Curious about studying English and Creative Writing - BA (Hons)at Birmingham City University? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
City Centre Campus (The Curzon Building)
Full Time
Sep 2027
3 Year
Our BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing balances the practical craft of creative writing with the analytical and historical study of literature and/or language, allowing you to explore how texts are written, interpreted, and transformed across different forms and periods. Equipped with a rich knowledge and understanding of English studies, you will grow as an informed and critical reader of texts to produce your own original creative work. In workshops with expert practitioners, you will refine your skills in creative writing, focusing on elements such as narrative structure, setting, character development, and style. You will learn how to conduct research, to examine writing deeply, and to express yourself persuasively, logically, and imaginatively.
Professional Placement YearThis course offers an optional professional placement year. This allows you to spend a whole year with an employer, following successful completion of your second year, and is a great way to find out more about your chosen career. Some students even return to the same employers after completing their studies. If you choose to pursue a placement year, you will need to find a suitable placement to complement your chosen area of study. You will be able to draw on the University’s extensive network of local, regional, and national employers, and the support of our Careers teams. If you are able to secure a placement, you can request to be transferred to the placement version of the course. Please note that fees are payable during your placement year, equivalent to 20% of the total full-time course fee for that year. Alongside the development of your creative writing practice you will study modules in English, gaining vital skills in research, critical analysis and argument.
In this module you will explore Birmingham’s status as a diverse and multicultural city. Through probing different notions of ‘multiculturalism’, ‘diversity’ and ‘community’, you will consider the multitude of voices that form the city, their connections, and your positioning in relation to them. As you learn about various aspects of Birmingham’s histories and communities, you will be introduced to key skills and knowledge required for degree-level studies in English and consider their value to your professional development. You will learn how to read and interpret a variety of texts, select appropriate research material and sources, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively. By the end of this module, you will have developed a clear sense of your responsibilities as an English student and acquired the skills necessary to express your own critical and creative voices.
This module adopts complementary perspectives on the transformation and re-creation of texts. The first half of the module concentrates on close readings of translations drawn from epic, sacred and profane traditions to develop skills of literary analysis, differentiation, contextualization and evaluation, while providing the basis for students’ own creative work. Case studies based on stage and film treatments broaden the scope to consider formal and cultural questions relating to adaptation. The second half of the module concentrates on linguistic approaches to the analysis of literary texts (also called Stylistics). Here, the module concentrates on the use of stylistic devices in poems, plays, and prose; and considers how linguistics can highlight techniques used in literary writing to create important literary effects. There will be a specific focus in this half of the module on grammar and style, speech and thought presentation, point of view, and pragmatics.
This module considers how we read and write prose. You will be equipped with key literary analytical tools, including key terms and theories, which you will utilize in your analyses of prose works of different kinds, including prose essays, short stories, and a Booker Prize-winning novel. You will also discuss and practice your own prose writing techniques and have the opportunity to write creative prose of different kinds. You will develop an understanding of the forms and conventions of narrative prose, discursive styles, identify different types of prose, and differentiate between a range of disciplinary perspectives.
‘Key Critical Concepts’ focuses on understanding and applying useful theoretical ideas and analytical approaches to develop your close reading, interpretation, and analysis of literature. It will help you to critically reflect on how language and literature function; on what we bring to a text when we read it; and how to pay careful attention to form, style, and genre. The module promotes more sophisticated readings of a variety of literary texts, including poems, plays, short stories, and extracts from novels, ranging from the early modern period to the present day. By the end of the module, you will have developed foundational knowledge of key critical concepts that you will be able to employ in textual analyses throughout your degree.
In this module, you will explore key elements of effective creative writing and the techniques used to create and control form and style, such as showing and telling, imagery, viewpoint, and narrative. You will examine each element or technique in a given text and then apply what you have learned in your own writing. Textual examples are drawn from a range of forms, such as audio drama, screenplay, poetry, monologue, the novel, short story, stage play and memoir. Each week will inform a different element of your writing technique, feeding into new pieces of writing to be submitted for assessment in a portfolio at the end of the semester. You will also write your own personal Writer’s Manifesto which sets out the intentions behind your writing and your thoughts about the social purpose of writing in your life and the wider world. In preparation for this you will study a range of manifestos written by writers and creative thinkers.
This module examines different forms of writing that engage critically and creatively with key issues connected to ‘natural’ and ‘man-made’ environments. Each week, we will study a different literary text, period and genre informed by appropriate theories and scholarship. We will consider how writing constructs, examines and challenges ideas about nature, life in cities, technology, and animals, and in doing so engages in debates about equality, sustainability, identity and otherness. Through a chronological approach to texts from the eighteenth century to the present day, these topics will be explored in a variety of historical, social, political, and aesthetic contexts. This module will enhance your understanding of reading and writing as practices through which we develop knowledge about the world, and the place of people within it. It will prompt you to consider the importance of the environment and sustainability in relation to employability skills and future careers.
This module introduces you to writing short fiction. You will learn from the work of a diverse range of short story writers, exploring the distinctive characteristics of the form, and experimenting with techniques involved in crafting a strong short story. You will identify, practice and apply elements of craft such as narrative structure, voice, diction, dialogue, characterisation and imagery as they relate to the short story form in particular, and experiment with editing and rewriting. You will share your work in progress with other students for constructive criticism, and explore ways of giving effective feedback, as well as reflecting on how to improve your own work.
This module will teach you the essential skills of, and principles behind, the writing of short films. Although these principles apply primarily to screenwriting for film and television, this module will instead be concerned with the writing of short films. You will study a number of freely available short guides to screenplay layout and formatting and be trained in the practical application of screenplay formatting software. You will write three short scripts, given as fortnightly writing exercises, and receive detailed formative feedback on one of the scripts, which you can use to improve and develop your work for your final portfolio. You will focus on visual storytelling, layout conventions, and the issue of writing to scale (budget). You will also be encouraged to analyse, but also critique, dramatic construction in terms of character function, motivation and genre.
The purpose of this module is to enable you to develop professional attributes and subject skills through experience in the work place, and to critically reflect upon your learning in that context. You will normally be expected to arrange your own placement, with support from academic staff and the Careers team.
The ability to work collaboratively in a team is a vital employability skill within the Creative Industries. This module is an opportunity to learn and critically reflect on the skills of collaboration by enabling you to create a group project with students from complementary disciplines.
This module is designed to provide you with the opportunity to undertake a credit bearing, 40- week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Undergraduate Degree. The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market. Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace.
This module will enable you to build upon your current reading and writing of poetry, and to develop your range, technique and sophistication as a contemporary poet and thinker on poetry. As well as cultivating your ability to read poetry sympathetically and critically, you will learn how to nurture the poetic imagination and what Ted Hughes called its ‘psychic disciplines’, with a view to strengthening and emboldening the intuition and sensitivity upon which poetic technique depends. You also will acquire practical knowledge of publishing and performing your own work.
The ‘Major Project Preparation’ module focuses on creative thinking and initial research to develop a proposal and plan for the delivery of your Major Project. You will be introduced to the skills, techniques and processes required to identify, articulate, and organise a project that can be successfully realised. It aims to ensure that you judge the appropriateness of a variety of critical and analytical approaches to developing a major project and that you create a plan that is within scope and can be delivered successfully to a high standard.
The Major Project: Dissertation module is where you will put into practice the creative thinking, initial research, proposal, and plan developed in the Major Project Preparation module and wherein you will undertake a sustained, in-depth and theoretically informed research project exploring an area that is of personal interest to you and which represents the culmination of your studies.
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