Foundation Creative Writing

The course unit is divided into five parts, each with a series of projects, research tasks, exercises, and assignments.

Part One: Getting Ideas

Your first projects will help you get to grips with the basics of creative writing. 

Part Two: Using Ideas

Learn various techniques to effectively utilise your ideas, ensuring you can continue writing consistently.

Part Three: The Process of Creative Writing

Part Three looks at how you can organise your time and space around writing, the basic skills needed to strengthen your writing at this early stage, creating dramatic tension and ‘the writing process’. 

Part Four: Starting to Write Poetry

You’ll be encouraged to write lots of different pieces, try a variety of techniques and begin writing poetry.

Part Five: The Short Story

You will be introduced to the short story and, by the end of it, you’ll have completed a story of your own. 

On completion of this course, you should be able to demonstrate competence in the following strategies and techniques:

• Freewriting.
• Analytical reading.
• Notebooking.
• Writing from personal experience.
• Researching and saving material for further use.
• You will have an understanding of the writing process, what is meant by ‘genre’ and ‘form’ and you will practise using your creative imagination.

• A minimum of 10 study hours per week. 
• Access to a laptop or desktop computer with internet access.
• Good standard of writing, listening, reading and speaking English language skills*.
• Good IT literacy
• Notebook

*Please note, if your nationality does not feature on the majority of English speaking countries list you will need to provide evidence of your English language skills.

OCA Accessibility Statement

The OCA Accessibility Statement covers the OCA website, which you may use to access course or unit information, or OCA policies.

Mode of study

All of this unit’s study materials are available online. 

Online materials

Online learning materials set out the unit’s content and activities. These comprise of text, images, documents and links to external resources. These can be accessed via our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), OCA Learn. 

Library resources

You will be required to access library resources as part of your unit. Any essential reading is provided electronically.

Assignments

You will present your creative work in text format. Academic work can be submitted digitally as a written document or an audio-visual presentation, depending on student choice. 

Tuition strategy 

Support is provided by academic staff through formative feedback. Feedback is provided through written documents or as a tutorial with notes, depending on student choice. 

Working with Others

This unit does not require you to work with other students but you are welcome to make use of the department-wide forum spaces and group sessions accessed via OCA Learn.

Assessment

Assessment takes place through a digital portfolio uploaded to OCA Learn. 

Study tempo

Students are able to define a part-time study tempo that works for them within the overall timeframe deadline for the unit. Guidance and support on study skills and time management is available online through the OCA Student Handbook on OCA Learn.

You have 12 months to complete the course from the start of your Induction. 

Understandably, sometimes there are unexpected mitigating circumstances that affect your ability to study. In these instances, students can apply for an extension or deferral. We encourage students to seek support as early as possible in such circumstances.

On completion of the course you should have gained sufficient skills and enough confidence to go on to further study with the Open College of the Arts, as well as have begun to create a portfolio of work, and be able to decide on the nature and direction of your future studies and art practice. 

Review our undergraduate courses here. 

Foundation courses are not accredited, meaning the courses are studied for personal development and they do not carry any UCAS points, however upon receiving your final assignment feedback you can request a certificate of completion.

Please review the Foundation courses fees linked here.

Eligible students are welcome to apply for a Learner Support Scheme bursary to help with the cost of course fees and resources. Information on eligibility and how to apply is linked here.

Foundation courses are not eligible for Student Finance.

There are several intakes throughout the year students can join. The intake dates and deadlines are linked here.  

Submit an enrolment form below to select your intake. Once submitted, your enrolment form will still need to be reviewed and confirmed as eligible to progress. Please allow 10 working days for your enrolment to be reviewed once submitted.