ENMCCW-Creative and Critical Writing

Module Provider: English Literature
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:7
Terms in which taught: Spring term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2022/3

Module Convenor: Dr Conor Carville
Email: c.carville@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

By means of a weekly seminar, this module will provide you with the opportunity to workshop creative writing in a range of genres that you will submit in a portfolio along with a book review and an accompanying essay. More details are given below in information on the summative assessment. You will keep notes of weekly responses to the work of fellow students, and your responses to their critical assistance with your own. These notes will go towards the composition of the accompanying essay in which you will reflect—taking into account influences and reading within the various genres—upon the writing and revision of your creative portfolio. The module will also introduce you to the practice of reviewing and the rhetoric of criticism and praise. You will choose a book published during the first term of your particular academic year within a preferred writing genre, and your review of this book will be submitted as part of the portfolio.

Aims:
- to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of a range of issues in practice of creative writing, and constructive criticism both of others and yourself, giving a sense of key issues and how to conduct creative writing and criticism in the area

- to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of a number of different critical and conceptual methods related to the processes involved in the writing and reviewing at the present time

- to encourage students to analyse and question their own and others£ assumptions and critical approaches

Assessable learning outcomes:
Assessable outcomes
By the end of the module students will be expected to:
- employ skills of textual analysis to demonstrate understanding of the writings they have studied
- identify and engage critically with a number of different approaches relating to contemporary writing
- consider and evaluate some of the ways in which selected primary materials express and respond to contemporary social, cultural and historical conditions
- construct and articulate coherent critical arguments in writing

Additional outcomes:

The module will encourage students to: develop their oral communication skills through discussions in seminars; think critically both within and across disciplines; to question their own assumptions and arguments, and those of others, including their peers and seminar-leaders

Outline content:
The exact contents of the module will be settled in discussion with the students enrolled so as to take account of their particular interests in this large and open field. The module£s primary materials will vary from year to year, and student to student.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
The module consists of eleven weekly seminars, each two hours in length. Each seminar will involve discussion of texts or special materials that have been prepared in advance by the student writers. The module teacher will also be available for consultation with students on a one-to-one basis to discuss their work and the progress of the module as a whole.

Summative assessment- Examinations:
Not applicable.

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

The summative assessment will consist of a single portfolio containing two short poems (one formal and one informal), a dialogue of 1000 words, a short story of 1500 words, and a non-fictional prose piece of 1500. You will also submit a book review of 500 words and an accompanying essay of 1500 words reflecting on the creative elements in your portfolio.

Formative assessment methods:
Feedback on presentations.

Penalties for late submission:

The below information applies to students on taught programmes except those on Postgraduate Flexible programmes. Penalties for late submission, and the associated procedures, which apply to Postgraduate Flexible programmes are specified in the policy £Penalties for late submission for Postgraduate Flexible programmes£, which can be found here: