Module Descriptors
INTRODUCTION TO CREATIVE WRITING
ENGL40254
Key Facts
Faculty of Arts and Creative Technologies
Level 4
15 credits
Contact
Leader: Paul Houghton
Email: P.E.Houghton@staffs.ac.uk
Hours of Study
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities: 24
Independent Study Hours: 126
Total Learning Hours: 150
Assessment
  • PORTFOLIO weighted at 100%
Module Details
Module Resources
Library
Internet
Module Learning Strategies
There will be a programme of lectures and seminars related to the literary texts selected for study, and an accompanying series of workshops and tutorials to support your own more personal writing. One of the principles underlying this module is the belief that the practice of writing can be assisted by knowledge and understanding of literature; so, the process of critical analysis in the lecture and seminar programme will accompany the writing, reading and evaluating of student work in the workshop sessions. Essential to the text-based classes, for example, will be some consideration of literary form; the study of Elizabethan sonnets (for example) will be an aid to students attempting to write verse that has some semblance of shape and discipline.
Module Indicative Content
This module will introduce you to essential elements of form, in prose, poetry and drama, through a programme which will include examples of journalism, poetry, short stories and plays. You will be given the opportunity both to study examples of different kinds of writing and to try them out yourselves. There will be a programme of workshops and seminars related to the selected texts, with accompanying tutorial support on an individual basis to help you with your writing. You will be encouraged, where appropriate, to write from your own experience (in creating a piece of journalism, for example); you will also be given opportunities to practise traditional as well as more experimental forms of poetry, some simple dramatic dialogue, and a short piece of prose (the latter also derived from personal experience).
Module Additional Assessment Details
Portfolio to a total of 2000 words

Portfolio of writing: This will include short pieces of critical as well as personal 'creative' writing in each of the forms studied in the module, and will assess [Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 4]
Module Texts
Stott, R and Avery, S. Writing with Style (Speak-Write Series), Longman, 2000
Hughes, Ted: Poetry in the Making, Faber and Faber, 1969
McMillan, Ian: Selected Poems, Carcanet 1987
George, Elizabeth: Write Away, Hodder and Stoughton, 2004