Modules

Each level of the degree includes a single year-long creative writing module taught by creative writing practitioners and active researchers. Each of these modules must be passed in order to progress to the next level and (in the case of the final module) for you to be awarded the degree.

Year 1
In your first year, you'll take the following compulsory modules:
Explorations in Literature
Approaches to Text
Foundation Workshop in Creative Writing
Introduction to Poetry

You will also choose one of the following option modules:
Identity, Agency & Environment 2
Introduction to US Literature and Culture: America and its Discontents
Understanding Language in Use
Introduction to Comparative Literature

Year 2
In your second year, you'll take the following compulsory modules:
Creative Writing Workshop
Goldsmiths’ Social Change Module

You'll then take 2 or 3 modules from an approved list. This list is published annually by the Department of English and Creative Writing, and includes the Goldsmiths Elective. This elective allows you to choose a module from a related subject in another department.

A minimum of 30 credits must be a module based on pre-1800 literature.

Examples of recent modules include:
(Re)writing America: from the nineteenth century to the present day
18th-Century Literature
Aesthetics
Black British Literature
Classical Epic and Contemporary Literature
Contemporary Indigenous Literatures: Place, Politics and Identity
Contemporary London Poetry
Discourse and Society
Literature and Power in the Victorian Period
Modern American Fiction
Moderns
Old English
Renaissance Worlds
Sensibility and Romanticism: Revolutions in Writing and Society
Shakespeare
Sociolinguistics: Language use, Variation, and Identity
Staging Women’s Voices: Feminism and Writing (Enlightenment to now)
Work Placement (English)

Year 3
In your final year, you'll take a compulsory Project Development module. With your remaining credits you'll choose from a list of optional modules produce annually by the Department, including at least 30 credits from pre-1800 literature.

Recent modules have included:
American Gothic
Approaches to Language and the Media
Caribbean Women Writers
Contemporary Indigenous Literatures: Place, Politics and Identity
Decadence
Dustbowl to Dreamfactory: American Cinema & Writing in the 1930s
Language and Gender
Modern American Fiction
Modernism and Drama (1880-1930)
Moderns
Poetry since 1945
Renaissance Worlds
Sensibility and Romanticism: Revolutions in Writing and Society
Shakespeare’s Sisters: Contemporary Women’s Writing 1960s to the present
Studies in Literature and Film
The Art of the Novel
The Emergence of Modern America: American Literature 1890–1940
Word Power: How Words are Born, Live, and Die
Work Placement (English)
Writing Lives
Writing, Culture and Society

You also choose 3 to 6 modules (worth a total of 90 credits) from the full range offered by the Department. In addition, a rotation of single-term, 15-credit modules are also available.

Modules may vary from year to year, but recent examples have included:
Caribbean Women Writers
Decadence
The Emergence of Modern America: American Literature 1890–1940
Approaches to Language and the Media
Modern American Fiction
Modern Poetry
Modernism and Drama (1880-1930)
The Art of the Novel
Oedipus: Myths, Tragedies and Theories
Postcolonial Literatures in English
Studies in Literature and Film
Renaissance Worlds
Narratives of the Great War (1923-1933)
Work Placement (English)
Professional Communication
Word Power: How Words are Born, Live, and Die
Language and Gender

Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.

Assessment methods

You’ll be assessed by a variety of methods, depending on your module choices. These include portfolios of original creative writing and critical commentaries on your work for each of the workshops, coursework portfolios, long essays and examinations (various timescales and formats).