Course Catalogue

1.To enable students to produce clear, artistically coherent, and original written work, which articulates a combination of research and creative ideas.

2.To understand the technical requirements of the form in which they are writing.

3.To understand the role of readers and audiences in realising texts and performance/broadcasts as imaginative experience.

4.To read as a writer – with an ability to analyse texts, performances, and broadcasts, and respond to the effective power of language using appropriate approaches, terminology, and creative strategies and to apply scholarly bibliographic skills where and when necessary.

5.To develop students’ ability to contextualise their own work within the writing traditions that precede and surround them and to gain a critical awareness of the context in which writing is produced and how individual practice relates to that of predecessors and contemporaries, peers, and established practitioners

6.To challenge student to read and view analytically across a culturally and historically broad range of writing related to the aesthetic, ethical and social contexts of human experience.

7.To enable the student to become rigorous, critical, and analytical in their thinking.

8.To employ an imaginative and divergent mode of thinking which is integral to identifying and solving problems, to the making of critical and reflective judgements, to the generation of alternatives and new ideas, and to engaging with the broader issue of value.

9.To use the views of others in the development and enhancement of practice; formulate considered responses to the critical judgements of others, while developing a generous yet rigorous scrutiny in peer review and workshop activities.

10.To interact effectively with others, in team or group work, for example through collaboration or in workshop situations

11.To edit their own work and that of peers with a high level of scrutiny, at the various levels of clause, line, sentence, stanza, paragraph but also at the structural level of overall scene, chapter, collection, book.

12.To initiate and take responsibility for their own work.

13.To encourage students to recognise the skills and insights they develop through the course and help them identify career opportunities to use them.

Creative Writing is essentially a degree about communication, storytelling and the possibilities of language, its impact and significance. All teaching and learning activities aim to develop these skills. Learning is acquired through participation in lectures, seminars/tutorials, private study (reading, thinking, writing and researching topics with guidance from tutors) and undertaking exercises/formal assessment tasks to structure thought and creativity, and encourage the assimilation of ideas/knowledge. Learning is also taken out of the university and delivered via, for example, place-based or site-specific writing exercises, visits to galleries, museums, live literature events or the theatre.

Lectures introduce issues, explain concepts, or outline theoretical approaches. Seminars provide an interactive forum to: expand on, investigate and debate issues raised in lectures/in a module; undertake detailed reading, original writing, discuss original and/or published texts; grow confidence and skill in participating in discussion/exchanging ideas; develop articulacy, quickness of thought, ability to communicate with others and produce original ideas; learn ways of dealing with difference of opinion, particularly in workshops where ideas and original writing will be challenged.

Level 4 aims to bring the whole cohort to a comparable level of subject knowledge and competence using smaller, confidence-building assessment items, using formative/summative feedback. This encourages students to engage with their programme and develop writing as regular practice. All students belong to tutorial groups where a tutor offers a series of discussions, advice and information sessions, skills teaching, and personal and academic development.

Levels 5 and 6 provide different forums for learning: workshops where students take greater responsibility for selection/presentation of materials; individual tutorials/supervisions. Students are encouraged to widen their reading/writing range and develop individual specialisms as both practice and response become increasingly sophisticated. The final honours degree year is characterised by an increased focus on the writers' workshop; a collaborative space that accelerates/consolidates student learning. In a workshop the participants critically respond to each other's work, with the role of the tutor to steer, inform and moderate discussion. The learning outcomes of a workshop include technically improved writing, an expanded critical vocabulary, and preparation for the work required of a professional writer. The students' skill in judging work-in-progress is both a means and an end in itself: independent or self-directed work, provides a strong foundation for employment, for postgraduate study, and for continuing creative work.

The Creative Writing programme interweaves creative practice and critical/theoretical assessment to promote deep learning. These intellectual skills develop in tandem with understanding and knowledge, so a varied range of assessments is used including poster/website creation (showcasing IT skills), reflective analysis, market research reports, script bibles and pitch documents. Level 6 workshops allow detailed research, peer and tutor evaluation, analysis, creative problem-solving and constructive criticism. Portfolios which consist of both practical creative work and a reflection on that work are used to promote critical analysis and deep learning.

The researching and presentation skills required for group presentations allow students to gain confidence in a safe environment with tutor guidance. Group work, while not always formally assessed, gives students experience of communicating and negotiating while developing interpersonal skills.

Throughout the Creative Writing programme many exciting opportunities will arise. We inform students of placements, volunteering and paid internship possibilities. All Creative Writing modules have professional practice embedded through them – whether it is presenting work correctly so that an agent or editor will take it seriously or researching a ‘script bible’ and writing a pitching document. The Level 4 module ‘Professional Practice: The Writer in the World’ requires students to write reviews after cultural trips and experiences in a public-facing series of blog posts, thus positioning the student writer as writing for a wider audience. This module also requires students to provide a research report exploring career opportunities in creative industries, reflecting on personal qualities and skills and areas for development. Level 5’s ‘Writing in Production’ requires students to work in teams to collate, edit, proof-read and design magazines (in print or online) or podcasts, producing budgets and marketing documents. In Level 6, ‘The Writer at Work Portfolio’ module requires student to research organisations that use creative writing in their practice and introduces students to alumni working across creative and communication industries, with guests from charities, arts organisations and publishing and production companies. Level 6 Advanced Prose Workshop networks students with editors and agents, providing tuition on how to pitch articles to online or print media. The Writer at Work Project provides the skills and knowledge to devise, plan and manage a writing-related project. The skills gain during your course are also in demand in such areas as public relations, advertising, corporate communications, cultural journalism, research and the film and television service industries. Alternatively, you may want to pursue postgraduate study at MA and PhD level or go into teaching. Our graduates have gone on to work in publishing, corporate communications and in the film and television industries as writers, directors, researchers and actors. Employers include the BBC, Channel 4, FACT, L.A. Productions and Lime Pictures.

Students have the opportunity to engage in work-based learning either via placements or via professionally set briefs – for example, writing a short script based on the current BAFTA funding criteria, or writing poems on a theme set by a magazine. Departmental staff offer support and make use of their extensive professional and industry contacts as needed to ensure that students are supported in their ambitions. The work placement coordinator agrees and monitors the placements and, along with the Screen School Student Development co-ordinator, ensures the placement programme complies with the LJMU Placement Learning Code of Practice. In addition, elements of study designed to assist students to learn about themselves and develop their employment skills are spread throughout the programme. Students are encouraged to apply for additional work-based learning opportunities as they arise. Recent examples include undergraduate involvement in paid internship projects interviewing and capturing the stories of staff and students at the University on the What’s Your Story? project.