English & Creative Writing BA(Hons)

During the first year of BA English & Creative Writing, you'll explore the basics of creative writing, english literature and publishing – all key areas for aspiring writers to be familiar with. While providing an introduction to the subject, this course also breaks the mould of most English degrees with modules like Exploding the Canon: Writing Then and Now and Breaking the Rules: Remix and Writing Back. Each week, you'll learn through a mix of lectures, workshops and tutorials.

Modules

Writing: Craft & Contexts

This module explores the practice of writing as a discipline and a craft and asks you to debate ideas about writing, authorship, genre, creativity and audience.

Exploding the Canon: Writing Then & Now

How do the literatures of the past infuse the fictions of the present and what do these literatures reveal about us as we are now and us as we once were?

Publishing Cultures

In this module, you'll encounter publishing as a literary and cultural tradition that is dynamic and in a constant state of flux. You will consider the role of technology on the production and dissemination of written texts in the contemporary world.

Breaking the Rules: Remix and Writing Back

A challenging, radical and 'breaking the rules' creative writing module, which covers remix and writing back in theory and practice.

Literatures of Revolution

From the revolutionary ideas of Darwin's theories of evolution to postcolonial revelations, LGBTQi movements and the #MeToo phenomena, literature and other textual forms reflect and create society. How do contemporary notions revolutionise texts and how do texts inform revolutionary ideas?

Publishing Studio: Technologizing the Word

A practical and intermedia publishing module, which might include book design, zine making, performance and exhibition as publication and screen-based media.

Your second year is all about narrowing down to your specialisation, building on two core modules addressing contemporary literature and a collaborative project. You’ll then be able to branch out into different creative writing types to hone your skills in your optional modules. 

Your core modules will explore key issues such as race, gender, sexuality and identity politics in contemporary literature, alongside delivering a dynamic collaborative project with your peers. 

The optional modules in year two will give you the opportunity to grow your writing abilities in different specialisms including: writing for games, screenwriting, poetry, creative non-fiction and writing for radio or theatre. You’ll then hone your creative, analytical, critiquing and writing skills and learn how to research, plan, pitch and build a professional profile. 

Modules

Society and the Self

What is the role of identity in literature? How does literature represent the world's diversity? Who communicates identity and how?

Collaborative Project

In this module you'll consider the writer's role as part of a creative eco-system, and/or literature's role in the creative economy through working on a live collaborative project. The project can be a placement in the writing-related industries, a case study or live brief with a business (for example, literary festivals, creative agencies, publishing houses, the heritage sector), or a collaborative project with peers culminating in an event performance or piece of creative practice.

Optional modules

Satire and Scandal

Poetry

Screenwriting

Magic and the Impossible

Fiction

Creative Non-Fiction

Games

Radio & Theatre

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme.

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your placement year 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

Harnessing the knowledge and skills you’ve honed throughout your degree, in your final year you’ll work on a dissertation and portfolio, allowing you to create a critical and sustained piece of work. For these projects, you’ll have weekly tutorials with your supervisor, giving you a close focus on your own writing.

You’ll examine contemporary literature, focusing only on prize winners, bestsellers and controversial content published in the last five years. You’ll also choose from optional modules during the year, and you’ll study a module in experimentation and adaptation.  

Modules

Dissertation and Portfolio

Create an independent extended piece of creative writing or a collection of creative pieces in a genre, form, topic of your choosing, which sits alongside an extended essay on an area of publishing studies or English literature related to your creative piece.

Experiment and Adaptation

Engage with some of the limits of textuality, testing the boundaries of understanding, meaning and communication. By looking at how texts can be remediated, how they morph and repeat, you'll analyse how texts sit within the time and place of their production, but also how they can innovate and shift.

Writing Now: Prize Winners, Bestsellers & Controversial Content

What wins prizes? What wins readers? What makes a bestseller? What is literature doing now, and where is it going?

Optional modules

We Have Never Been Human

Crime and Dark Fiction

Children and Young Adult

Innovations

On top of your regular lectures, seminars and workshops, you'll take on live briefs from creative industry partners, and attend lectures and seminars with high-profile guest speakers and our Writers in Residence, like Matt Haig, Philip Marsden, Lionel Shriver, Iain Sinclair, Don Paterson and Simon Armitage.

You'll support your self-directed learning with significant weekly tutor contact time, and have the chance for regular one-to-one tutorials. There'll also be opportunities to gain regular work experience by writing or working for our student journal of new writing.

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework.

Assessment methods

• Coursework and e-learning exercises
• Live creative industry briefs
• Final year creative writing portfolio

The majority of the texts and other resources you need for your studies will be freely available to you via the library and the virtual learning environment, Learning Space, once you have enrolled.

The number of books you might need to purchase will vary from module to module, depending partly in years 2 and 3 on the options you select. But we recommend you allow for an annual books budget of £150-£200.