Module overview
The aim of this module is to provide a concerted period of independent study alongside tutor and peer discussion and feedback. The module aims to bring together and utilise your learning and skills development in the previous modules, and for you to reflect on the aims and possibilities of the brief you designed in Approaches to Critical and Creative Concepts. Through these modules you will have established and explored, in increasingly ambitious ways, the scope and focus of your ideas allied to appropriate working methodologies. In this module you will put these into practice, bringing together your critical thinking with your creative understanding through a specific case study of your own design.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Develop a research plan in relation to understanding a specific case study taken from the literary and cultural industries
- Demonstrate a sophisticated proficiency in analysing the varied genres and registers that communicating in the cultural industries requires, these include writing reviews, proposals, pitches, blurbs
- Research with appropriate supervision the areas of literature, communication and the cultural industries which you have not previously studied
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Structure in coherent manner information and materials from disparate sources, sifting the relevant from the irrelevant
- Reflect constructively upon your learning, and make effective use of feedback received
- Evaluate concepts, principles, histories, theories, and practices and make critical judgements of the strengths and weaknesses of particular arguments
- Present knowledge and argument in a clear, structured and comprehensible manner, adapted to the needs or requirements of a particular audience or exercise
- Plan and structuring a task in areas of literature, communication and the cultural industries in which you have already studied
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Demonstrate a sophisticated proficiency in writing in the varied registers of the cultural industries, including critical reviews, pitches, proposals, analytical commentary, interviews
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the social, economic and political contexts through which texts are produced, read and consumed
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The institutions and practices that create and sustain literature and communication within the cultural industries, including publishers, newsprint, online content providers, art and heritage bodies
- The practical implications of analysing literature and communication within the cultural industries, in relation to issues around genre, form, reading, marketing
- The social, cultural and political contexts in which literature and communication function and circulate and the theoretical concepts that have made them meaningful
- The theoretical history between literature, communication and the cultural industries, as it relates to the production, consumption and circulation of a wide range of cultural texts
Syllabus
This final student-led module allows you to put into practice the research and analytical skills that you have learned on the programme. Drawing on the ideas and content developed in prior core modules the one-to-one personal supervision that constitutes this Final Project will guide you on a research process that will:
• identify a topic, brief, or challenge relating to literature and communication in the cultural industries
• develop an appropriate proposal format for identifying and pursuing this topic (a publicity campaign, a grant application, an adaptation of an existing text)
• undertake appropriate independent and guided research
• analyse your findings with reference to relevant theoretical perspectives and critical studies
• respond to formative feedback through project redesign
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods include:
• tutor guidance
• written feedback
• peer feedback
Learning activities include:
• independent learning, including reflection and evaluation of feedback
• problem-solving activities
• independent research
• online reference material and tutorial notes
• peer-group learning
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Project supervision | 10 |
| Independent Study | 580 |
| Workshops | 10 |
| Total study time | 600 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Amaranth Borsuk (2018). The Book. MIT Press.
Gary Thomas (2013). How to Do Your Research Project: A Guide for Students. Sage.
David Hesmondhalgh (2014). The Cultural Industries. Sage.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Final project | 50% |
| Feedback | 10% |
| Annotated bibliography | 20% |
| Reflection | 20% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Assessment | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Assessment | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External