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2019/20 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3041 Final Year Project

40 creditsClass Size: 300

School of English

Module manager: Dr Katy Mullin
Email: k.e.mullin@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2019/20

Module replaces

ENGL3372ENGL3308ENGL3318

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

This module encourages independent, self-directed learning, providing a culmination to the research strand emphasised in other modules. It fosters a wide variety of responses to the challenges it offers students, since any final year project might take one of a number of forms. Most importantly, it promotes academic creativity and the exploration of individual intellectual interests.

Learning outcomes
Learning outcomes and Graduate Attributes
Students will emerge with knowledge appropriate to the individual subjects of their projects, but also endowed with skills, which include project management, time management, research, and academic writing and referencing. In terms of Academic Excellence students will have developed skills in critical thinking, independent working, planning and organisation, analytical skills, flexibility of thought, use of knowledge and research skills. The Final Year Project module develops a sense of academic professionalism in building an awareness of one’s own skills and abilities, and confidence in articulating them; in managing time and workload effectively; in reflecting on, and benefitting from, one’s own learning and that of others.

Skills outcomes
Research skills particular to English language and literary studies; referencing and presentational skills; management of a literary or related argument; possibly, experience of working between literary/ language studies and another humanities discipline


Syllabus

The Final Year Project is a 40-credit, two-semester module that represents the culmination of your undergraduate studies. It allows you to pursue an independent research project, reflecting and developing the skills and interests you have acquired throughout your degree. Your Final Year Project may take one of three forms:

- A 10,000-word dissertation
- A critical edition or anthology containing up to 10,000 words of editorial material
- A portfolio of creative writing combined with a critical commentary

The Dissertation
Writing a dissertation gives you the opportunity to specialize in a topic of your choice. It is a unique chance to explore in detail the interests that you have developed during your undergraduate career. The whole field of English literature is available to you: you might choose to conduct research on an author, period, or genre that you encountered earlier in your degree, or to work on a subject that you have not previously studied. You will demonstrate your writing and editing skills in an extended essay of 10,000 words.

Textual Editing
You may choose to produce an edited anthology as your Final Year Project. During your degree, you will have become used to consulting well-edited anthologies of poetry, collections of short stories, novels, volumes of letters, and so on. This option gives you the opportunity to become an editor yourself. You will be responsible for the content and the look of a small volume – of poetry, short stories, or a play, for example. You will annotate the material, provide editorial notes on particular textual features, and add explanatory notes and a critical introduction. Depending on the nature of your project, you might wish to include relevant illustrations, glossaries and appendices. You could anthologise anything from medieval travel writing to grime lyrics; many excellent projects have made use of the unique material held in the Brotherton Library’s Special Collections. The word count, excluding primary material, will not exceed 10,000 words.

Creative Writing
The Final Year Project gives you the opportunity to make your own creative work a major part of your degree. Projects in this strand can take an especially wide variety of forms: a collection of poems, a short story, a text for performance, and more. Just like other Final Year Projects, however, all creative writing portfolios should be based on extensive research. As part of your project, you will submit an extended critical reflection in which you discuss your creative choices and the literary context of your work. The criteria regarding the length of your project are different for this strand than for dissertations or textual editions, to reflect the inherently different nature of a Creative Writing FYP. The maximum length of your portfolio and reflection combined may in some cases be up to 15,000 words, but in other cases (for instance, if you submit a collection of poems) your project may well be considerably shorter.

Students choosing the Creative Writing option will usually be expected previously to have taken ENGL32660 Creative Writing or a similar module. If you have not taken ENGL32660 and you would like to do a Creative Writing FYP, you should contact Dr Jay Prosser (j.d.prosser@leeds.ac.uk) before starting work on your proposal. To ensure that appropriate supervisors are available, Creative Writing places may be restricted if an especially large number of applications are received. In that case, priority will be given to students who have successfully taken ENGL32660. Students affected by any cap on places will be supported in developing an alternative proposal.

Teaching methods

Delivery typeNumberLength hoursStudent hours
Workshop12.002.00
Supervision Meetings51.501.50
Lecture61.006.00
Seminar21.002.00
Private study hours388.50
Total Contact hours11.50
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)400.00

Private study

The Final Year Project is based on your self-directed research and writing, but you will be provided with a range of guidance and resources to support your work. You will be allocated a supervisor, who will read drafts of your work and with whom you will have individual supervisions throughout the year (1.5 hours in total). You will take part in a series of peer-group seminars, and in a number of research workshops (some focusing on particular fields of study, some for textual editors, and some for creative writers). There will be a programme of lectures, and you will be encouraged to attend some of the many research events that take place in the School.

These activities will account for the vast majority of hours of study for this module.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

The monitoring of student progress on this module will take place through the required submission of unassessed pieces of work to supervisors at strategic points during the module.

These will include a proposal, a formal plan of work and title, and a writing sample, as well as oral reports on progress.

There are mechanisms in place to allow individual supervisors to flag up potential problems with individual students.

Methods of assessment


Coursework
Assessment typeNotes% of formal assessment
AssignmentEssay/Annotated edition/Creative Writing portfolio of 10,000 words100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

There is no reading list for this module

Last updated: 30/04/2019

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