Course Catalogue

1. To provide a programme in the rigorous study of written and performed texts as a platform for original, creative writing; 2. To enable the student to acquire skills in analysing and exploring ways in which narrative, language, theme, character and milieu operate in the student’s own original creative writing; 3. To introduce the student to the dynamics of textual production and engagement with audience, specifically with regard to style and genre and in so doing, develop their ability to find audiences and markets for their writing in the World of Work; 4. To deploy an understanding of the techniques employed in the published canon and demonstrate an awareness of the professional standards required to attain publication, production or performance in the World of Work; 5. To enable the student to become rigorous, critical and analytical in their thinking while nurturing their intellectual and creative potential, particularly developing an individual's ability to contribute to group sessions in a constructive fashion, giving and receiving criticism and responding with redrafted texts and to support this learning through a diversity of teaching methods and forms of pastoral care. 6. To encourage students to engage with the development of employability skills by completing a self-awareness statement.

Teaching is through lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials. Learning is acquired through participation in lectures, seminars and tutorials, private study (which involves reading, thinking, writing and researching topics with guidance from tutors) and undertaking exercises and formal assessment tasks which serve to structure thought and creativity and to encourage the assimilation of ideas and knowledge. In general: Lectures serve: to introduce issues, explain particular concepts or outline theoretical approaches; to situate a particular topic, text or issue in the context of the wider concerns of a module; to present a series of alternative readings, arguments or critical approaches; to locate arguments and readings within the context of intellectual debate in the field; and to stimulate the student to respond creatively. Seminars provide an interactive forum in which students can: expand on, investigate and debate issues raised in lectures and in a module overall; undertake detailed reading, original writing and discuss original and/or published texts; grow in confidence and skill in participating in discussion and exchanging ideas; develop their articulacy, quickness of thought, ability to communicate with others and produce original ideas; and learn ways of dealing with disagreement or difference of opinion, particularly in workshops where ideas and original writing will be challenged. At Level Four all students belong to tutorial groups where a tutor works with personal tutees to offer an integrated series of intellectual discussions, advice and information sessions, skills teaching, and a structure for personal and academic development. Students will also attend an intensive and partly residential module which develops their teamwork skills and increases levels of trust amongst the peer group. The residential takes place early in the first semester of Leve 4, and the benefits of it are profound. Students bond with their peer group and gain confidence from the mutual trust that begins here and grows in workshops throughout the programme. Here at the beginning of their studies, students learn to respond to writing briefs and to perform their work in front of their peers. The residential helps each cohort form a group identity, which plays an important role in student retention and performance. Level Five and Six modules provide different forums for learning: workshops where students take greater responsibility for selection and presentation of materials than in a lecture + seminar format; and individual tutorials and dissertation supervisions where students have an opportunity to work on a particular topic, or on particular knowledge- or skills-related issues, with a tutor. A variety of forms of assessment are used both formatively to develop learning and summatively to measure achievement: critical essays, portfolios of long and short exercises, reflective commentaries, oral presentations and class contribution. Each level of the programme offers a varied diet of forms of assessment. In the main, students are assessed on creative work, fiction, poetry and scripts and treatments and on reflective writing in which they consider the reading that informs their writing and examine their creative processes. Students are assessed in each module on their participation. Alongside this, the programme includes assignments such as critical analysis essays, which ask students to read poetry, prose or scripts as writers. Students have assessed presentations a couple of times in the programme. Assignments are designed and set by module leaders and marked by tutors teaching on the module. A representative sample of each assignment, which will include work from each degree class, is second marked. Module tutors discuss the mark spread in each assignment and where necessary alignment is agreed through discussion. The module leader is responsible for recording and writing up the moderation process. We are always as flexible as we c

Employability is embedded within the curriculum, in a variety of ways. Within the Observation and Discovery module, L4 students complete the assessments for the university’s Career Smart, part of a scheme that helps prepare students for employment. Here students are required to write a personal statement on their strengths and areas for development, their work values and ability to work with and relate to other people. The coursework is designed to enable students to understand their achievements so far and to recognise the kind of jobs they may be suited to. It encourages them to think of themselves as professionals and prepare themselves to enter the graduate jobs market. The Writer at Work modules are employability focussed. Here students develop practical and community-based projects based around the world of freelance writing; they receive expert tuition and a plethora of highly-acclaimed guest speakers and many graduates have used their projects to secure work in their desired career after leaving LJMU. The WBL opportunities offered by Writer at Work are devised and developed by students themselves, though helped and supported by the staff and enterprise departments during the course of the year. We accommodate the students’ own ideas but to assist, we prepare a number of templates for simulated projects, e.g.: the writing, production and marketing of a short film; the establishment of a literary/genre web-site; the publishing of a poetry anthology; the literary editing of a collection of short stories; the establishment of a match-funded community arts project; the preparation of a monologue or small-cast production for a theatre festival. Industry experts will be consulted in the preparation of these templates. The focus on self-employment emerges naturally from the subject skills, providing a link to the student from the department's research activity. Work-related learning occurs throughout the programme. In most modules, students are trained to professional standards in narrative craft, reflective writing, reading as a writer, research skills and in the use of notebooks and journals to record and develop work. Students acquire the ability to tap and manage their creativity, which is arguably the most valuable of the many transferable skills they acquire during this programme. Advertising, marketing and business especially are looking for graduates who can generate and develop fresh ideas, and our programme turns out graduates of precisely this sort. Freelance/Self-employment models will be encouraged as this is absolutely representative of the way in which the subject skills are best represented in the world of work. (Students may well progress to being editors, teachers, civil servants or work in unrelated areas but we can add most value by extrapolating their subject skills into related project management skills). Existing industry links will be used to finesse and deliver and assess the module. Group work is encouraged, facilitating a more rounded view, with individuals within a group adopting different roles within the simulated world of work. The module will be delivered in the form of lectures, workshops, private study, tutorials, case-studies, field visits and industry-sourced masterclasses. Specifically, students will be taught how to prepare a Learning Agreement and how to produce a portfolio which includes an awareness of personal development in its reflective element. This is something that is already working successfully in our Independent Study modules. Students will be assigned supervisors with experience of a diverse range of jobs and skills from the freelance writing world and will be taught how to manage all aspects of their project, in terms of funding, resources, production and marketing. Each year, L6 students have the opportunity to participate in a professional publication, In The Red. In the 9 month long project, the editors solicit and edit creative work from peers and professional write