- Department: Education
- Module co-ordinator: Dr. Clementine Beauvais
- Credit value: 30 credits
- Credit level: I
- Academic year of delivery: 2019-20
- See module specification for other years: 2018-19
This module offers students the opportunity to practice or improve their own creative writing for an audience of children, and to explore writing for children from literary, pedagogical and sociocultural perspectives. In its third term, the module also give students a chance to work with children and try to help them with their creative writing too.
Occurrence | Teaching cycle |
---|---|
A | Autumn Term 2019-20 to Summer Term 2019-20 |
This module is intended for students who are interested in practicing and understanding creative writing for children. An important aspect of the module is the academic theorisation of creative writing for children and study of children's writing from literary, pedagogical and sociocultural perspectives. The module also gives students the chance to lead a creative writing workshop for children.
The aims of the module are that students develop their creative writing skills, including in-depth understanding of structure, style, genre, etc. as well as workshopping and feedback skills. They will also acquire knowledge of the children’s book publishing industry and of very contemporary literature for children. Those skills are mobilised in the later part of the course, which concerns creative writing workshops with children, in which the students will develop skills related to the teaching of creative writing. The academic dimension of the module, fully integrated throughout, helps them develop communication, research and essay-writing skills as well as analytical and critical skills.
One major intended learning outcome for this module is that students should be able not just to write, but to reflect on their own writing for children in its educational, aesthetic, and sociocultural dimensions.
During the course of this module students will:
Module Unit |
Staff |
Term |
Weeks |
---|---|---|---|
Creative Writing for Children: Theory and Practice |
Dr Clementine Beauvais |
Autumn |
2-10 |
Educational and Commercial Aspects of Writing for Children |
Dr Clementine Beauvais |
Spring |
2-10 |
Creative Writing with Children |
Dr Clementine Beauvais |
Summer |
1-4 |
Autumn term - Weeks 2-10: Creative Writing for Children: Theory and Practice
The first unit tackles the literary and theoretical aspects of writing for children, and goes through the most important aspects of writing for children. In each session, academic study of literary texts and critical study of academic texts supports the writing practice.
Spring Term - Weeks 2-10: Educational and commercial aspects of writing for children
This unit goes from the purely aesthetic and theoretical aspects of children’s writing to consider its embeddedness in educational, commercial and sociocultural contexts, with specific imperatives. We also begin creating writing workshops for various audiences.
Summer Term - Weeks 1-4: Creative Writing With Children
In this final unit we mobilise the knowledge and skills developed in the earlier part of the course to think about how to engage children in creative writing, and develop writing workshops with them.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework Essay (1500 words) |
N/A | 40 |
Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 60 |
None
Formative work directly prepares students towards the summative assessments. Weekly formative feedback on creative work will be given in the weekly workshops, both by the module leader and by other students. The course includes training on giving and receiving feedback.
Task | Length | % of module mark |
---|---|---|
Essay/coursework Essay (1500 words) |
N/A | 40 |
Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 60 |
Written feedback on assignment report sheet and face-to-face feedback in supervisions. The feedback is returned to students in line with university policy. Please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.
Primary sources: a variety of children's texts - extracts and whole - will be studied throughout the module.
Secondary (scholarly and practical) reading:
Arizpe, Evelyn and Styles, Morag. 2002. Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts. London: Routledge.
Beauvais, Clémentine. 2014. Complete Writing for Children Course. London: Hachette.
King, Stephen. 2000. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: New English Library. MB 83.9 KIN
Nikolajeva, Maria. 2005. Aesthetic Approaches to Children’s Literature: An Introduction. Lanham: Scarecrow.
Wolf, Shelby Anne et al. 2011. Handbook of Research on Children's and Young Adult Literature. London: Routledge. M38.068 WOL
Zinsser, William. 2006. On Writing Well. New York: Harper Collins. 029.6 ZIN
Coronavirus (COVID-19): changes to courses
The 2020/21 academic year will start in September. We aim to deliver as much face-to-face teaching as we can, supported by high quality online alternatives where we must.
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