4-Term Pathway - Foundation Certificate in Humanities - Continue to Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Literature and Creative Writing (Placement Year)

Program Description For students who've finished high school but don’t meet the entry requirements for university, a Foundation Certificate can help them gain entry to an undergraduate degree. After completing this pathway option students qualify for progression to the 1st year of an undergraduate degree at the University of Essex.

A student’s course length is determined mainly by their English language level (UKVI IELTS score). Students on all course lengths take a set of common or similar modules to gain a solid base of skills for university. Students taking a course longer than 2 terms, will take additional modules designed to improve one or more of their English language level, academic skills, and basic knowledge of particular subjects.

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - Literature and Creative Writing

All writers are first of all readers and all readers are writers, for without the active participation of readers a book is never fully realized. The BA Literature and Creative Writing offers a unique approach to the practice of reading and writing, combining more familiar British and American perspectives and readings with other influential schools of writing, from the study of tradition and myth to the innovative practice of the Workshop of Potential Literature or Oulipo in France.

Students deepen their knowledge of literary tradition across a variety of genres in order to develop their practical skills of understanding, expression and invention. Students are encouraged to pursue their love of reading and explore some of the most important novels, poems, and plays from the United States, the Caribbean and Europe while developing their own writing through a variety of planned readings and writing exercises. Students will be taught to be their own editor; critically judging their own and others’ work is invaluable in transforming their work from something good to something great.

At the beginning of the course, students receive a highly focused introduction to the study of literature alongside intensive modules in creative writing, covering myth, innovation and tradition, prose, and poetry. A module on writing for radio allows them to go into a studio and record a radio play. They then progress to look at a range of specialist topics such as:

• experimental writing and surrealism • myth and fairytale • translating novels for the screen • American literature • Shakespeare • science fiction