2019/20 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL5845M Writing Identities: Criticism, Creativity, Practice

30 creditsClass Size: 10

Module manager: Dr Jay Prosser
Email: J.D.Prosser@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2019/20

Pre-requisite qualifications

As for MA programme

Co-requisites

ENGL5841M

Studying English: Research Methods

This module is not approved as an Elective

Objectives

Writing Identities: Criticism, Creativity, Practice aims to introduce students to historical and current debates around identity, a wide range of modes for writing identities, and aspects of the writing profession via those who are working in the profession. As the core module for the MA in Creative Writing and Critical Life, this module aims to build a bridge between the critical and creative practices. The module is therefore taught by visiting speakers alongside course tutors in seminars and workshops in which tutors/speakers will present on their own perspective on writing identity. These will provide the opportunity to work closely with assigned texts and students’ own writing with a view to developing their critical and creative practices.

Learning outcomes
To study a general history and theory of identity in its shifting conceptualisation from the Romantic self to poststructuralist subjectivity;
To examine a variety of creative modes for writing identities;
To introduce matters relating to the writing profession particularly with regards to the subject of identity.

Skills outcomes
Masters (Taught), Postgraduate Diploma & Postgraduate Certificate students will have had the opportunity to acquire the following abilities as defined in the modules specified for the programme:
- the skills necessary to undertake a higher research degree and/or for employment in a higher capacity;
- evaluating their own achievement and that of others;
- self direction and effective decision making;
- independent learning and the ability to work in a way which ensures continuing professional development;
- to engage critically in the development of professional/disciplinary boundaries and norms.

Syllabus

Is there a subject more prominent, variegated, multivalent – and complicated – than identity? In a world in which borders are increasingly transgressed (between private and public, between human and digital, between genders and cultures, as well as between places), identities are ever more topical and ever more productive of new forms for representing them. This module, which serves as the core module for the MA programme in Creative Writing and Critical Life, examines some of these new, exciting, and often experimental, forms of writing, as well as providing students with a broad critical history of the subject of identity.

Conjoining the critical study of identity together with creative practices for writing identities and for disseminating new writing, the module is organised into three parts. Part 1 studies the critical history and theory of identity, indicated in the historical shifts in terms which form our subheadings: from self, to identity, to subjectivity. Students will read in this first part excerpts from an array of identity theories, including psychoanalysis, gender theory, postcolonialism and postructuralist theory. In part 2, students will study four critically-acclaimed, recent texts which deploy and develop different genres for capturing an increasingly complex sense of identity: translation; life writing; poetry; and fiction (although the texts’ shared concern with innovation results in transgeneric qualities, including faction, creative non-fiction, and auto/biography). Part 3 of the module focuses on matters relating to the dissemination and profession of writing on the subject of identity, including digital identities/online presentation and publicity, options for publication, and forming relations in the writing industry, for example with literary agents, editors, and writing and reading groups.

In accordance with the module which seeks to bring together registers typically kept apart, the assessment will require students to produce a critical essay alongside creative work (from an array of options) and in addition a short weekly blog.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Workshop	3	2.00	6.00
Seminar	7	2.00	14.00
Private study hours			280.00
Total Contact hours			20.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			300.00

Private study

In common with other School of English MA modules, students enrolled on this module will spend the majority of their study time pursuing private study: reading set texts and secondary reading; pursuing additional library research; writing responses weekly to texts and seminar topics for their reading blogs; producing both creative writing and essay drafts and editing these before final submission; and reading other students’ drafts and preparing peer feedback.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

As well as summative assessment at the end of the module, there will also be formative assessment which will facilitate monitoring of students’ progress in the following formats. 1. Every week the tutor will read students’ weekly reading blog entries which they will write in preparation for each seminar. 2. Drafts of students’ creative work will be read by the tutor and the workshops will provide formative feedback to students. 3. With regards to the critical essay, students will be asked to submit in advance to the tutor for approval and feedback their title/question and a bibliography.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	1 x 2000 word essay	45.00
Reflective log	150 words per week for 1st 7 weeks (seminars) = 1050 words total	10.00
Portfolio	1 x 2000 word portfolio (or equivalent word count if, for example, format is poetry)	45.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

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

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 30/04/2019

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