EN2CWN: Creative Writing: Creative Nonfiction

Module code: EN2CWN

Module provider: English Literature; School of Humanities

Credits: 20

Level: Level 2 (Intermediate)

When you'll be taught: Semester 1

Module convenor: Miss Hatty Nestor, email: k.h.a.nestor@reading.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s): Before taking this module, you must have at least 40 credits of EN-coded modules at Part 1 (except for visiting students) (Open)

Co-requisite module(s):

Pre-requisite or Co-requisite module(s):

Module(s) excluded:

Placement information: NA

Academic year: 2024/5

Available to visiting students: Yes

Talis reading list: Yes

Last updated: 21 May 2024

Overview

Module aims and purpose

Creative nonfiction is a wide, exciting, and ever-evolving contemporary genre. It includes memoirs, essays, blog posts, long-form journalism, biography and auto-fiction, as well as the increasing number of books and articles which fall between these genres. This module will explore this genre, and it will help you to write your own piece or pieces of creative non-fiction. Learning takes place in seminar groups, where analytical reading and practical writing interconnect, and in smaller peer groups, where students support each other’s editing with constructive feedback. 

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, it is expected that students will be able to:

1. Read as a writer: to analyse texts, performances and / or broadcasts, and to respond to the affective power of language using appropriate approaches, terminologies and creative strategies.
2. Initiate, devise, compose and conclude creative projects in which their own and other people’s ideas are articulated concisely, accurately and clearly.
3. Demonstrate the deployment of language in a sophisticated and nuanced fashion, with a heightened awareness of concision, voice, idiom, idiolect, simile, metaphor, analogy, rhythm and media-specific restraints.
4. Edit their own work, and that of peers, with a high level of rigour and scrutiny, at the various levels of clause, line, sentence, stanza, paragraph but also at the structural level of scene, section and whole text.

Module content

We will be reading contemporary creative non-fiction in a range of forms, including the modern essay by authors such as Rebecca Solnit and Reni Eddo-Lodge, unconventional memoir and biography by Dave Eggers, Alexander Masters and Claudia Rankine, and long form journalism from The New York Times and Guardian. We will engage with debates about the form, asking ourselves how much of our own and other people’s lives we are entitled to write about; what auto-fiction is, and when it turns into fiction; and when journalism becomes an essay. Students will take this body of knowledge into their own writing, producing creative non-fiction both traditional and experimental in form.

Assessment of the module reflects the balance between writing and reading, with 70% of the final mark given for your own creative work (2500 words) and 30% for a critical essay (1500 words) in which you set your own writing in the wider context of your reading.

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

The module will be taught in weekly two-hour seminars for which students are required to do preparatory reading and writing. This seminar will be supplemented by a weekly one-hour autonomous peer group session in which students will consider issues of editing and redrafting that are set in advance by their seminar leader. Students are also entitled to a half-hour tutorial on their formative written work. 

Study hours

At least 22 hours of scheduled teaching and learning activities will be delivered in person, with the remaining hours for scheduled and self-scheduled teaching and learning activities delivered either in person or online. You will receive further details about how these hours will be delivered before the start of the module.

Please note the independent study hours above are notional numbers of hours; each student will approach studying in different ways. We would advise you to reflect on your learning and the number of hours you are allocating to these tasks.

Semester 1 The hours in this column may include hours during the Christmas holiday period.

Semester 2 The hours in this column may include hours during the Easter holiday period.

Summer The hours in this column will take place during the summer holidays and may be at the start and/or end of the module.

Assessment

Requirements for a pass

Students need to achieve an overall module mark of 40% to pass this module.

Summative assessment

Penalties for late submission of summative assessment

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

Assessments with numerical marks

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of three working days;
• the mark awarded due to the imposition of the penalty shall not fall below the threshold pass mark, namely 40% in the case of modules at Levels 4-6 (i.e. undergraduate modules for Parts 1-3) and 50% in the case of Level 7 modules offered as part of an Integrated Masters or taught postgraduate degree programme;
• where the piece of work is awarded a mark below the threshold pass mark prior to any penalty being imposed, and is submitted up to three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline), no penalty shall be imposed;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessments marked Pass/Fail

• where the piece of work is submitted within three working days of the deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): no penalty will be applied;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): a grade of Fail will be awarded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: /cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/qap/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf

You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is any task or activity which creates feedback (or feedforward) for you about your learning, but which does not contribute towards your overall module mark.

Oral feedback will be given in seminars. Students will also receive one piece of formative written feedback on their creative writing, as well as a half-hour tutorial. All pieces of formative work can be developed to form part of the summative portfolio.  

Reassessment

Additional costs