BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing

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Fees and Funding

Here's the fees and funding information for each year of this course

Overview

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

MODULES

  • Core Modules
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    Academic Development

    This module will provide students with the opportunity to identify the skills, competencies and experience required for successful development to embarking on their university degree and successfully completing it and progressing on to a range of potential future career areas.

    Central to the developmental process is for each student to cultivate the reflective skills, openness and self-awareness to enable themselves to assess what they are doing, identify areas for improvement, and confidently receive and give constructive feedback.

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    Social Media Project

    The module will develop basic individual research and production skills for social media content. Students will also develop their reflection and evaluation skills. Throughout the module students will create new content for a social media account relating to their chosen subject pathway, or topic of interest. Students will also be encouraged to consider current issues and debates surrounding social media.

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    Creative Writing Portfolio

    The module will introduce students to key ideas in creative writing. You will produce a portfolio of different types of creative writing and reflect on these accordingly. You will read a variety of creative texts and texts about writing craft. The emphasis will be on producing lots of drafts to get used to regularly writing and reading.

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    Narrative and Creativity

    This module will provide students with the opportunity to identify the skills and knowledge necessary to create oral, visual and written narratives for all kinds of media production. This module aims to give students the theoretical understanding of narrative and creativity. Throughout the module students will be encouraged to consider how these theories shape their chosen subject. Students will be assessed on their ability to present their understanding of narrative theories and give supporting examples of how these apply to various forms of media.

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    Ways of Looking

    This module will introduce students to how meaning is made and transmitted in visual texts. Students will be introduced to the various ‘ways of looking’ (frameworks) at media, and how this is applies to current media examples. Students will be expected to conduct their own research and encouraged to consider how the ‘ways of looking’ at media can be applied to their own subject specific pathway.

    Students will also learn how to apply key composition and aesthetic (typography, colour, and layout) skills to their own work in the form an academic poster using industry standard software.

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    Mental Wealth: Professional Development

    This module will provide students with the opportunity to identify the skills, competencies and experience required for employment and employability and how employability and industry connections are implemented in the curriculum.

    You will begin to recognise the areas for your own personal professional development (including emotional, social, physical, cultural and cognitive intelligences) through taught and workshop activity.

    Central to the developmental process is for each student to cultivate their reflective skills through collaboration with other undergraduate students and analysing effective approaches to industry briefs and creative problem solving.

  • Core Modules
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    Technique 1: Establish

    This module introduces a range of writing and reading strategies and techniques needed by creative writers. What do we mean by creativity? Technique? Freewriting? These are explored in the module.

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    Forms & Genres

    This module introduces you to the most fundamental elements of a writer's toolkit: narrative forms and genre. It explores archetypal conventions of various story types, structural templates and characters over a range of media. These include a variety of prose, dramatic fiction, film and television. It introduces students to genre theory and the conventions of various genres.

    You will produce a varied portfolio of work that applies the concepts and techniques introduced in the module. You will begin to develop critical skills through analyses of a variety of readings, as well as editorial input into the work of other students. You will also increase your own self-reflexivity through a written analysis of your voice and creative process.

    The foundational skills introduced in Forms & Genre will be used and developed throughout the Creative and Professional Writing degree.

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    Contextual Studies (Creative Writing)

    This module covers the history of many arts including creative writing and their relevance today. Supports the analysis, contextualisation and development of practical work in other modules.

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    Production Lab - 1

    This module provides a context for documentary practice and discusses representation, notions of truth and realism.

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    Technique 2: Extend (Poetry)

    This module introduces a range of poetic writing, including both traditional and non-traditional forms and poetry as it relates to mixed media and mixed genre.

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    Professional life: Mental Wealth - Agency 1

    Developing the key psychological and physical determinants of human performance is increasingly critical for successful graduate-level employment, entrepreneurship and career progression in the 4th industrial revolution.

    This module will provide students hoping to work in the creative industries with the opportunity to learn and apply the full range of skills, competencies and experience required for successful progression into in a range of potential future career areas.

    Students will learn about conventions and expectations in the creative industries, focussing on areas specific to their programme of study. They will also advance their own personal professional development through taught and workshop activities, and explore possible strategies to further develop their reflective skills and self-awareness.

    Students will have opportunity to select an in-house microbusiness to join in the role of 'Apprentice'. In this position they will focus on the importance of research in the creative industries. Students will practice key methods including digital and other research and qualitative methods used in industry today, including trends, news coverage and customer reviews. Students will also learn the conventions of research and analysis in order to develop a pitch or proposal in response to a client brief.

