Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA English Literature

Explore traditional English literature alongside post-colonial literatures, cultural theory, creative writing, and film.

  • Duration: 3 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: Q320 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Course unit details:
Creative Writing: Fiction

Course unit fact file
Unit code ENGL20002
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This course will teach you to become a more skilled writer, editor and close reader of fiction, with emphasis on the literary short story. In most weeks half of the class will be a seminar to focus upon an aspect of fiction-writing (typically including discussion of a story, close reading of extracts from a variety of fiction, and writing exercises). The other half will consist of a workshop to critique fiction submissions from the class (about three per session). Each student will write two stories to be critiqued in workshop, one of which you will choose to submit later for assessment, after continuing work on it. Each time you submit fiction to the class you will have a twenty-minute one-to-one tutorial to discuss next steps to improve your story.

From week 4 onwards, you will workshop your classmates’ stories, with each student submitting fiction twice over the semester. You will annotate other students’ submissions carefully, providing line edits and an overall summary to outline the story’s strengths and weaknesses, and your suggestions for how to make the story better.

 

Aims

Aims


• To identify and develop writing, reading and editorial skills in fiction by means of exercises and engagement with new texts in workshop context.


• To foster powers of critical thinking and skills in written and verbal forms of expression.


• To encourage students to join in productive group-work in a workshop context in order to reflect on their own learning and to assist with the learning processes of other students.


• To provide students with skills that are both related to the discipline and transferable to appropriate professional contexts.


 

Learning outcomes


Learning outcomes

By the end of the course unit the successful student will have demonstrated:


• Writing, reading and basic editorial skills in fiction.


• A level of critical and analytical thinking and skills in written expression appropriate to work that will form part of the final degree assessment.


• Confidence in presenting his or her own work, and critical skills in discussing the work of fellow students in constructive ways.


• An ability to engage in group-work in order to reflect on and develop his or her own learning and to assist with the learning processes of other students.


• Skills that are both related to the discipline and transferable to appropriate professional contexts.

Assessment methods

Method Weight
Portfolio 100%

Feedback methods

Written and face-to-face (upon arrangement)

Recommended reading

Students will be required to read the contributions of fellow-members of the group.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Practical classes & workshops 33
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Luke Brown Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Other information

Entry to this course is by competition only. Places will be offered on the basis of samples of creative work submitted during the second semester of year 1. Those who have been successful in their application for the course will have been informed before pre-registration.
 

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