Creative writing: telling your family story

Course content overview:

Do you want to write up your own story or that of a forebear? Do you want to produce a record for generations to come, or simply write for your own pleasure? Plan your narrative, make use of old photographs and other artefacts, and mine history to paint your own picture of the past.

This is isn’t a course about researching family history. It is primarily a creative writing course where students use their own family histories as source material. Learn how to find information, what you can draw from it, and how you might shape it to produce your own story.

Schedule (this course is completed entirely online):

Orientation Week: 19-25 October 2020

Teaching Weeks: 26 October-29 November 2020

Feedback Week: 30 November-6 December 2020

Each week of an online course is roughly equivalent to 2-3 hours of classroom time. On top of this, participants should expect to spend roughly 2-3 hours reading material, etc., although this will vary from person to person.

While they have a specific start and end date and will follow a weekly schedule (for example, week 1 will cover topic A, week 2 will cover topic B), our tutor-led online courses are designed to be flexible and as such would normally not require participants to be online for a specific day of the week or time of the day (although some tutors may try to schedule times where participants can be online together for web seminars, which will be recorded so that those who are unable to be online at certain times are able to access material).

Unless otherwise stated, all course material will be posted on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) so that they can be accessed at any time throughout the duration of the course and interaction with your tutor and fellow participants will take place through a variety of different ways which will allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning (discussion boards,etc).

A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to participants who contribute constructively to weekly discussions and exercises/assignments for the duration of the course.

This course is open to everyone, and you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience of the subject to attend.

Our online courses are designed especially for adult learners who want to advance their personal or professional development. They are taught by tutors who are expert in both their subjects and in teaching students of all ages and experiences.

Given the nature of creative writing, it is important that students' use of English is sufficiently fluent to be able to understand in English nuances of meaning and have a familiarity with the structure and grammar of English. Please note that all teaching is in English. You should have near-native command of the English language in order to get the maximum benefit from the course.

For information on bursaries for this course, please see http://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/info/bursaries