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Creative writing and critical reading
Learn more to access more details of Creative writing and critical readingThis free course, Creative writing and critical reading, explores the importance of reading as part of a creative writer’s development at the postgraduate level. You will gain inspiration and ideas from examining other writers’ methods, as well as enhancing your critical reading skills. Examples will cover the genres of fiction, creative ...
Level: 3 Advanced
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Writing what you know
Learn more to access more details of Writing what you knowDo you want to improve your descriptive writing? This free course, Writing what you know, will help you to develop your perception of the world about you and enable you to see the familiar things in everyday life in a new light. You will also learn how authors use their own personal histories to form the basis of their work.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Start writing fiction
Learn more to access more details of Start writing fictionHave you always wanted to write, but never quite had the courage to start? This free course, Start writing fiction, will give you an insight into how authors create their characters and settings. You will also be able to look at the different genres for fiction.
Level: 1 Introductory
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Exploring books for children: words and pictures
Learn more to access more details of Exploring books for children: words and picturesMany people have fond memories of the stories they encountered in childhood, perhaps especially of those wonderful picture books and illustrated tales which fired our young imaginations and transported us to magical worlds. To an adult’s eye, some picture books may seem remarkably simple, even oversimplified. However, in this free course, ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Reading Shakespeare's As You Like It
Learn more to access more details of Reading Shakespeare's As You Like ItDo you enjoy watching Shakespeare's plays and like the idea of finding out more about them? This free course, Reading Shakespeare's As You Like It, will guide you through some of the most important speeches and scenes from one of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies.
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Icarus: entering the world of myth
Learn more to access more details of Icarus: entering the world of mythThis free course, Icarus: entering the world of myth, will introduce you to one of the best-known myths from classical antiquity and its various re-tellings in later periods. You will begin by examining how the Icarus story connects with a number of other ancient myths, such as that of Theseus and the Minotaur. You will then be guided through an...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners
Learn more to access more details of Sam Selvon, The Lonely LondonersThis free course concentrates on Sam Selvon's twentieth-century novel, The Lonely Londoners. It considers the depiction of migration in the text as well as Selvon's treatment of memory as a vital part of the migrant's experience.
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Introducing Virgil’s Aeneid
Learn more to access more details of Introducing Virgil’s AeneidThis free course offers an introduction to the Aeneid. Virgil’s Latin epic, written in the 1st century BCE, tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his journey to Italy, where he would become the ancestor of the Romans. Here, you will focus on the characterisation of this legendary hero, and learn why he was so important to the Romans of ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Exploring Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd
Learn more to access more details of Exploring Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding CrowdThis free course, Exploring Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, is designed to tell you something about Hardy's background, and to introduce you to the pleasures of reading a nineteenth-century novel. Why do we believe in fictional characters and care about what happens to them? You will discover some of the techniques that Hardy ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
Learn more to access more details of John Webster, The Duchess of MalfiThis free course, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, concentrates on Acts 1 and 2 of John Webster's Renaissance tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi. It focuses on the representation of marriage for love and the social conflicts to which it gives rise. The course is designed to hone your skills of textual analysis.
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus
Learn more to access more details of Christopher Marlowe, Doctor FaustusWhat does Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus tell us about the author and the time at which the play was written? This free course, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, will help you to discover the intricacies of the play and recognise how a knowledge of the historical and political background of the time can lead to a very different ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Approaching poetry
Learn more to access more details of Approaching poetryDo you want to get more out of your reading of poetry? This free course, Approaching poetry, is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary texts. You will learn about rhythm, alliteration, rhyme, poetic inversion, voice and line lengths and endings. You will examine poems that do not rhyme and learn ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Approaching prose fiction
Learn more to access more details of Approaching prose fictionDo you want to get more out of your reading? This free course, Approaching prose fiction, is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary texts. You will learn about narrative events and perspectives, the setting of novels, types of characterisation and genre.
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Approaching plays
Learn more to access more details of Approaching playsDo you want to get more out of drama? This free course, Approaching plays, is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary plays. You will learn about dialogue, stage directions, blank verse, dramatic structure and conventions and aspects of performance.
Level: 2 Intermediate
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Approaching literature: reading Great Expectations
Learn more to access more details of Approaching literature: reading Great ExpectationsThis free course, Approaching literature: reading Great Expectations, considers some of the different ways of reading Great Expectations, based on the type of genre the book belongs to. This is one of the most familiar and fundamental ways of approaching literary texts. The novel broadens the scope of study of a realist novel, in both literary ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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The poetry of Sorley MacLean
Learn more to access more details of The poetry of Sorley MacLeanSorley MacLean (1911-1996) is regarded as one of the greatest Scottish poets of the twentieth century. This free course, The poetry of Sorley MacLean, will introduce you to his poetry and give you an insight into the cultural, historical and political contexts that inform his work. MacLean wrote in Gaelic and the importance of the language to ...
Level: 3 Advanced
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Exploring Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts
Learn more to access more details of Exploring Virginia Woolf’s Between the ActsThis free course introduces Virginia Woolf’s last novel, Between the Acts (1941), with the aim of understanding how she writes about time, memory, and ideas about identity. It also considers why Woolf’s fiction is often considered difficult. Selected extracts from her essays on writing help to clarify some of these perceived difficulties, ...
Level: 2 Intermediate
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University Ready hub
Learn more to access more details of University Ready hubA collection of resources from all of Wales' universities to help you get started with higher education.
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