Revolutions: Acting and Directing
In this module, we will practically and critically explore key revolutionary moments in theatre history through close engagement with play texts. Through detailed study of the plays, we will examine what makes these texts important to our knowledge and understanding of theatre and performance and how we utilise this context and understanding in the delivery of live performance. The module will provide opportunity for us to develop our performance skills by learning new techniques for auditions, directing work, and live performance practice.
Assessment:
Solo Performance or Presentation, 60%: You will produce a 6-minute performance or presentation to demonstrate performance skills in relation to one of the two play texts studied with a detailed textual analysis.
Essay, 40%: You will write an essay to demonstrate analysing selected written work and performance theory from established authors and practitioners.
Creative Writing route - Story Craft
Narrative remains a tremendously powerful tool in all aspects of media, in marketing, advertising, gaming, as well as all aspects of fiction. This module will remind you why, and how, this is so. Main themes may include narrative arcs and structures, characterisation, pace, event, story-world, dialogue, clue-laying, revelation, and concealment, and means of involving the reader. The module will focus on storytelling and prose, looking at story structure, narrative structure, and drive, and how writers compel us to turn the pages. It will consider how the art of storytelling has adapted to its contemporary setting and the relationship between form and content. You will develop your understanding of the importance of showing rather than telling and of the capacity strong image has to carry emotional content.
Assessment:
Story Craft Proposal, 40%: You will submit a proposal illustrating your intended approachto story craft in your portfolio. Your proposal can be presented in a format of your own choosing, for example, PowerPoint, poster, Pecha Kucha, Padlet or webpage.
Story Craft Portfolio, 60%: You will produce a new creative work that applies the concepts of story craft studied in the module.
Education route - Preparing for Professional Practice
The educational landscape of the UK is changing rapidly and the range of graduate professional roles on offer is broader than ever before. This module is intended to support students who wish to go into both teaching and non-teaching-based careers. It will equip you to make informed, critical and confident Assessment:s of the opportunities, debates and challenges that are available to you. You will identify your personal strengths, areas for personal and professional development, and opportunities by which this development might be achieved. You will also gain the practical skills and reflect on the development of your professional identity and application of academic knowledge in practical environments. You will attend career guidance sessions throughout the academic year and have the opportunity to undertake a placement.
Assessment:, 100%: You will write a reflective report drawing on your own career interests, aspirations and background experience. This could include employment sector analysis documents, a high-quality CV, self-evaluation documents and evidence of completed, relevant professional development.
Education route - Cultural and Technological Transformations in Education
This module explores how technology has impacted education and learning. We will consider key cultural changes, for example, that we now live in the ‘digital age and how technological change has impacted on notions of children’s and young people’s media literacy, e-learning, e-safety and social networking. Many students do not have access to technology and you will consider the inequalities this perpetuates, as well as how technologies can create a more inclusive form of education for neurodiverse students and students with disabilities. You will also consider how technology can create empowering learning opportunities, through gaming, podcasting, wikis and virtual world platforms for all students.
Assessment:
Portfolio, 100%: You will work in pairs or small groups to create a portfolio exploring a topic from the module presented either as a wiki, website, or interactive Sway.
English Literature route - Text Technologies
Literary and historical texts have always come down to us in material forms - from stone and wax tablets inscribed with a chisel or stylus to being held as electron charges within capacitors on computer microchips. This module is concerned with how these material forms function and how they have shaped the writings we read. You will explore three topics: '‘Manuscript, writing up to the year 1500’, ‘Printing, 1440-2000’, and ‘Digital texts, the 20th century and beyond'. You will discover the revolutionary aspects of each of these developments in text technologies and how they transformed writing, its dissemination and consumption. We will consider such questions as how print disrupted and displaced manuscript culture, how the changing economics of textual dissemination affect what gets written and disseminated, and how reading is shaped by the medium in which the writing is embodied.
Assessment:
Knowledge-Based Tests, 10%: You will complete a series of short tests.
Case Study, 30%: You will write a case study reflecting on theoretical knowledge and practical experiences of creating a manuscript or a printed document.
Digital Project, 60%: You will use your practical experience of the creation of a digital resource to discuss history of text technologies.
Film Studies route - Screen Archives - Preservation, Conservation and Usage
In this module you will learn about the management and usage of screen archives. You will discover how to identify, approach and mitigate the threats that time and space pose to the preservation of film and media heritage for future generations, while also identifying and exploring the various purposes for which this archival material is utilised by a range of external stakeholders. The module’s hands-on practical evaluation of historical material will encourage you to consider: what can we find and study in film archives? How do we present these items to the public? Who is an archivist and who a collector? And what, ultimately, are the purposes and uses of an archive’s holdings and how can they best be served? You will benefit form learning in the СʪÃÃÊÓÆµ film archives, where you will observe, evaluate film ephemera and their broad historical and socio-cultural contexts.
Assessment:
Professional portfolio, 50%: You will write a portfolio reflecting on curatorial practices concerning archives and collections.
Exhibition materials and curatorial presentation, 50%: You will submit exhibition materials and a 10 minute curatorial presentation around an artefact from a screen archive.
History route - Humans and the Natural World
This module will examine how humans have used, adapted, represented, changed and explored the natural world through the sciences and medicine, sport and leisure, industry, religion and visual culture, among others. You will be introduced to a diversity of historical approaches, including the history of science, medicine and technology, environmental history, sport history and visual history.
Assessment:
Thematic essay, 40%: You will answer an essay question related to the themes of the module.
Podcast or video, 50%: You will choose to produce either a podcast or video of 5-10 minutes. You will work in pairs to examine one of the module themes and bring in primary source analysis.
Content notes, 10%: You will write to introduce your podcast or video.
Journalism route - Beyond news: Peace journalism and Opinion writing
You will explore innovative and constructive approaches to journalism, such as peace journalism, constructive journalism, and solution journalism, which aim to create opportunities for change through journalism. You will gain an understanding of practical elements of writing an entertaining, interesting and compelling first person opinion column, why these columns are more popular today in magazines and newspapers and write your own columns on your own blog. We will also look at review writing and the journalistic similarities here with opinion writing. You will be encouraged to find an area of popular culture they are interested in and review your experience of it, honing your work, practising techniques and styles, until your writing is up to industry standard.
Assessment:
Constructive journalism report, 50%: You will write a report including an explanation of chosen constructive approach, with analysis and proposal of constructive output.
Review and column writing, 50%: You will write a review or column.
Media route - Public Relations and Strategic Communications
This module introduces you the concepts and debates that underpin both the practice and the academic discipline of public relations. You will learn about the different strands of public relations, the industry structures and the tools used by practitioners to engage with their audiences. You will develop an understanding of mediated communications and the relationship between practitioners and journalists. The ability to practically utilise new media and technology as part of strategic communications will also form a key strand of the modules learning and teaching strategy.
Assessment:
Individual PR campaign plan, 60%: You will produce an online PR campaign plan from scratch targeting the UK audience. Your plan will be driven by global research and you will produce practical materials for the campaign which could be logo designs, posters, leaflets, press releases, blogs, websites, digital content, and any innovations with a rationale.
Group presentation and reflective report, 40%: You will deliver a 10 minute presentation as a group and write a reflective report.