ENGL3271: Creative Writing Poetry

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• To enable students to produce (ie. draft and edit) original poems with a full awareness of the technical and aesthetic choices made in the process of writing
• To analyse the creative writing of students alongside extracts from literary texts, revealing close reading as a method for learning how to write, and also creative writing as a method for understanding the stylistic qualities and historical content of canonical works
• To introduce students to a broad range of poems, traditions, and techniques

• This module will focus on the writing of poetry, and will include close-reading and criticism.
• Seminars will foreground the close-reading of the students own poetry, as well as published poetry (mainly from the 20th and 21st centuries), and work that theorizes or criticizes poetry. This material will be provided by the module convenor.
• A close examination of the poetry will help students to understand the relation between reading and writing, theory and practice.
• Writing exercises will be used in order to encourage students to reflect on particular aspects of how poems are conceived and formed.
• While the content of each seminar will largely be shaped by the work produced by students, particular attention will be paid to: the uses of the line-break; diction; syntax; metre and rhythm; and issues of poetic form (both traditional and free).

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will gain knowledge of the aesthetic decisions made by writers and their relationship to matters of intellectual and historical context
• Students will gain knowledge of how readers respond to their work

Subject-specific Skills:

• Critical skills: the close reading and analysis of texts
• Creative writing skills: the application of the students critical skills to their own practice
• An ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of critical approaches
• Awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and analysis of specific texts
• An ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• An ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• Command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• Awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

Key Skills:

• Practice of writing poetry
• A capacity to analyse critically
• Skills of effective communication and argument
• The ability to articulate constructive criticism in a workshop setting
• A capacity for independent thought and judgement, and an ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• Skills in critical reasoning
• An ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• Organisation and time-management skills

• Workshop seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• One-to-one meetings with students: each student will receive at least two 15-minute one-to-one sessions in which they will receive feedback on their work-in-progress; in addition, their formative assessment will take the form of a further 15-minute one-to-one meeting in which up to ten of their poems will be discussed as a whole. These sessions will encourage students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars and one-to-ones provides an opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning a student an issue, theme or writer to explore within a critical framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and/or tutor in the context of a seminar or one-to-one.
• Coursework: the portfolio will be assessed according to the following criteria: control of form, tone, and style; originality of theme, voice and formal strategy; sophistication of conception and execution; expressiveness and imagination; ability to put the theoretical knowledge gained from the course into practice; ability to establish and achieve artistic goals. The self-critique offers students an opportunity to express their poetics in the context of poetics as discussed in the course.
• Feedback: the written feedback that is provided after the assessed portfolio and self-critique will allow the students to reflect on their creative work and gain a more objective sense of its value, potential, theoretical assumptions, and how successful it was in fulfilling its goals.

At the beginning of Epiphany term, each student will have a 15-minute individual consultation in which they will receive feedback on their formative portfolio of up to 5 poems.

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