Masterclass: Creative Nonfiction Course Descriptor

Course Overview

Creative nonfiction is the contemporary name for a type of writing that has been practised for many centuries. Its subjects and themes are taken from real life, but it employs a range of literary techniques to captivate its readers. In the 1960s, Tom Wolfe coined the term ‘literary journalism’ to name a broad range of subjects rooted in facts, experiences, and real events, rendered with a creative sensibility. This wide-ranging form also includes memoir, biography, travel writing, nature writing and the lyric essay, among many others.
In this course, students will explore this creative form through class discussions, topical readings and interactive learning activities and writing challenges. Students will also receive regular peer and tutor editorial feedback in creative nonfiction workshops. Writers will be encouraged to identify their creative nonfiction niche while also becoming adaptable practitioners of the craft. Students will learn to find ‘story’ in the humblest of origins, turn any subject into a compelling narrative and explore the many possibilities for publication in this field.

Learning Outcomes

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

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of learning resources to orientate and engage students in their studies. All scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are delivered online via the VLE. These may include:

• Lectures
• Readings
• Learning Activities
• Discussion Forums
• Creative Writing Workshops
• Webinars

Faculty also hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback individually.
Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.
Indicative total learning hours for this course: 300 – typically including induction, course activities, consolidation or revision and assessment activity hours.

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching activities delivered via the VLE.

Summative Assessments

Indicative assessment elements:

• Set Exercises typically comprise assessment of students’ editorial contributions during a set period (e.g. in Creative Writing Workshops).
• Portfolio submissions typically comprise at least one original creative work and an accompanying critical or professional practice component.

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Chee, Alexander (ed.), The Best American Essays (Mariner Books, 2022)
• Gerard, Philip and Carolyn Forche (eds), Writing Creative Nonfiction (Story Press, 2001)
• Gutkind, Lee and Annie Dillard (eds.), In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction (W.W. Norton and Company, 2005)
• Kidder, Tracy and Richard Todd, Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction (Random House, 2013)
• Lapote, Philip, To Show and To Tell (Free Press, 2013)
• Miller, Brenda and Suzanne Paola, Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, 3rd edn (McGraw-Hill, 2019)
• Morley, David, The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Creative nonfiction forms
• Research practice
• Reading as a writer
• Writing across audiences
• Rhetorical writing
• Professional applications