Creative Writing and English Literature BA (Hons)

In year 1, you will be introduced to ideas around creative writing and reading, thinking about image and theme as well as character and voice. There will be opportunities to learn about more theoretical elements of literature as well as the practical elements of working in the arts and humanities and honing creative practice.

Year two enables you to enhance your critical and creative processes, developing a professional approach to writing, whilst also exploring creative and literary careers more fully with a range of employability modules.

Please note, for Semester 1:

If LIT2119 is chosen in S1, WRI2024 must be chosen in S2.

If WRI2023 is chosen in S1, LIT2059 must be chosen in S2.

Please note, for Semester 2:

If WRI2024 is chosen in S2, LIT2119 must be chosen in S1.

If LIT2059 is chosen in S2, WRI2023 must be chosen in S1.

Year 3 allows you to hone your craft and to focus more on your own areas of interest, fine tuning what you’ve learned in years 1 and 2. You will also be able to choose between a creative or critical dissertation.

How you'll study

Class teaching and learning for Creative Writing modules is centred on the writer’s workshop, where there is a strong emphasis on participation and the creative community.

You will learn the habits of a professional writer, including keeping a writer’s journal, and engage in research and observation, re-drafting and editing, and presenting work to a high standard. Self and peer appraisal are important, as are paired and small group work. All modules are underpinned by a sense of an audience – ranging from a student’s seminar group through electronic and paper publication to performance.

Teaching and learning for English Literature modules includes lectures and seminars, workshops, group activities, independent research and our online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). As well as module and seminar tutors, personal tutors and year tutors will support you through your studies.

How you'll be assessed

Creative Writing modules are assessed by coursework, which includes creative practice, critical practice, essays and reflection on the whole process.

Assessment of English Literature modules involves a mixture of coursework and examinations with emphasis placed on work produced in your own time or formally presented in class. Typically, you can expect to be assessed on essays, short analyses, reports and close readings, oral presentations and group work.

Who will be teaching you

You’ll be taught by tutors who are practising, professional writers. They include widely produced and published fiction writers, poets and dramatists. The programme team are also practising researchers and scholars, publishing work in a variety of academic and literary journals. This means that you will be taught by people who know how to succeed in the creative industries as well as academia.

There is also a dedicated and approachable team of English Literature tutors who are active in research in all taught subject areas, publishing books and articles on a regular basis. Several have been successful in winning national research awards from bodies such as the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and The Leverhulme Trust.

As a Creative Writing student at Edge Hill University, you will have the opportunity to attend workshops and readings with a variety of guest writers at the Arts Centre. Close links have also been established with Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre and the innovative Shakespeare North, as well as other poetry venues across Merseyside.