module specification

This module explores the creative potentials of digital platforms and tools for writers within the postdigital era. It stimulates students to experiment with how their own writing practice and ideas about literature, storytelling and persuasive communication might continue to take new directions in response to the many ongoing innovations in digital media and their cultural impacts.

Aims

• You will extend your own writing practice in relation to digital innovations of narrative and rhetorical technique, form and effect.
• You will develop your technical, theoretical and experiential understanding of the current state of the field of digital forms of creative and professional writing.
• You will think critically about dominant cultures associated with various digital tools and platforms.
• You will enhance your range and critical self-awareness as a writer in contemporary creative and/or professional domains.

None
Available for Study Abroad? YES

The syllabus will develop students’ knowledge and skills as writers in relation to digital platforms, tools and associated genres, both established and emerging. These might include, for example: multimodal and interactive narratives, stories for mobile devices, game-like narratives, writing collaboratively and in social media. (LO1, LO4)

Students will be introduced to selected digital platforms and tools and reflect on the role of digital media in relation to their own experience, purposes and goals as a professional writer/creative practitioner (LO5). Students will consider historical as well as contemporary examples, and theoretical as well as practical approaches, so as to develop their wider critical and contextual understanding of postdigital storytelling. (LO2, LO3)

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks. The module is taught by a programme of weekly sessions over the semester. The sessions typically combine workshops, writing practice, seminar discussion, and research tasks. Students are required to reflect critically on their learning and on their personal creative practice, through peer and tutor feedback, workshops, and tutorials. The module may include guest speakers. Independent learning will typically include guided reading, weekly research and writing tasks, set texts and preparation for seminars/workshops. Students are encouraged to carry out independent research and incorporate it critically into their writings.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework. A blended learning strategy will be employed to enhance the learning experience, facilitate communication between students and tutors and develop collaboration among students. Activities, especially workshopping, will foster peer-to-peer community-building, support for learning, and reflective learning. Students’ final coursework will include an analytic commentary in which they reflect on the development of their work and its publishability.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress through their programme, to understand the professional environment of their discipline, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On successful completion of this module students will be able to:

Subject specific skills
LO1 plan, develop and produce, using digital platforms and tools, an original piece of creative or professional writing, or audio-visual production with a substantial written element, that balances creative experimentation with publishing considerations;

Knowledge and understanding
LO2 articulate conceptual knowledge and evaluative understanding of an area of digital writing practice;

Cognitive intellectual abilities
LO3 reflect critically on the role of digital media in shaping contemporary literature and culture within the postdigital era;

Transferable skills
LO4 learn independently for the purposes of continuing professional development;

Behaviours and values
LO5 act as socially responsible practitioners/professionals in their use of digital platforms.

Students will produce a portfolio addressing the module’s learning outcomes through the tasks and criteria as set out in the assessment brief. These will be detailed at the start of the module.

Typically students will conceive, plan, design and produce an original 4000-word piece of writing, or audio-visual production with a written element, using digital tools and informed by the syllabus. The coursework may take many different forms, reflecting students’ individual interests within this large and constantly changing field. The coursework will be accompanied by a 1000-word academic reflective commentary showing contextual and conceptual understanding.

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