ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE - 2025/6
Module code: ELI2035
Module Overview
This module explores the varied formal and technical challenges facing creative writers, examining the affordances and constraints of different modes of writing and the cultural, historical and theoretical contexts which impact upon how texts (including prose fiction, poetry, screenplays and dramatic scripts) are written and understood, and to translate this understanding into more effective creative practice.
Module provider
Literature & Languages
Module Leader
TEO Sharlene (Lit & Langs)
Number of Credits: 15
ECTS Credits: 7.5
Framework: FHEQ Level 5
Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A
Overall student workload
Independent Learning Hours: 95
Lecture Hours: 11
Seminar Hours: 22
Guided Learning: 11
Captured Content: 11
Module Availability
Semester 1
Prerequisites / Co-requisites
None
Module content
Each week of this module will focus on a different topic or aspect of writing creatively. These topics are likely to include:
setting the scene
establishing character
dialogue
handling time
editing and revising your work
focalisation
dramatic writing
epistolary fiction
rhetorical devices
effective imagery
Some sessions will build on skills you may have begun to build and ideas you may have encountered in previous Creative Writing modules, other sessions seek to introduce you to new techniques and modes of writing and to have you ask new questions about how and why we write
Assessment pattern
| Assessment type | Unit of assessment | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | CREATIVE WRITING SUBMISSION (2000 WORDS) AND REFLECTIVE CRITICAL COMMENTARY (500 WORDS) | 100 |
Alternative Assessment
NA
Assessment Strategy
The assessment strategy is designed to provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate
* your technical accomplishment in your chosen branch(es) of creative practice
* your ability to reflect insightfully upon your own work, and locate it productively in relation to the themes of the module and to its literary, cultural, critical and theoretical context more generally
Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of a portfolio composed of:
* Creative Writing submission (2000 words)
* Reflective Critical Commentary (500 words)
To be submitted at a date near the end of the semester.
Formative assessment and feedback
You will all have the opportunity to receive formative feedback in the form of:
* Peer and tutor verbal feedback in class on work produced during writing exercises, which may be developed for inclusion in the Creative Writing portfolio.
* Peer and tutor feedback during two workshop sessions in the middle and near the end of the semester, in which they have a chance to read and discuss their work (verbal and/or written)
* Written feedback on up to 250 words of material from the module convenor
Module aims
- The module aims to: develop your confidence and experience in producing engaging and effective creative writing
- heighten your awareness of the stylistic and technical considerations involved in creative writing
- enhance your ability to examine your own work critically and to help you develop personalised and effective habits of editing and revision
- help you develop the ability to formulate your creative aims more clearly and effectively
- help you locate your own creative practice more fully in relation to it literary, historical, theoretical and cultural contexts
Learning outcomes
| Attributes Developed | ||
| 001 | By the end of the module students will be able to: show evidence of increased confidence and familiarity with the techniques of creative writing in prose, poetry and dramatic writing | KPT |
| 002 | Demonstrate an enhanced ability to produce lucid and critically-informed commentary on your own creative writing ¿ articulating some or all of its literary/social/historical/generic contexts and what makes the piece both significant and original as a piece of writing ¿ a valuable skill for writers both professionally and intellectually | KCPT |
| 003 | Demonstrate fuller understanding of the contextual forces shaping what we write and how and of the creative affordances and constraints of different media ¿ in each lecture you¿ll be looking at pieces of prose, poetry and dramatic script and asked to be able to articulate and reflect upon the differences between each and the challenges they offer. You¿ll also be able to gain practical experience of writing in different modes in your seminars. | KCPT |
Attributes Developed
C - Cognitive/analytical
K - Subject knowledge
T - Transferable skills
P - Professional/Practical skills
Methods of Teaching / Learning
The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:
Introduce you to a range of technical considerations in the composition of creative prose, poetry, dramatic script and screenplay. It is also designed to encourage and enable you to experiment with different writing techniques (and modes of writing) and to reflect in a historically, theoretically and critically informed manner upon your own work and on the writing of others. It is also designed to encourage you to discuss and evaluate different technical decisions made during the creative process and to reflect upon the implications and effects of these decisions.
The learning and teaching methods include:
* Lectures (11 hours) – These will introduce you to a particular mode or technique of topic, and present you with examples with a historically, generically and culturally diverse range of writers have responded to a particular topic or writing challenge.
* Workshops (22 hours) – These involve both discussion of texts and ideas and practical exercises and the presentation of creative work to the group in response to the topic and the texts you have looked at in the lectures and are also an opportunity to receive and provide formative feedback on your creative writing from your peers as well as from your tutor. You will be an active learner, undertaking a writing exercise in each two-hour seminar group, offering work to the group for peer and tutor feedback and being actively involved in formulating productive and sensitive feedback for others.
Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.
Reading list
https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ELI2035
Other information
|
Surrey's Curriculum Framework is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills and capabilities in the following areas: It is designed to help build Resilience and Resourcefulness: By encouraging students to share their work in class for verbal feedback and written feedback from peers and tutor, and then to build experience responding in productive ways to feedback. This is both a transferrable skill and a vital professional one for writers (and many other careers). By offering feedback to others you will contribute actively to the learning experience of the whole group, and by learning to respond to feedback (and to evaluate it) you will be developing habits of resilience which are vital for writers and in almost any other profession. Global and Cultural Capabilities: This is a module explicitly designed to build cultural and global intelligence, presenting you with unfamiliar forms of writing, encouraging you to think historically about literary forms, and introducing you to authors and texts from a broad range of global cultural backgrounds. Both lectures and seminars will invite you to reflect on the ways in which writers have engaged with questions of cultural difference (for instance, between themselves and their imagined readers, or by addressing multiple imagined readerships at once) – and students are also able to engage actively with such questions via the workshop exercises and class discussions. Employability: This module is designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills to write at a professional level in a variety of modes (prose fiction, poetry, writing for stage and for screen). It is also designed to help you develop their ability to express themselves clearly and precisely and respond in a focused and thoughtful way to the writing and ideas of others – both verbally and on the page. These are skills which employers on the PTY programme have consistently praised in our students and explicitly linked to the programme in PTY placement visits. This module is also designed to improve and broaden your knowledge of different authors, modes of writing and techniques of writing, and to enable you to experiment with some of these modes and techniques yourself. |
Programmes this module appears in
| Programme | Semester | Classification | Qualifying conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Literature and Spanish BA (Hons) | 1 | Optional | A weighted aggregate mark of 40% is required to pass the module |
| English Literature and French BA (Hons) | 1 | Optional | A weighted aggregate mark of 40% is required to pass the module |
| English Literature BA (Hons) | 1 | Optional | A weighted aggregate mark of 40% is required to pass the module |
Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.