Studying at York
Creative Writing for Children, Creative Writing with Children - EDU00048I
Module summary
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.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching cycle |
|---|---|
| A | Autumn Term 2020-21 to Summer Term 2020-21 |
Module aims
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.
Module learning outcomes
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:
- Work on, workshop, give and receive feedback on, and improve, their own writing for an audience of children.
- Critically examine their own, and others’, children’s writing from aesthetic and cultural perspectives; reflect on the pedagogical/ aesthetic and the commercial/ aesthetic splits in creative writing for children.
- Learn to reflect on, and assess, their own work, and be able to produce academic readings of their own writing and writing processes.
- Gain thorough knowledge of the processes of writing children’s books, including knowledge of the publishing industry and its demands.
- Read about and design creative writing workshops with children, using the competencies developed in the first half of the course.
- Gain the habit of writing regularly, with prompts of various kinds, at different speeds and in different lengths, and for different types of audience.
Module content
|
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.
Assessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay (1500 words) |
N/A | 40 |
| Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 60 |
Special assessment rules
None
Additional assessment information
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.
Reassessment
| Task | Length | % of module mark |
|---|---|---|
| Essay/coursework Essay (1500 words) |
N/A | 40 |
| Essay/coursework Essay (3000 words) |
N/A | 60 |
Module feedback
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.
Indicative reading
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
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