The aims of this module are: To give students the opportunity to consider how critically-informed creative practice engages with a global society, social justice, political and environmental issues and human rights; to introduce how creative and critical forms can complement one another, with a particular focus on textual practice; to develop facilities in producing creative writing in a critical context across poetry, prose, drama and other forms of writing; to develop a greater theoretical understanding of matters pertaining to socially-engaged writing; to foster independence in creative and critical thinking, alongside reading of contemporary writing in a variety of genre and media.

(LO1) Students will have the ability to engage with a variety of advanced technical and formal approaches to socially-engaged creative writing in a critical context, and to constructively evaluate their own writing.

(LO2) Students will be able to demonstrate an advanced compositional techniques and methods and a sophisticated awareness of the range of options available to them as writers.

(LO3) Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the drafting process and its importance in relation to creative writing.

(LO4) Students will be able to develop sophisticated arguments that reflect social engagement through creative writing in a critical context.

(S1) Students will gain advanced compositional skills in creative writing in a critical context.

(S2) Students will gain advanced communication, interpersonal and communication skills.

(S3) Students will develop resilience and independence in the production of their own creative writing.

(S4) Students will gain the ability to use IT and other relevant tools to present written work to a professional standard.

(S5) Students will gain the ability to handle complex information in a critical, creative and self-reflective manner.

(S6) Students will gain organisation skills in managing time and workloads, and in meeting deadlines.

(S7) Students will gain advanced critical and analytical skills in relation diverse forms of discourse.

Students will be introduced to a range of approaches to producing socially-engaged, creative writing in a critical context, from engaging with archival material to fashioning hybrid forms. Authors covered may include Doireen Ní Ghríofa, Claudia Rankine, Olga Ravan, Geoff Dyer, Olivia Laing, Colm Tóibín, Jenn Ashworth, and Maggie Nelson. Fortnightly seminars will combine discussions of critically inflected creative texts and theoretical approaches to social activism, alongside writing exercises and the study of practices involved in critically-inflected creative writing.

Seminars (face to face, or online as appropriate): 12 hours. Attendance recorded.
Unscheduled directed student hours (independent study): 138.

The majority of teaching will be delivered face to face on campus. Online delivery will be used to complement the on campus delivery and where technology affords a better learning experience.