BA (Hons) Creative and Professional Writing and Film and Television Studies with Foundation Year

The module focuses on film and television form and visual style. It provides an introduction to the key elements of screen language; which is examined through sections on mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound. The module provides the tools for textual analysis of film and television. In addition the module introduces academic skills in constructing bibliographies and in using databases for film and television studies on the internet.

This module will explore a broad and inclusive selection of poetry from different periods of literary history and representing diverse voices, including Black, Asian, and minority ethnic poets from global backgrounds. Using these examples, our emphasis will be on learning techniques for formal analysis (close reading), creative expression (writing poetry), and performance. We will consider aspects of reading, writing, and performing poetry, including form, rhythm and meter, diction, figurative language and sound. We will also consider the development of particular genres (e.g. the ballad, the sonnet) and forms (e.g. blank verse, free verse) over time and across cultures, from the medieval period to the present, with an emphasis on the reader expectations that accrue around poetic forms and genres.

This module will teach students how to read with an eye for technique. It will focus on how writing is structured and the various ways in which authors create compelling narratives. It will address a variety of modes of writing and genres including novels, short stories, poetry, and creative non-fiction, and tap into reading and critical theories. Students will be given the opportunity to experiment creatively within those modes, and reflect on what can be learned from the study of other people's work.

This module aims to introduce you to a variety of factual genres encompassing national and trans-national perspectives. As hybridity is seen now as an essential characteristic of factuality, this module analyses the boundaries between fact and fiction in various popular factual formats and examines a variety of critical approaches and perspectives by scholars and practitioners of film and media in relation to the production of documentary and reality TV.

This module will introduce students to the devices and concepts of narrative structure in film, and provide models with which to analyse narrative and its various functional elements. We will consider the particular aspects of film narrative, and how these have been drawn from and, in turn, influenced other narrative forms. This will include addressing the processes through which written and graphic text, and dramatic performance, become transferred and adapted into film narrative. These issues will be explored further through a group assessment exercise in which a scene from a short written narrative will be adapted into a scene from a screenplay.

This module studies the personal essay across a range of cultures and periods, examining its diversity, its formal properties and its social and personal value as witness to oppression, a form of consciousness- raising, personal testimony and literature. This module also takes from other similar forms such as memoir and biography to offer the students a wide array of techniques and approaches to writing about the self.

This module explores contemporary culture’s continuous reworking of texts across different media. It investigates film and television adaptation as a heightened example of postmodern approaches to originality and authorship which encourage us to think of “all texts as intertexts, all reading as rereading, all writing as rewriting” (Leitch 2005, p.239). The sessions explore historical explanations of adaptation, from fidelity analysis to dialogism, and apply these ideas to diverse adaptations of both canonical and non-canonical sources.

In this module you'll research the readership and style of various magazines, websites (including blog spaces) and organisations, with a view to writing perfectly pitched feature articles. You will learn the varied forms of the feature and get practical experience of working on real-world publication ideas. This practical experience will also include the establishment, design and up-keep of an independent blog space, to provide a working knowledge of journalism/feature writing online. You will also have to produce a professional profile for yourself as a writer. Practical application is emphasised in this module and the assessment is relevant to the current freelance writing industry.

This module aims to integrate the critical reading of horror and speculative fiction with the student's own choice of writing assignment. You will examine theories of representation in various forms and cultures and consider past and contemporary markets, publication outlets and trends for horror and speculative fiction texts. Especial attention will be paid to ways in which the horror and speculative fiction genres can be made more diverse and inclusive by means of addressing contemporary debates around sex, gender, race, class and health through fiction.

This module takes a particular case study (or case studies) of a chosen global cinema. It begins with an appraisal of authorship, stardom, narrative structure and contemporary trends within the global cinema example and also considers specific regional production in terms of realism, stylistic development, and censorship. The module aims to analyse the various forms and styles of the particular global cinema example within the appropriate historical, ideological, economic and cultural contexts. It also aims to evaluate and synthesise critical debate surrounding films from the particular case study.

This module addresses the revolutionary drive in filmmaking in the 1960s and 1970s in a variety of national cinemas, including the French Nouvelle Vague, the British New Wave and some non-Western cinemas. These films challenged the social status quo by drawing attention to the reality of life for working class people. The style of these films was innovative, based on location shooting with a documentary feel. This module will put the films into their historical context, while at the same time commenting on the originality of their themes and the pioneering techniques used in making them.

In this module students will develop an understanding of the narrative approaches used in writing crime and psychological thriller fiction. We will also consider the different target groups these works may be written for. Students will analyse examples of crime and thriller fiction, and then use their acquired knowledge of the conventions and possibilities in those genre to create and evaluate examples of their own crime and thriller writing. Throughout the semester, students will be given the opportunity to present work and receive feedback for such work, in both written and verbal form. This will culminate in a portfolio assessment at the end of the semester, where written feedback will again be provided.

