Module: CW7040-30 Writing Workshop 1: Writing for Young People

Level: 7

Credit Value: 30

Module Tutor: Lucy Christopher

Module Tutor Contact Details: l.christopher@bathspa.ac.uk

1.Brief description and aims of module

This workshop will investigate the range of possible writing for young people in terms of styles, age-ranges and formats. It is also an induction into the writing workshop experience that is the heart of this course. You will practise the critical, communicative skills needed to build a supportive, rigorous and genuinely useful community of writers for young people. You will bring excerpts from work-in-progress to the group, and learn to make full use of the constructive feedback you receive in the process of editing and re-drafting your work. You will experiment as a writer for young people of all ages.

2.Outline syllabus

• Workshops focus entirely on students’ creative writing. You will bring creative work – short single pieces or excerpts from a longer work in progress – for close discussion by the group, week by week. This first trimester workshop will investigate the range of possibilities in form, style and age-range, for the writer for young people, and encourage you to take risks and experiment with writing for different ages.

Topics covered may include:

• the language, concepts, interests and range of reference appropriate to different ages of young reader;
• the principles of story making (e.g. plotting, character, dialogue, the elements of comfort and uncertainty) and how they apply at different ages;
• using your own childhood experiences in writing;
• writing the text and conceiving the design of picture books;
• experiments with view point, tense, narrative distance
• writing historical fiction and fantasy; world-building in writing for young people
• setting and place
• issues of craft/technique: structure, language, style, rhythm, voice

3.Teaching and learning activities

• Students attend seminar-workshop for three hours each week.
• You will be expected to write and redraft creative writing; either self-starting pieces or assignments set by the tutor, and bring your drafts for critical attention in the group.
• You will be encouraged to develop your reading outside class times and come prepared to participate in workshop sessions.
• You will practise and extend your skills in giving and responding to constructive criticism of creative work.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work
• Description: A folder of up to 2,500 words of creative writing for young audiences plus 500 words of Reflective Commentary
• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work
• Description: Up to 5000 words of Work-in-Progress, plus 500 words of Reflective Commentary
• % Weighting: 50%