers, relations between intention, performance, and effect, purposeful self-criticism and revision, presentation of typescripts, and the like. At the end of the course students will be required to resubmit their portfolio of work, expanded, revised, or completed. They will be expected to include a statement of aims and purposes with the work; and they will also be required to produce an essay critically relating their own work to that of an author, authors, tradition, or traditions in the body of literature in English.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
Group discussion in 2-hour seminars. Students will also receive at least one individual tutorial on their own creative writing portfolio. With the consent of the module convenor, students may also undertake a placement, through which they will learn how to apply the knowledge and skills gained in studying for this module in a professional context outside the University.

Contact hours:
Seminars 22
Tutorials 1
Guided independent study 137
Total hours by term 160

Summative Assessment Methods:
Portfolio 90
Oral assessment and presentation 10

Other information on summative assessment:
Summative Assessment Methods (100%) - work which always contributes towards the overall module mark:

Formative assessment methods:
Formative Assessment Methods: Feedback given in weekly workshops. Students will also receive feedback on their assessed work, comprising a piece of creative work carrying 60% of the total mark, a critical essay of approx 1500 words carrying 30% of the total mark. The remaining 10% of the total mark will be based on workshop responses.

Length of examination:
Requirements for a pass:
A mark of at least 40% overall.

Reassessment arrangements:
Re-examination in August. Coursework will be carried forward if it bears a confirmed mark of 40% or more. Otherwise it must be resubmitted by 22 August.