Writing Lives (Online) (2024)

Writing Lives (Online) (1)

Writing Lives (Online)

Course details

Code
O23P336CRV
Fees
From £578.00
Credit
10 CATS points
Dates
Wed 17 Apr 2024 - Fri 28 Jun 2024
Location
Online
Contact
onlinecourses@conted.ox.ac.uk
01865 280974
Application status
Applications being accepted Only 4 places left

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Writing Lives (Online) (2)



There are no time-tabled sessions on this course. Using a specially designed virtual learning environment this online course guides students through weekly pathways of directed readings and learning activities. Students interact with their tutor and the other course participants through tutor-guided, text-based forum discussions. There are no ‘live-time’ video meetings meaning you can study flexibly in your own time under the direct tuition of an expert.For further information please click here

Overview

Is there a true story that only you can tell? This course is designed to provide you with the skills you need to turn experiences, recollections and real-life phenomena into literary works that are enjoyable and accessible to a wider audience.

Are there stories, events or circ*mstances in your own experience, your family's, or those of people known to you, that you've always wanted to investigate, and that you think would make good reading? This course will provide you with all you need to shape your materials into an enjoyable and accessible literary work. 'Life Writing' is prose non-fiction devoted to exploring the events and emotions of real lives. The Life Writing course will enable you to recognise which things are significant, how to characterize them in way that really brings them to life, and how to structure them into a narrative that will keep a reader's interest.

For information on how the courses work, please click here.

Programme details

Unit One: Getting Started
Getting acquainted, how to work with the truth, memory, good practices.

Unit Two: Point-of-view
Memory and imagination, using the senses, finding a voice.

Unit Three: Descriptive Writing
Getting the surfaces right, getting below the surfaces.

Unit Four: Characterizing Others
Revealing motivation, psychological depths and habits.

Unit Five: Characterizing Yourself
Re-living your life inside and outside time and experience – making yourself knowable.

Unit Six: Dialogue
Writing the authentic, the important and the plausible simultaneously.

Unit Seven: Structure
Finding the plot in history; realising potential and maximising drama.

Unit Eight: Sequence and Situation
How to form episodes combining characters, dialogue and description.

Unit Nine: Beginnings and Endings
How to start and where to stop.

Unit Ten: Re-writing and Editing
Finishing, polishing, re-making, re-telling, expanding and cutting.

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Recommended reading

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following book:

Roorbach, B., Writing Life Stories: How to Make Memories into Memoirs, Ideas into Essays and Life into Literature (Writer’s Digest Books, 2008)

Recommended, but not required:

Bell, J. and A. Motion, eds., The Creative Writing Coursebook (Macmillan, 2001)
Hackles, L., Writing from Life: How to Turn Your Personal Experiences into Profitable Prose (How To Books, 2008)Gilchrist, C.Your Life, Your Story : Writing Your Life Story for Family and Friends. (Piatkus, 2010)(Also available in electronic format: Lume Books (15 Oct. 2019) -electronic & Kindle edition)

Certification

Credit Application Transfer Scheme (CATS) points

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £10 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £10 fee.

See more information on CATS point

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education, you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Digital credentials

All students who pass their final assignment, whether registered for credit or not, will be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Upon successful completion, you will receive a link to download a University of Oxford digital certificate. Information on how to access this digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

Fees

Description Costs
Course Fee £578.00
Take this course for CATS points £10.00

Tutors

Mr Jeremy Hughes

Jeremy Hughes has published two novels – Wingspan (2013) and Dovetail (2011). He was awarded first prize in the PoetryWales competition and was short-listed for an Eric Gregory Award. He also publishes short fiction, life writing and reviews. He studied for the Master’s in creative writing at Oxford.

Ms Lisa Selvidge

Lisa has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she subsequently worked for 15 years both as tutor and academic director for Continuing Education. She wrote and taught one of the first short online courses in creative writing. Her works include, The Last Dance over The Berlin Wall, Beyond the Sea and Writing Fiction Workbook.

Course aims

This course aims to provide students with insight into the major aspects affecting life-writing and to enable them to use these features confidently in writing their own creative non-fiction.

Teaching methods

  • Introductory section, outlining key areas of work within each unit.
  • Description of required reading and recommended reading.
  • Presentation of materials taken from additional (eg. online) sources, relevant to each unit.
  • Online discussion forum.
  • Online personal study diary.
  • Area for short responses to literary extracts from key texts.
  • Tutor responses to forum and exercises.
  • Assessment and feedback.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will be expected to understand:

  • Key features (such as perspective, dialogue, etc) in a work of life-writing.
  • The applicability of such characteristics in their own work.
  • How to use at least some of these aspects of technical expertise with increased skill and confidence.

By the end of this course students will be expected to have gained the following skills:

  • The ability to recognize and name key features in contemporary life-writing.
  • Knowledge of why authors employ these features and what their different effects are.
  • Increased confidence in their own use of such features as enhancements to the development of an individual ‘voice’ in life-writing.

Assessment methods

You will be set twopieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does notcount towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

Application

Please use the 'Book' or 'Apply' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an Enrolment form for short courses | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Level and demands

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online; to participate you must to be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

Information on financial support

View all literature, creative writing and film courses

Writing Lives (Online) (2024)

FAQs

What is ship 30 for 30? ›

Ship 30 for 30 is a cohort-based course that has taught over 7,000 students the fundamentals of writing on the internet. But unlike other writing programs, the Ship 30 for 30 course gets you actively writing and publishing every day. You'll ship 30 pieces of original content in 30 days.

How much does the write of passage cost? ›

Essential: 3 payments of $1,400 over 2 months, $4,200 total. Use Payment Plan for Essential. Essential + Runway: 4 payments of $1,313 over 3 months, $5,250 total. Use Payment Plan for Essential + Runway.

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2 Write clear and concise copy

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Is online writing paying? ›

Writing can be a good way to earn money and build a successful career. It takes time to get started, but there are ways to improve your chances of successfully marketing your writing services. Concentrate on quality. Potential clients and freelance writing sites that pay are interested in quality content.

What is the website that helps you write? ›

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“I've definitely seen research that talks about how the physical act of writing helps more with memory than does typing,” she said. Studies on the effects of writing on paper as opposed to typing on a laptop, such as the one conducted in 2021 by Ihari et. al., show that writing leads to higher rates of retention.

Can you make a living off freelance writing? ›

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What is full stack writing? ›

In true marketing fashion, I am going to borrow (copy) the term and use it to describe what a full-stack digital writer is: A full-stack digital writer is a writer who is adept at writing in the full spectrum of digital content. Being able to consider how both algorithms and the audience perceive their written content.

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