The module aims to study the interrelationship of film, science and the construction of gender, looking at science fiction, medical film and television drama, documentary and factual film material. It examines representations of science within science fiction and fantasy and moves to representations of medical science and its institutions, stressing the importance of discourse as a critical tool. Its underpinning theoretical approaches include Kristevan and Freudian psychoanalysis.

The module aims to provide for the initiation of an in-depth individual writing project focussing specifically on the production of a first novel. The module will address some of the issues involved in researching and developing an extended narrative. Students will create the opening of an original novel together with a synopsis of the complete story and an account of how the project might be marketed once complete. Combining both classroom-based teaching, independent study, and tutor supervision, it aims to help students create the kind of documentation required to approach prospective publishers.

We live in a time of fraught climate, ecology and nature debates and poetry is taking a centre stage in these discussions. This module is a creative exploration the cutting-edge practices of Geopoetics - The Expression of the Earth. This module will develop your awareness of geological, ecological and geographical debates and concerns and consider how the Earth Sciences can be used in conjunction with poetry. You will be encouraged to offer your own creative voices to the existing poetic conversations about nature, climate and the living world.

The Creative and Professional Writing Project enables you to work independently in an area of your choice and under the supervision of an appropriate member of staff, who then serves as the supervisor of that project. It allows you an opportunity to pursue an interest in a given subject/issue related to creative or professional writing or to produce extended creative writings to a greater depth and breadth than before. At the same time, it provides you with the chance to display the skills in organisation and research methods you’ve acquired in previous modules, as well as to demonstrate your mastery of the craft of creative and professional writing.

The aim of this module is to Familiarise you with the scope of employment and enterprise opportunities available to graduates engaged in the active pursuit of a career in the creative industries. Enable you to effectively investigate and then demonstrate knowledge of the current professional creative industries landscape and to contextualise this in relation to your own career goals and personal development needs To assist you to identify, understand research and reference information pertinent to your personal career ambitions. To provide opportunities for you to utilise written, verbal and visual presentation techniques in order to develop your transferable skills and gain confidence in applying for and attending formal  job interviews. An opportunity to produce a body of evidence to secure the University of Wolverhampton Enterprise and Employability Award You will produce a variety of documents/artefacts to support entry into the creative industries and actively engage in class exercises to enhance your personal development. The exact scope of these will be outlined in the assignment brief in accordance with your specialist subject.

This module examines contemporary British film and TV drama and evaluates the images within a Postmodern framework. It critically analyses film language and TV style in contemporary texts within the context of specific genres.

The various futures of writing involve a number of emerging practices. Good writers and editors can put their skills to use in a myriad of professional careers, including content writing and editing, book and magazine publishing, corporate communication, podcast writing, video games, publishing, web content development, arts promotion, advocacy, and many others. Although the career opportunities are wide and various for this discipline, all of them assume that practitioners have learned to handle text professionally and can apply key skills in a variety of industry contexts.   In this module, you will learn different writing skills and registers to build your own portfolio as a professional writer. You will become familiar with professional fields such as marketing, content writing, podcasts, video games, journalism, and more. You will also explore other aspects of the professional writing career such as having a writing routine, dealing with rejection, creating professional relationships with agents and publishers, finding a writing community and many more.   Assignments will build your skills in document design, writing in multiple modes and media, usability testing to develop more accessible texts, and ethical considerations for communication in professional settings.  

This module follows on from 6CW001 Writing the Novel: Planning, Process & Preparation with the unique aim to enable you to continue to develop a longer work of prose at UG level. Since you will have already completed the first 4,000 words of an original novel together with a synopsis of the complete story as part of your 6CW001 submission, this complementary follow-on module will take you beyond those first chapters, enabling you to have the vision of the whole work as you continuing writing towards a mid-way point and/or beyond. This module will, therefore, be completely unique in its pedagogical strategy by tailoring weekly module content according to your collective and individual writing objectives. This will mean a fair percentage of self-directed study to further your creative process and in terms of meeting more personalised learning outcomes. For example, as per your requests, we might focus upon managing the genre balance or ensemble cast storylines; the techniques used in narrative tension for story arcs; instigating subtexts out of contexts. In essence, you will take ownership over your own learning as devised from your own practice. Module teaching will, therefore, be a combination of seminar and workshop, peer review, tutor supervision and peer mentoring, close reading analysis, publication pitches, guest speakers, and self-promotion techniques. You will look to complete the next 4,000 words of your project, including an account of how the project will add to existing canons, and how it may be pitched to prospective publishers.