Programme Specifications

Programme summary

1. Programme Aims

• to provide an encouraging and stimulating environment in which students can develop their creative writing;

• to develop students’ skills in major genres of writing, including scriptwriting, radio writing, prose writing and poetry, and to encourage them to develop specialisms in these.

• to develop students’ critical skills and self-critical skills;

• to give students the opportunity to mix critical and creative writing in new ways;

• to develop students’ research skills, particularly with reference to the kinds of research demanded by creative writing;

• to develop students’ knowledge of contemporary trends in writing and in the writing industries.

2. Relevant subject benchmark statements and other external reference points used to inform programme outcomes:

• The Benchmark Statement for English and for Drama

• The Creative Writing Subject Benchmark Statement

• Framework for High Education Qualifications (FHEQ)

3. Programme Learning Outcomes

3.1 Knowledge and Understanding

On successful completion of this programme, students should be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of

• the research methods relevant to the production of original, creative work;
• contemporary developments in creative writing;
• the usefulness of workshops to develop creative skills;
• key characteristics of the writing industries.

3.2 Skills and other attributes

a. Subject-specific cognitive skills:

On successful completion of this programme, students should be able to

•  demonstrate an awareness of generic conventions;
•  develop a qualitative framework through which to judge their own and others’ work;
•  understand how to make use of academic research in creative writing;
•  understand how to produce writing in a structured and consistent way

b. Subject-specific practical skills:

On successful completion of this programme, students should be able to

• demonstrate a capacity to provide constructive feedback on other writers’ work;
• demonstrate an enhanced ability to produce good writing in their chosen genre or genres;
• develop the ability to write self-reflexively about their own work;
• assess the connections between their own work and the current state of the literary marketplace

c. Key transferable skills:

On successful completion of this programme, students should be able to

•  retrieve relevant information from both electronic and hard-copy sources and evaluate such sources;
•  demonstrate well-developed skills in communicating to an audience, both orally and on paper;
•  demonstrate well-developed writing and inter-personal communication skills;
•  deliver required work to a given brief, format, length and deadline.

4. Programme structure

4.1     To be eligible for consideration for these awards, students must obtain appropriate credit from the following compulsory and optional modules.  

Compulsory modules in Semesters 1 and 2 account for a total of 150 credits, with an optional choice in Semester 2 accounting for 30 credits, bringing the total number of credits to the required weighting of 180 credits across both semesters.

The optional modules in Semester 2 are indicative of those typically offered on the programme.         

 4.2       The subjects for the Dissertation module (EAP018) must be approved in advance by the Programme Leader or nominee, and dissertations must be submitted by a specified date in the first half of September. The dissertation should be a maximum of 15,000 words in length.

5. Criteria for Progression and Degree Award

5.1      In order to be eligible for the award, candidates must satisfy the requirements specified in Regulation XXI.

5.2      Students will normally be permitted to proceed to the Dissertation module (EAP018) only after successfully accumulating 120 credit units.

5.3      Students taking the Dissertation module may also be required to take an oral examination on the work submitted.

5.4      In accordance with Regulation XXI, candidates who have the right of reassessment in a module will be offered an opportunity to be reassessed in the University’s special assessment period.

6. Relative Weighting of Parts of the Programme for the Purposes of Final Degree Classification