EL6046 - Advanced Creative Writing

You will attend and participate in two weekly 1.5-hour seminars. Initially these will be tutor-led, introducing and analysing texts, carrying out exercises and planning and beginning creative projects.
Later sessions will be given over to workshopping student work-in-progress.
In the seminars you will read and analyse the work of others, carry out writing exercises, and workshop each other’s ongoing writing projects.
However, at Level 6 the main impetus of your work must come from you: independent writing and study will form the main learning activity, and you must conceive, plan and drive forward your own writing project for this module. It is your opportunity to design and carry out your own piece of creative writing, putting into practice the techniques you have acquired on the degree so far.
You are strongly advised to keep a reflective diary over the course of the module. Alongside your notebooks and drafts, it will provide a record of your thinking, learning and writing processes, and help you to develop your project effectively. It will also provide a foundation for the reflective commentary which you are required to submit as part of your final assessment for the module. The commentary should not simply be the diary, but should draw on it to help you reflect on your creative practice.

Feedback on summative work will be delivered according to the existing protocols of the Department of Humanities, with comments on feedback sheets. Formative feedback will be provided in the workshops.
Plans for the portfolio will be discussed in advance with tutors, in order to determine that they are appropriate. A draft version of the assessment may be submitted for feedback before the submission of the assessment in its final form
Assignments will be processed through the Turnitin Plagiarism Detection software via Blackboard. Turnitin will help improve referencing skills and help avoid plagiarism.
Further guidance will be made available via Blackboard, from your seminar tutor, and in lectures.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

Learn how to
1. Understand the nature and production of creative writing as practice-led research
2. To critically examine longer pieces of fiction and the theoretical and practical processes that go into their writing


Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

3. To demonstrate skill in the writing of prose fiction and/or poetry
4. Develop a framework for applying skills of editing, revision and critiquing of creative writing texts


Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

5. An ethical approach to creative composition and reflection

Formative assessment will be provided by tutor and peer assessment of draft work in seminars.

Summative assessment is in the form of a Portfolio of prose fiction made up of:

3,500 words of prose (either part of a novel/novella or one or two short stories in a short story cycle), or poetry totalling 120 lines (MLO 3, 4)
with a 500-word critical commentary (MLO 1, 2, 5)

A single mark is given, based on the literary merit of the creative component, and on the extent to which it applies ideas learned in the module, as evidenced by the commentary.

Feedback on summative work will be provided using the Departmental template and comments on the script.

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