A363
A363 - Advanced Creative Writing
This is the level 3 course Advanced Creative Writing. It seemed to be the natural follow up to A215. Although their are similarities in the way it is structured I disliked this course as much as I liked A215.
For this course I decided I needed all the help I could get and joined several Facebook groups and a private forum run within the OU system. This peer support is what kept me going through this course, because after the first few weeks my tutor was conspicuous by frequent and prolonged absences.
For the first TMA we had the choice of writing prose for 1500 words or a 30-36 line poem (Poetry was discouraged by some of the tutors, because of difficulties with conversion). This was then converted to a film/TV script/stage play or radio play for TMA2. TMA3 involved writing a critique of a message(s) in your tutor group forum, with the OU providing a mock forum for those students in quiet groups.
TMA 5 could be either poetry, a short story or life writing. The word count was 2500 (or 80 -100 lines of poetry) and was good experience at writing a longer story.
TMA4 and. TMA6 are preparation for the EMA. I like the idea of this, but like many other students, found that my tutor took the opportunity to twist my story into something she would have written. I tried to recover the story after incorporating her 'suggestions' (ignore them at your peril), but it just didn't work and I expect to do badly in the EMA because of that. Since then I have gone back to the original version of my story to continue with it.
What didn't I like? I found the course book dry and uninteresting.
Having said that lots of people loved the course. Those who did like it seemed to be really interested in the script writing side.
I went for stage writing as the (for me) easy option(because I've done amateur dramatics in the past). With hindsight it was probably a mistake because I would have been more interested experiencing something new. Those doing screen play seemed to get on best. I looked at the information given for writing for the radio, but felt the information on the BBC webpages was more relevant and more up to date.
But I think the biggest problem with the course was the difference between tutors. Although students studying a level 3 course should be more independent, this course didn't seem to lend itself to that. Some tutors were excellent. Returning TMAs promptly, giving encouragement and keeping their students informed of what was going on. This just made it more frustrating for those stuck with a tutor who returned TMAs at the last minute (or later) and seemed to be too busy with their work outside the Open University to answer queries.
Forum work is important for the course, but many of the students were only interested if the tutor was around. So an absent tutor reduced forum participation.
While I did some work on the EMA, there was no point in going too far until TMA6 was returned. I had a holiday booked just before the cut off. I didn't expect this to be a problem as I imagined I would be finished with the EMA long before I went on holiday. As a result with the late return of TMA6, I had less than a week to make changes and tidy up my work. Others were in the same boat, but some students, with better tutors, had the full 5 weeks to revise their EMAs. I blame this on the OU system. If tutors are going to take advantage of the flexible system to their students detriment, then perhaps the window allowed for returning marked work should be much stricter.
To sum up. If you are really interested in screenwriting or just need a level 3 course for your degree, this is the course for you. If your main interest is writing prose or poetry, you have very little to learn from this course.
This is the level 3 course Advanced Creative Writing. It seemed to be the natural follow up to A215. Although their are similarities in the way it is structured I disliked this course as much as I liked A215.
For this course I decided I needed all the help I could get and joined several Facebook groups and a private forum run within the OU system. This peer support is what kept me going through this course, because after the first few weeks my tutor was conspicuous by frequent and prolonged absences.
For the first TMA we had the choice of writing prose for 1500 words or a 30-36 line poem (Poetry was discouraged by some of the tutors, because of difficulties with conversion). This was then converted to a film/TV script/stage play or radio play for TMA2. TMA3 involved writing a critique of a message(s) in your tutor group forum, with the OU providing a mock forum for those students in quiet groups.
TMA 5 could be either poetry, a short story or life writing. The word count was 2500 (or 80 -100 lines of poetry) and was good experience at writing a longer story.
TMA4 and. TMA6 are preparation for the EMA. I like the idea of this, but like many other students, found that my tutor took the opportunity to twist my story into something she would have written. I tried to recover the story after incorporating her 'suggestions' (ignore them at your peril), but it just didn't work and I expect to do badly in the EMA because of that. Since then I have gone back to the original version of my story to continue with it.
What didn't I like? I found the course book dry and uninteresting.
Having said that lots of people loved the course. Those who did like it seemed to be really interested in the script writing side.
I went for stage writing as the (for me) easy option(because I've done amateur dramatics in the past). With hindsight it was probably a mistake because I would have been more interested experiencing something new. Those doing screen play seemed to get on best. I looked at the information given for writing for the radio, but felt the information on the BBC webpages was more relevant and more up to date.
But I think the biggest problem with the course was the difference between tutors. Although students studying a level 3 course should be more independent, this course didn't seem to lend itself to that. Some tutors were excellent. Returning TMAs promptly, giving encouragement and keeping their students informed of what was going on. This just made it more frustrating for those stuck with a tutor who returned TMAs at the last minute (or later) and seemed to be too busy with their work outside the Open University to answer queries.
Forum work is important for the course, but many of the students were only interested if the tutor was around. So an absent tutor reduced forum participation.
While I did some work on the EMA, there was no point in going too far until TMA6 was returned. I had a holiday booked just before the cut off. I didn't expect this to be a problem as I imagined I would be finished with the EMA long before I went on holiday. As a result with the late return of TMA6, I had less than a week to make changes and tidy up my work. Others were in the same boat, but some students, with better tutors, had the full 5 weeks to revise their EMAs. I blame this on the OU system. If tutors are going to take advantage of the flexible system to their students detriment, then perhaps the window allowed for returning marked work should be much stricter.
To sum up. If you are really interested in screenwriting or just need a level 3 course for your degree, this is the course for you. If your main interest is writing prose or poetry, you have very little to learn from this course.
posted by Shirl at 3:17 PM
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