ENG5783 - Life Writing

Objectives:

Assessment tasks are designed to enable students to demonstrate the Learning and Employability outcomes for the relevant level of study. Level Learning Outcomes are embedded in the assessment task(s) at that level. This enables a more integrated view of overall student performance at each level.

Content:

Semester 1: Autobiography
Reading, analysis and discussion of published texts across a range of autobiographical forms and styles will inform and develop the students’ exploration of ‘writing the self’ through their own writing in creative exercises and the production of a portfolio of original autobiographical writing.

Semester 2: Biography
Students will apply and adapt what they have learned about autobiography to writing about the lives of others, working with published texts, writing exercises and methods for researching and representing life stories. This will culminate in the researching and writing of a biographical narrative on a subject of each student’s choosing.

The module as a whole will reflect the make-up of the cohort, so that all students, including BAME students, international students, students of different sexualities, students with disabilities, and students from different class backgrounds, will not only write about their experiences in the autobiography strand, they will of course also bring their racial, cultural and other life perspectives to the weekly group discussions of autobiography as well as biography.

Learning and Teaching Information:

Seminars/workshops
Hours: 50
Intended Group Size:20

Guided independent study
Hours: 250

Further details relating to assessment
There will be an early opportunity for some formative exercises that will help unpack the assessment, clarifying the nature of the task and the marking criteria. This will come through weekly writing tasks that enable formative assessment of work-in-progress. On a rota basis, students will read out their drafts in class and receive verbal feedback from the tutor and fellow students. The tasks will provide students with a range of material from which to select work to develop, revise and edit ahead of submission for summative assessment.

For Semester 1 assessment, students will study examples of autobiography and then write their own.

For Semester 2 students will study examples of biography, and then research someone and write a biography of them. It is expected that the latter will involve more research, which is the rationale for allocating a greater loading.

Assessment:

001 Portfolio-autobiography; 2,000 words/equivalent; end of sem 1 40%
002 Portfolio-biography; 3,000 words/equivalent; end of sem 2 60%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Richard Storer
Level - 5
Credit Value - 30
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 5YL

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