English with Creative Writing (Q3W4)

This degree course allows you to combine traditional study of literature with creative practice and instruction in using the techniques and forms of creative writing, with an opportunity to study the short story, novel, poetry, scriptwriting for film and tv, writing for theatre and journalism. Creative Writing is taught by seminars and workshops, with presentations by visiting writers. Recent visitors have included: Blake Morrison, Douglas Dunn, Desmond Graham, Matthew Sweeney, Jo Shapcott, Gwyneth Lewis and Robert Minhinnick. Two thirds of your courses will be chosen from the English department.

First Year / Part One

In your first year, you must take a total of 120 credits, 40 credits of English and 40 credits of Creative Writing, including the compulsory English modules: QXE1002 Textual Analysis and QXE1000 Critical Interpretations, the compulsory Creative Writing modules (see below) and other modules worth 40 credits (which could be taken in English, Film or American Literature and Culture, all of which are taught by staff in the department). For more information on the modules offered at part one, click here. Or, if you wish, you could sample courses, worth up to 40 credits, from other academic subjects e.g. History, Linguistics, Modern Languages, Psychology, Information Technology. To find out about part one modules in other departments, see the Gazette. The core creative writing modules introduce you to using creative writing as an art form and method of communication and to the forms and techniques of creative prose and poetry used by published writers in the past and present.

QXP1001 The Arts of Fact and Fiction
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thin' (ie. taught over the whole year), first-year module. Its aim is to introduce you to a wide range of creative prose-writing, both fictional and documentary. Genres to be explored include the short story, literary review, autobiographical essay, travelogue, and play-script. Other genres may be included if indicated by students' particular interests. We will discuss the ways in which these genres are distinct from one another and yet share certain features and may in fact be merged by deliberate techniques of hybridisation. We will ask such questions as how a writer of fiction handles the transformation of personal experience as compared to the writer of memoirs. Can imaginative, speculative biographies enhance rather than falsify our knowledge of their subjects? How do writers tackle the adaptation of their work from one medium to another? You will be encouraged to work on your own material. The module is a preparatory module for the second-year module QXP2002 Showing and Telling.

QXP1002 Forms and Techniques
This is a 20 credit, 'double-thin' (ie. taught over the whole year), first-year module. It will enhance your writing and critical skills, and develop your confidence in working within a genre that currently embodies much lively diversity. We will examine some of the traditional 'set' forms of poetry that have survived into the 21st century and compare them with the more fluid or submerged structures of postmodernist writing. While the focus of the module is on producing poetry worthy of close-reading on the page, performance poetry, 'light' verse, poetry in translation, and the prose-poem will be considered. We will also examine the ways in which poetic language is used in some contemporary drama. Our questions will address such issues as how poets decide on the form best suited to expressing their ideas. Do the ideas themselves contain the germs of the form? It includes practical class exercises and longer assignments.

Second and Third Years / Part Two

In your second year you must take a total of 120 credits, 80 credits of English and 40 credits of Creative Writing. It is impossible for a 'with creative writing' student to take an 'elective' in another subject including those also taught within the English department, Film and American Literature and Culture. All second year English with Creative Writing students choose two modules from the following (totalling 40 credits):

QXP 2001 Showing and Telling
This 20 credit, 'double-thin' (ie. taught across the whole year), second-year module. It is designed to help solve the problem that inexperienced writers have of writing too abstractly and generally. It will use models from novels and short stories to demonstrate how fiction writers, through dialogue and realist notation, create scenes that define character and develop plot. It will focus on those images used by poets which at the same time compress multiple meanings and make poems vivid and particular, and on images used by short story writers as devices around which stories hinge.

QXP2002 Writing for Film and the Media
This 20 credit, 'double-thin' (ie. taught across the whole year), second-year module involves the practice and study of film and media writing, including scriptwriting for film and television, and journalistic writing for published and broadcast media. The aim of the module is to introduce and develop writing in a wide variety of media contexts. Students will have the opportunity to develop writing abilities relevant to the cinema, the wider media, published or broadcast news journalism, or specialist feature writing. The specific learning outcome is the development of writing techniques and strategies appropriate to a given media context.

QXP2004 The Novel
This 20 credit, 'double-thin', second-year module contains instruction on the composition and creation of novels, including practical and analytical consideration of novelistic structure and design, viewpoint, voice and role-play, and developing style and tone. It also includes, with reference to the practical application and consideration of these elements, consideration of the variety of forms relevant to the contemporary novel, comparing and contrasting novels, present and past, with other forms of creative writing.

For the remaining 80 credits, Students must choose a minimum of 20 credits from each of the sets A and B:

A QXE2022 Shakespeare
A QXE2003 Jonson to Johnson
A QXE2010 Writing the Renaissance
A QXE2101 Medieval Literature
B QXE2004 Romanticism
B QXE2005 Victorian Literature
B QXE2006 Early Twentieth Century Literature
B QXE2007 Late Twentieth Century Literature

For more information on the modules offered at level two, click here.

Third Year

In the third year you must take a total of 120 credits, 80 credits of English modules and the compulsory 40 credit Creative Writing Dissertation. To find out more about modules offered in the English Department in the third year, click here.

QXP3099 Creative Writing Dissertation
This 40 credit module involves the production of an extended piece of creative writing of high quality, with an attached 'criticism in practice' piece, an introduction to the work, and relevant bibliographic and 'creative' references. The focus of the dissertation is the piece of creative writing, which can be undertaken in any genre (after agreement with supervisor) and must be preceded by a detailed (2-3 page) plan of work to be completed. The critical piece can be in a style similar to that of a critical literature essay, or it can be more focused on creative practice or the contextualisation of that creative practice, and can use the student's own work as one of the reference points, as well as containing references to the work of other writers. Length of dissertation is same as that for literature dissertation (QXE3099).

QXF3007 Creative Writing and Production II
Film Studies modules are normally only open to students on the 'with Film Studies' programme but under some circumstances this module may be available to Creative Writing students who have completed module QXP2002 Writing for Film and Media. This 20 credit, 'double-thick', third-year module builds on the Level Two QXF2002 Creative Writing and Production I module. It involves the writing of a script, with accompanying treatment plan, pitch, scene breakdown and schedules. Also involved is the production of pieces of film as a member of the production team. [Please note that taking this module will create a 70/50 credit split.]

Want to know more?

Contact:
Dr Ian Davidson
Department of English
Bangor University
Bangor, Gwynedd
LL57 2DG, UK

phone/fax: +44 (0)1248 382102
email: i.davidson@bangor.ac.uk