Course Overview

Course Overview

We get our news from social media. We start and maintain relationships online. We visit galleries and go to the theatre while riding the bus. So why does creative writing still cling to the sanctity of the page? Actually, it doesn’t: Instapoetry is creating an inclusive and accessible community; Video Poetry is questioning the relationship between movement, performance, and language; Interactive Fiction immerses readers in a plotline like never before. A growing number of poets and storytellers have not only adapted to digital platforms but innovated new forms of expression through them. This is your opportunity to join them. ‘Electric Frontiers’ introduces you to a broad range of digital creative writing platforms, helps you develop your own ideas through exploration, and explores digital publishing opportunities.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage you in your studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures and Workshops 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR

Directed study 

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

The summative assessment gives students the opportunity to apply new technological skills to produce their own original digital creative writing artefact, and to situate its production in both a creative and critical context in an accompanying report.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Barnard, Josie, The Multimodal Writer: Creative Writing Across Genres and Media (London: Red Globe Press, 2019)
• Dastidar, Rishi (ed.), The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Leicester: Nine Arches Press, 2019)
• Goldsmith, Kenneth, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011)
• Jeneen, Naji, Digital Poetry, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
• Rettberg, Scott, Electronic Literature, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019)
• Thomas, Bronwen, Literature and Social Media (New York: Routledge, 2020)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below is used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Forms of digital creative writing.
• Training on digital creative technologies.
• Redrafting and digital development.
• Analysis of digital creative writing
• Collaborative workshops
• Experiential learning