Module ENGL2851: Writing Horrors

Department: English Studies

ENGL2851: Writing Horrors

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To enable students to read and analyse horror fiction with a writer's eyes, with a particular sensitivity towards style.
• To introduce students to the array of genre tropes and literary techniques available to the writer of horror fiction, and also a descriptive vocabulary for discussing these techniques.
• To enable students to produce (i.e. draft and edit) original pieces of horror fiction with a full awareness of the technical and aesthetic choices made in the process of writing.
• To analyse the creative writing of students alongside extracts from literary texts, revealing close reading as a method for learning how to write, and, vice versa, creative writing as a method for understanding both the stylistic qualities and historical content of works in the horror genre.
• To introduce students to a range of horror fiction that showcases a wealth of styles.

Content

• Students will approach a range of authors who have worked within, or drawn upon, the horror genre from the perspective of both a student of literature and a creative writer on the lookout for usable techniques. These authors may include Sheridan La Fanu, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Bowen, Shirley Jackson, Robert Aickman, Stephen King, Thomas Ligotti, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, A.S. Byatt, Carmen Maria Machado, and Stephen Graham Jones.
• Seminars will be structured around close readings of multiple literary extracts. We will focus on point-of-view, structure, prose style, some sub-genres (e.g. folk horror; the cautionary tale), and on some of the tropes and themes associated with horror. We will discuss the way the genre has often been used to promulgate bigoted fears and assumptions, but has more recently been reinvented as a site of more thoughtful engagement with these issues (e.g. in the work of Morrison, Jones, and Machado, or the cinema of Jordan Peele). From these examples, students will learn techniques they can use in their own writing, and think about the interaction between prose style and their chosen subject-matter.
• Several seminars will include a writing challenge, allowing students to put what they have learned into practice. The final seminar will take the form of a writing workshop in which all students submit some original horror fiction for discussion and critique by the rest of the students on the module. Like the other Creative Writing BA modules, each group is capped at ten students.

Learning Outcomes

• students are expected to acquire a critical awareness of, and a descriptive vocabulary for discussing, the stylistic techniques of horror fiction.
• students are expected to acquire an awareness of the aesthetic decisions made by writers and their relationship to matters of intellectual and historical context.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated • the ability to compose original works of fiction and delineate their aesthetic aims

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical and creative skills in the close reading and analysis of texts and the creation of original prose fiction, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to create, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; it also tests the ability to present word-processed work. In individual Special Topics, the assessment may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The feedback that is provided after the formative assessment allows students to reflect on the convenor’s comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for Assessment 1.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

At the beginning of Epiphany term, students submit a formative portfolio of 2,000 words of prose fiction, and have an individual 15-minute consultation session in which they receive feedback on this work, and discuss their plans for Assessment 1. Students may redraft and expand upon some or all of this formative portfolio as part of Assessment 1, or they may choose to submit entirely new work for their summative.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University