Creative Writing, MA

University of Greenwich

This module aims to provide students with a toolkit of postgraduate-level research skills, particularly in information literacy, critical thinking, and argumentation. The methodologies and issues considered are especially pertinent to extended independent research projects, such as the Creative Portfolio. The module provides guidance in how to go about finding and using primary and secondary sources. Emphasis is placed on finding and using library resources (print and online); selection, evaluation, and use of secondary sources; argumentation and structure in academic writing and literary research. The module also encompasses discussion of ethics considerations pertinent to research projects in literary studies.

The course aims to provide students with a focused and advanced consideration of English studies, ideas and manifestations of textuality, and literary theory. It asks students to consider the different forms that texts might take and the implications that various approaches to texts carry. By way of a series of period-specific case studies, students are introduced to the different forms of literary production, circulation, and consumption. These case studies also address the editorial practices that have been applied to historical texts in producing the published formats in which we read them today. The course also aims to expand students? knowledge and understanding of a range of literature-specific theories and concepts that underpin the study of texts today.

The Creative Portfolio constitutes a defining stage in the consolidation of work undertaken in taught courses and over a period of supervision. Students produce a longer piece of original, creative work in a genre and form of their own choosing ? related to the overarching genres of the MA ? in consultation with their supervisor (who is a member of the MA teaching team selected for their expertise in the relevant specialist area). The portfolio should pursue a particular theme, issue or idea in literary and related texts; it does not normally involve live participants. Where research ethics clearance is necessitated by the nature of the research, this should be sought ? this is rare in literary studies and supervisors will advise. The module aims to assess students? ability in their selection, production and execution of a sustained piece of imaginative writing, suitable to send to publishers by the end of their degree. The portfolio aims to give students experience of working independently, researching their chosen area of writing and the opportunity to further develop their creative, self-reflective and analytical skills.

This module aims to provide students with the knowledge and practical skill required to create works of prose fiction at an advanced level. This will be achieved by interweaving a programme of reading and discussion with a programme of writing and workshopping, aiming to mutually reinforce the accumulation of advanced subject and technical knowledge with the exercise and development of complex practical skills. The module will provide a systematic study of the complex features of popular genre writing, extending these features into the texts and practices of the avant-garde. Throughout the module, students will be asked to practically engage with their developing theoretical knowledge by undertaking advanced writing exercises designed to foster sophisticated engagement with the techniques under discussion and improve their abilities as writers, critics, and editors.

This module presents students with a wide range of experiences, workshops, and related activities in order to develop advanced writing for performance. ?Performance? is a deliberately broad category of creative writing and includes playwriting, scriptwriting, as well as performance in the sense of writers performing their own work in the here and now such as in poetry slams. The precise performativity of the written word is explored as well as the advanced skills required to engage in such writing professionally. Hence the practical application of form both against and in collaboration with content will be mapped onto the broader aspects of skills development such as industry expectations for writing for the stage, TV, film and radio.

This module aims to provide students with the knowledge and practical skills required to create works of innovative poetry at an advanced level. This will be achieved through a programme of reading and discussion, combined with writing and workshopping, to mutually reinforce the accumulation of subject and technical knowledge with the exercise and development of practical skill. Throughout, students will be asked to recognize and innovate with advanced forms and techniques, practically engaging their wider theoretical learning via an undertaking of writing exercises and the practical processes of critiquing, editing and publishing.