Module Identifier WR30820  
Module Title READING FOR WRITERS  
Academic Year 2005/2006  
Co-ordinator Professor Jeremy P Poster  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Other staff Dr Matthew C Francis  
Pre-Requisite WR10220  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   10 X 2 hour seminar/workshops  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment ASSIGNMENT 1: TOTAL WORD-LENGTH 2,500 WORDS: detailed critical analysis of either a short poem or a passage from a longer poem or a passage of prose fiction, together with an account of how the lessons learned from the text in question might be put into practice in the student?s own writing. Students should choose their text from among the works discussed in class but, where addressing longer works, need not confine themselves to the passages discussed in class. Total word-length 2,500 words.50%
Semester Assessment ASSIGNMENT 2: TOTAL WORD-LENGTH 2,500 WORDS: a portfolio of creative writing - poetry, or prose, or a combination of the two ? connected with one or more of the ideas discussed in class. This may continue the explorations of assignment 1, or may focus on ideas and texts different from those discussed in the earlier assignment. The portfolio must be accompanied by a retrospective commentary (which must not substantially replicate material already provided as part of assignment 1) on the relationship between the critical readings and the creative outcome. Total word-length 2,500 words, of which the commentary should account for a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 1,000 words.50%
Supplementary Assessment RESUBMIT FAILED ELEMENTS Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:

1. demonstrate their ability to read with attention to textual detail;

2. demonstrate awareness of the problems involved in verbal communication, as well as recognizing the strategies used by writers to overcome or minimize these problems;

3. demonstrate the application of their enhanced critical understanding to their own creative work.

Aims

This module is designed to encourage close reading of significant passages of prose fiction and poetry, with emphasis on the idea that analytical reading of the writings of others provides essential groundwork for our own writing.

Brief description

Each session will focus on extracts from a particular text or texts, the relevant poems or passages being supplied in advance; students will be expected to have prepared each poem or passage in advance of the relevant session. The list below suggests specific texts likely to be used, but these may be varied, within the framework of the overall description, from year to year or from tutor to tutor.

Content

1 - 3 Writing and memory
 William Wordsworth's The Prelude; Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier; Philip Larkin's `I Remember, I Remember'; Ian McEwan's Atonement

4   Writing and the here and now
 Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal; Simon Armitage's Killing Time

5 - 6 Voicing narrative
 Robert Browning's `My Last Duchess' and `Porphyria's Lover'; Les Murray's `Pigs'; Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang

7 - 8   Words and music
 Gerard Manley Hopkins's `Hurrahing in Harvest' and `The Sea and the Skylark'; D H Lawrence's The Rainbow; Sarah Hall's Haweswater; John Kelly's Sophisticated Boom Boom

9 - 10 Speech and silence
 W B Yeats's `The Circus Animals' Desertion'; Virginia Woolf's The Waves; William Golding's The Spire.

Module Skills

Problem_solving Yes: the assessment will require attention to issues of a broadly problematic nature  
Research skills Yes: the assessment will require research into the work of other writers  
Communication Yes: interaction in group discussion  
Improving own Learning and Performance Yes: development of knowledge and understanding of students? own work and that of others  
Team work Yes: see 3  
Information Technology No  
Application of Number No  
Personal Development and Career planning No  
Subject Specific Skills None  

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6