Creative Writing and English Language

A Combined Honours degree at Chester gives you the opportunity to study two subjects. You will spend a fairly even amount of time studying each subject area, with possible opportunities to declare a major – minor towards the end of your studies.

Creative Writing
Unleash your creativity and discover what makes good writing great as you produce and reflect on your own fiction, poetry and drama.
This course helps you to develop the skills and techniques to become a creative writer in poetry, drama and fiction (flashes, short stories, novels), and also to write critically. We have a number of highly successful published writers of fiction and poetry in the Department, who can share their insights with you.
Learn how your own work fits into the wider world of literature and contemporary publishing. Study the works and techniques of successful poets, novelists and dramatists to inform your own writing; choose from a number of optional and specialist modules; and pursue and complete a writing project of your own choice.
The Department’s commitment to contemporary literature and its contacts with eminent authors allow us to place your degree studies in Creative Writing in an exciting wider context. We will also give you guidance on how you can get your work published, so that you can share your success with others. At Chester, we pride ourselves on teaching Creative Writing in a professional but supportive environment.

English Language
Unlock the power of words through the investigation and analysis of the fundamental structures and theoretical principles of English language and linguistics.
During this course, you will study the structures and theoretical principles of English and language in general, and use them to understand and analyse spoken and written English discourse in context. This may include investigating sounds, word meanings, sentence structures, discourse analytical principles, child language acquisition, and language variation and change.
You will be offered a variety of assessment types, including standard essays, presentations, data collection projects, exercises, transcriptions, dissertation and even blogs. This will equip you with the academic experiences you need to make the most of employment opportunities following your undergraduate degree and/or postgraduate study.
The course has been repeatedly praised by external examiners, who have noted the unusually broad range of expertise provided by the teaching team, which covers some of the most cutting-edge subjects in English language and linguistics, such as Corpus Linguistics (computer-assisted discourse analysis). Staff also have considerable expertise in the areas of sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, child language acquisition, models of grammar, critical discourse analysis, dialectology and comparative linguistics.

For the latest example of curriculum availability on this course, please refer to the University of Chester's Website.

For Creative Writing, assessment varies from module to module: you will compile portfolios of creative writing; write critical and self-reflective prose; and also do a range of other kinds of assessed work. There are no formal written exams.
For English Language, assessment includes online blog entries, seminar presentations, conversation and phonetic transcriptions, data collection, research and analysis, syntax trees, and short answer exercises. There are also traditional discussion essays and some formal written examinations.