Creative Writing and Media & Culture BA (Hons)

Teaching

You are taught through a combination of interactive lectures, seminars, workshops and practical activities. Interactive workshops take a variety of formats and are intended to enable the application of learning through discussion and small group activities. Seminars enable the discussion and development of understanding of topics covered in lectures and practical activities are focused on developing subject specific skills (e.g. social media skills, developing your online CV and online presence). You have the opportunity to undertake a semester long exchange abroad (ERASMUS) in the second year of the course.

In addition, meetings with personal academic tutors are scheduled on at least four occasions in the first year and three occasions in each of the other years of a course.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have 12 contact hours of teaching. In your final year (where there is more emphasis on Independent study), you will have slightly less contact time per week.

The following is a breakdown of a typical week of contact time

• 4 hours of group lectures
• 8 hours of seminars (including workshops and other interactive formats).

For modules that involve work project or placements there are 4 scheduled group sessions as well as individual tutorial support which varies according to student need.

There is also tutorial support for individual students and extra workshops based around employability.

Independent self study

In addition to the contact time you are expected to undertake around 25 hours of personal study per week. Typically, this will involve completing online activities, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments and presentations and preparing for seminar work.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities including The Hive and Library resources, the virtual learning environment and extensive electronic learning resources.

Duration

• 3 years full-time
• 4-6 years part-time

Timetables

Timetables are normally available one month before registration. Please note that whilst we try to be as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week; and some classes can be scheduled in the evenings.

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes senior academics, professors, published poets and writers as well as HEA fellows. Staff on both courses have high satisfaction levels from the students with repeated nominations for student awards including Outstanding Lecturers, Module Excellence Awards and Exceptional Personal Academic Tutoring.

Postgraduate research students who have undertaken teacher training may also contribute to the teaching of seminars under the supervision of the module leader. Teaching is informed by the research and consultancy, and (as at 01.09.2020) 83% percent of Media & Culture and Creative Writing Lecturers have a higher education teaching qualification and/or are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. You can learn more about the staff by visiting our staff profiles

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or ‘formative’ assignments.

Each module has one or more formal or ‘summative’ assessments which are graded and count towards the overall module grade. Assessment methods include a range of coursework assessments such as essays, reports, portfolios, presentations, creative writing.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the mandatory and optional modules taken, but a typical formative summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:-

Year 1

• Oral assessment/presentations x 2
• Learning Journal x 1
• Practical portfolio x 4
• Reflective commentary x 3
• Essay x 3

Year 2

• Portfolio x 2
• Creative Writing Piece x 4
• Critical analysis x 6
• Oral assessment/Presentations x 3
• Essay x 4

Year 3

• Portfolio of original work (8000 words) OR Research Project (6-7,000 words)
• Critical analysis x 5
• Creative writing Piece x 4
• Research portfolio x 3
• Oral Presentations x 2
• Radio script x 1