English and Creative Writing BA (Hons)

Course overview

This course explores the wonderful breadth, depth, nuance and creative potential of English language.

• Sharpen your writing skills, free your imagination, let your creative juices flow and be inspired in the company of poets, playwrights, publishers, screenwriters and novelists.

• Hone your skills as a professional writer and graduate with the transferable skills, evidence and experience you need to step in to a wide range of exciting careers.

Why you should study this course

Studying English is viewed as a traditional subject with a long history of providing fantastic academic credentials.

• This course combines stylistics, language and literary theory with creative practice to help you understand the theories behind writing, understand your writing style and voice, and improve your understanding of how language is used in society. It also offers a vocational element.
• Our course combines humanities with creative freedom, allowing you to explore emerging genres such as games narratives and graphic storytelling. It has innovative, open and participatory content that includes digital streamed performances and online workshops pitched at schools.
• This course aims to have global student collaborations focusing on intercultural narration, and includes digital entrepreneurship, which is the monetising of creative work via YouTube and social media, meaning that students work towards publication-ready outputs.
• We have significant links with a wide variety of employers and media practitioners, such as Writing West Midlands and Theatre Absolute, many of whom offer professional experience opportunities².
• There are opportunities to participate in an exciting range of educational and cultural field trips², for example, to view modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s work at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company (RSC) in Stratford-upon-Avon. There may be some additional costs for optional trips and opportunities, and such trips may also be subject to availability.

Careers and opportunities

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

• the ability to generate and develop original creative work
• an advanced range of editorial skills
• advanced critical knowledge and understanding of literary works and genres from selected periods
• the ability to critically analyse works of fiction and non-fiction, interrogate and evaluate the arguments and theories of others and to formulate and construct critical arguments of one’s own
• the ability to utilise digital tools and technologies to practise original subject-based research and demonstrate the ability to be active, engaged participants in the era of online communication
• a broad understanding of the history, evolution, spread, and nature of the English language. This includes how the English language can vary and change according to context, identity and social interaction
• knowledge and skills acquired on the course are necessary for a range of postgraduate study and/or employment opportunities and personal aspirations.

Embedded employability will be delivered through an optional placement year², alongside skills and core competency development for all students throughout the course.

You will even have the opportunity to have your radio dramas potentially broadcast by the BBC and to produce the CovWords Creative Writing magazine (online and printed)². You can engage in submitting work for publication and enter competitions. CovWords exists in multiple formats: as a print version, as a YouTube site for digital performance and as a website which includes conventional and multimodal texts such as poems, stories, digital picture books and radio dramas.