EN3MPY: Creative Writing Masterclass: Poetry

Module code: EN3MPY

Module provider: English Literature; School of Humanities

Credits: 20

Level: Level 3 (Honours)

When you'll be taught: Semester 1

Module convenor: Professor Peter Robinson, email: P.Robinson@reading.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s): Before taking this module, you must have successfully completed 40 credits' worth of Creative Writing modules at Part Two, or, in special cases (including visiting students) you may seek the consent of the convenor. (Open)EN1CW (Compulsory)

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

This module will enable students to develop and design a short collection of poems, or a sequence or series of poems, or one longer poem, with a view to submitting a selection or extract to a print or online poetry magazine. Weekly workshops will introduce original exercises to allow students to generate material and hone technique. Attention will be paid to the elaboration of style and voice, as well as the balance between consistency and variety of theme and premise across the collection. Workshops will also facilitate group discussion of student work. Close consideration will be given to issues of address and audience, as well as the nature and scope of the poetry being written and published today, with particular focus on emerging voices and subject-matter. Students will produce a portfolio which includes a set of eight poems, or a single sequence of eight parts, or a longer poem of equivalent length, a 2000-word reflective essay on your portfolio, and a brief process journal of no more than 1000 words which tracks their writing practice over the semester.

Module learning outcomes

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

1. Initiate, devise, compose and conclude creative projects in which their own and other people’s ideas are articulated concisely, accurately and clearly.
2. 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.
3. 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 overall scene, chapter, collection, book.
4. Recognise what and how they have learnt, through self-reflection and through constructive dialogue with other people.

Module content

The module will highlight questions of form, craft and technique, with particular attention to the variety of approaches to these issues in contemporary poetry. Discussion may include but is not limited to reflection on the differences between narrative and lyric poetry; the relevance of sound, diction, contemporary speech and rhyme; the importance of the relation of the poem to the page; the relationship between poetry and other arts or discourses. We will also address questions of content, which may include but is not limited to poetry and identity; poetry and ecology; poetry and the political, poetry and theory; poetry and the spiritual. 

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

The module will be taught in weekly two-hour seminars for which students are to do preparatory reading and writing. This seminar will be supplemented by weekly one-hour sessions in which students will consider issues of writing, editing and redrafting through presentations by visiting poets.  

Study hours

At least 33 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: https://www.reading.ac.uk/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.

You will submit drafts of your assignment work for supervision sessions, and you will receive feedback on these drafts. 

Reassessment

Additional costs