  • Core Modules
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    Introduction to scriptwriting

    This module introduces you to the script in a variety of forms. It explores the script's function as a technical document, written by and for professionals. It discusses the various elements that scripts for different media require.

    You will produce a portfolio of work in which you will apply the concepts and techniques introduced in the module to various scriptwriting styles. You will hone their critical skills through analyses of a variety of readings, as well as editorial input into the work of other students. You will also increase your own self-reflexivity through a written analysis of their voice and creative process.

    The skills introduced in this module will be developed in the Script Development module in the second term.

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    Long Form Narratives

    This module introduces the unique challenges of long-form series and serials in novels and television.

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    Signs and Symbols

    This module explores the use of symbolism in fiction, drama and poetry. Symbolism in literature, as well as on stage and in audio and visual media, lends additional meaning to an action, setting, or object. This module discusses how choices regarding symbolism contribute to narrative voice and enhance the mood and meaning of a creative piece.

    Topics include an introduction to semiotics, symbol webs, metaphor, mise en scene, simile, imagery, allegory and archetype. The module explores ways to employ symbolism in prose and poetry, as well as audio and visual scripts.

    Students will gain not only a theoretical understanding of symbolism, but also experiment with ways to make symbolism work within their own writing.

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    Practice as Research

    This module offers you support in research skills and project development, as well as dedicated subject support, and topic specialism. You will use critical skills gained in the programme and develop them in preparation for their advanced level major project in the final year, supported by a series of talks by creative practitioners from amongst the academic staff in the area. You will apply your research skills and conduct specialist research in a particular genre and topic in order to deepen your critical relationship to writing. You will read widely, evaluate, and research a key topic related to your creative writing, engaging with primary and secondary sources that will help you to develop their final creative project.

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    Script Development

    This module builds on the knowledge gathered in Introduction to Scriptwriting. It takes the student through the script development process, from initial idea to final product. It looks in detail at structures and templates for a variety of media, and ways of creating characters capable of driving the plot. It examines technical forms and formats, as well as the scripting and rewriting process.

    Students will produce successive drafts of a script, employing the scriptwriting concepts and techniques introduced in the module. They will hone their critical skills through analyses of a variety of readings, as well as editorial input into the work of other students. They will also increase their own self-reflexivity through a written analysis of their voice and creative process.

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    Mental Wealth: Professional life: Agency 2

    Best learning experiences follow a 'learning by doing' approach followed by reflection and assimilation. Building upon the competencies and skills identified at level 4, this module supports effective professional development through practical experience.

    You will work on live project briefs to produce media content which is informed by appropriate research in the field of study.

    Professional understandings and skills sets will be furthered through practical work enabling you to strengthen key graduate skills such as teamwork, organisation skills, digital skills, effective communication, and professionalism.

    Through reflective practice, you will evaluate your ongoing progress as a learner and as a practising professional.

  • Core Modules
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    Book Publishing 1: Content

    Book Publishing 1 examines theory and practice in several modes of creative writing, at an advanced level. These include poetry, screenwriting, fiction, creative non-fiction and playwriting. Through refinement of skills and advancement of practice, students will specialise in particular forms, and will be expected to demonstrate professional standards in their writing. Students will prepare work for publication, which will form the material for use in Book Publishing 2.

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    Book Publishing 2

    Book Publishing 2 takes students through the process of publishing their own work, produced in Term 1, and assisting others in the publication of theirs. Students will work in editorial teams to go through an extensive process of editing their work and that of others; revising their work to editorial input; developing publishing skills such as design and typesetting; and working as part of a team. Every student will end up with a hard copy of their own published work.

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    Major Writing Project (Dissertation)

    This module develops you as critical practitioners by offering the opportunity to engage in a substantial and more sustained piece of work in their chosen form and genre. You work with subject-specialist supervisors and deepen your critical and creative relationship to their discipline by using the skills gained in the programme and building on the work produced in Practice as Research/Research Methods.

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    Copywriting & Writing for Social Media

    This module will introduce students to the theory and practice of copywriting to students. They will explore a broad range of copywriting briefs and examine the issues involved in the production of good copy. The module will provide a supportive and creative context in which students can experiment with, develop, and refine their writing and copywriting skills, and develop a good understanding of professional industry contexts in which they are employed.

HOW YOU'LL LEARN

HOW YOU'LL BE ASSESSED

CAMPUS and FACILITIES

Docklands Campus

Docklands Campus, Docklands Campus, London, E16 2RD

WHO TEACHES THIS COURSE

The teaching team includes qualified academics, practitioners and industry experts as guest speakers. Full details of the academics will be provided in the student handbook and module guides.

YOUR FUTURE CAREER