Creative writing
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| 5 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) | |
| End-of-course assessment | No residential school |
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This course is available for study in the countries shown.
Summary
This course takes a student-centred approach to creative writing, offering a range of strategies to help you develop as a writer. The emphasis is highly practical, with exercises and activities designed to ignite and sustain the writing impulse. The five-part course starts by showing ways of harnessing the unconscious and building a daily discipline. This is followed by demonstration and practice of the three most popular forms – writing fiction, writing poetry, and life writing. The concluding part aims to demystify the world of agents and publishers, teaching you how to revise and present your work to a professional standard.
Course content
This course is suitable for new writers as well as for those with some experience who would like to develop their skills. It will help you to identify your strengths and interests as a writer by giving you the opportunity to write in a range of genres: fiction, poetry, biography and autobiography. The emphasis is on finding your own directions and styles through experiment, practice and constructive feedback. The course is suitable not only for aspiring writers, but for anyone with a strong interest in reading and writing, who would like to deepen their understanding of the creative process.
The course is structured around five parts. The introductory part, The Creative Process, focuses on developing good writerly habits. It examines a range of strategies including clustering, morning pages, and keeping a writer’s notebook, as well as statements from writers about their own approaches and practices.
Part 2, Writing Fiction, introduces the main aspects of narrative including story structure and genre; showing and telling; character; point of view; and place and time.
In Part 3, Writing Poetry, the role and function of poetry are discussed. The main formal strategies and poetic devices are introduced, including lines; line breaks; enjambment; rhyme and half-rhyme; varieties of metre; stanzas; and forms.
Part 4, Life Writing, looks at biography and autobiography. Some of the central issues raised by life writing are discussed, including the nature of memory and forgetting, the performance of the self, and the representation of others. There are suggestions for finding subject matter, with an emphasis on the importance of memory.
The final part, Going Public, outlines the requirement for professional presentation of manuscripts and an understanding of audience and market.
At the core of the course is a Workbook that takes you week-by-week through the five parts. The emphasis is very much on practice through guided activities, supported by supplementary articles and literary examples including poems, prose extracts and complete stories to illustrate particular methods or strategies. Four audio CDs contain interviews with writers talking about their own inspirations and methods, and with representatives of the publishing industry.
Online tutor-group forums enable peer discussion of some of your work and allow tutors to make general points of relevance to the whole group.
Your tutor will support you through assignment feedback, and through five online tutorials. Your electronic tuition is supported by two face-to-face day schools. Your tutor also offers general support throughout the course, as you progress through the Workbook, which is the principal guide to your learning.
For further information visit the A215 website.
Entry
You are not necessarily expected to have taken any other Open University courses before this one. It is, however, a Level 2 course and you may find it helpful to have some experience of study at Level 1, either with the Start Writing suite of 10-point courses or with The arts past and present (AA100) . Experience of creative writing courses, provided by adult education departments or by organisations like the Open College of the Arts or the Arvon Foundation is also relevant.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Qualifications
A215 is a compulsory course in our
A215 is a optional course in our:
- BA (Honours) Humanities (B03)
- BA (Honours) Humanities (B03) (with Literature)
- BA (Honours) Literature (B02)
It can also count towards most of our other degrees at bachelors level, where it is suitable for a BA. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this course can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.
If you have a disability or additional requirement
The course materials are available on CD-ROM in ‘ReadOut’ format with navigational facilities. The books are available in a comb-bound format. Written transcripts are available for the audio-visual material. Large print versions of the course material can be provided on request. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.
If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our booklet Meeting Your Needs which you can download or request from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
You can also find information about accessible course materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Course materials
What's included
Course books, other printed materials, audio CDs, online forum, course website.
You will need
Audio-CD player.
Computing requirements
This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.
You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2002 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you with the course material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance both in online forums and by telephone or email. There will be two day-schools that you are encouraged, but not obliged, to attend. Teaching will also be via an online forum, for which full guidance will be provided. Where the day-schools are held will depend on the distribution of students taking the course.
Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.
One of the TMAs will be double-length – and an independent project which will form the end-of-course assessment.
The end-of-course assessment can only be submitted on paper.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in October 2010. We expect it to be available once a year.
How to register
To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.
About this page
An undergraduate course in Arts and Humanities.
Study explained
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- Study explained
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Student Reviews
If you want to write, take this course. I was shocked to discover that I am...a poet. This course was ...
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A thoroughly enjoyable yet challenging course. A215 is less academic and much more creative than the other courses on my ...
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