Writing Lives (Online)

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.

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)

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.

Assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

All students who successfully complete this course, whether registered for credit or not, are eligible for a Certificate of Completion. Completion consists of submitting the final course assignment. Certificates will be available, online, for those who qualify after the course finishes.

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.

• 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.

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.

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count 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

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