2021-22 MA Playwriting Programme Design Document

	A	C	F	I	J	N	R	T	AA	AB	AH	AI	AK	AR	AT	AX
1	Admissions criteria
2	Title of the new programme – including any lower awards Please provide the titles used for all awards relating to this programme. Note: all programmes are required to have at least a Postgraduate Certificate exit award. See guidance on programme titles in:
3	https://www.york.ac.uk/media/staffhome/learningandteaching/documents/programmedevelopment/Framework%20for%20Programme%20Design%20-%20PG.pdf
4	Masters			MA Playwriting
5	Postgraduate Diploma			n/a							Please indicate if the Postgraduate Diploma is available as an entry point, ie. is a programme on which a student can register or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.					N/A
6	Postgraduate Certificate			exit award only							Please indicate if the Postgraduate Certificate is available as an entry points, ie. is a programme on which a student can register, or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.					Exit
7	Level of qualification			Level 7
8	This document applies to students who commenced the programme(s) in:							2021
9	Awarding institution									Teaching institution
10	University of York									University of York
11	Department(s): Where more than one department is involved, indicate the lead department									Board of Studies
12	Lead Department		Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media							Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
13	Other contributing Departments:									Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
14	Route code PMPLASWRI1/YR1 - MA Playwriting (existing programmes only)
15	Admissions criteria
16	Applicants should have an undergraduate degree of class 2.1 or higher. This is likely to be in drama or theatre, creative writing, or in another arts and humanities or social sciences subject. Applicants with an undergraduate degree in a science subject will be considered on a case-by-case basis. In every case, we require a writing sample to help us assess applicants' suitability.
17	Length and status of the programme(s) and mode(s) of study
18	Programme				Length (years/ months)	Status (full-time/ part-time) Please select	Start dates/months (if applicable – for programmes that have multiple intakes or start dates that differ from the usual academic year)			Mode
19
20										Face-to-face, campus-based			Distance learning		Other
21	MA in Playwriting				1 year (FT), 2 years (PT)	Both	N/A			Please select Y/N		Yes	Please select Y/N	No	N/A
22	Language(s) of study
23	English
24	Language(s) of assessment
25	English
26	2. Programme accreditation by Professional, Statutory or Regulatory Bodies (PSRB)
27	2.a. Is the programme recognised or accredited by a PSRB
28	Please Select Y/N:		No	if No move to section 3 if Yes complete the following questions
29	2.b. Name of PSRB
30	N/A
31	2.c. Please provide details of any approval/ accreditation event needed, including: timescales, the nature of the event, central support / information required:
32	N/A
33	2.d Does/ will approval or recognition require exceptions to University rules/practices? Please select Y/N								if Yes, provide details
34	N/A
35	2.e. Any additional information (e.g. student attainment required to achieve accreditation) that are required by the PSRB should be recorded here
36	N/A
37	3. Additional Professional or Vocational Standards
38	Are there any additional requirements of accrediting bodies or PSRB or pre-requisite professional experience needed to study this programme?
39	Please Select Y/N:		No	if Yes, provide details
40	N/A
41	4. Programme leadership and programme team
42	4.a. Please name the programme leader for the year to which the programme design applies and any key members of staff responsible for designing, maintaining and overseeing the programme.
43	Programme Leader Dr Lisa Peschel, key staff Dr Ben Poore
44	4.b. How are wider stakeholders such as students/ alumni, professional bodies and employers involved in the design of the programme and in ongoing reflection on its effectiveness?
45	Feedback is gathered at regular intervals from MA Playwriting students, at modular and programme level. The proposal for the programme was built on PTES data from the past few years, MA student representatives' feedback and student focus groups, as well as the destinations and career ambitions of recent students.
46	5. Purpose and learning outcomes of the programme
47	5.a. Statement of purpose for applicants to the masters programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
48	Our MA in Playwriting offers you a distinctive opportunity to learn both the craft of writing for the theatre and the professional practices of the field in a supportive and challenging environment. Taught by visiting professional writers (we have previously worked with playwrights such as Simon Stephens, Alistair McDowall and Laura Wade) and core staff of the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media, the programme combines seminar explorations and discussions with practical writing workshops and is designed to ensure that you acquire the research, writing and practical skills you will need to write for the theatre. The course focuses on your artistic and professional development as a writer: it provides you with specific techniques of writing for the stage, collaborative approaches for working with other writers and with actors and directors to develop your plays, and the opportunity to generate an extensive portfolio of writing in various styles and genres. It also familiarises you with the field of new play development in the UK and the specific skills you will need to work in the profession, such as how to pitch a new work, apply for funding and write to a commission. You will consider a range of contemporary theatre and performance texts, explore and analyse established writers' approaches and methods, , and engage in research to develop source material for your own plays. Throughout the course the practice of writing will be interwoven with critical analysis. In addition to scheduled classes, you will also benefit from contact with leading theatre-makers, through theatre projects, masterclasses, lectures and workshops. The MA, therefore, enables you to gain extensive experience in writing for the theatre while honing your research skills to reflect critically upon your own process as well as the work of other writers.
49	5.a.i Statement of purpose for applicants registering for the postgraduate diploma programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
50	N/A
51	5.a.ii Statement of purpose for applicants registering for the postgraduate certificate programme Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
52	N/A
53	5.b.i. Programme Learning Outcomes - Masters Please provide six to eight statements of what a graduate of the Masters programme can be expected to do. If the document only covers a Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma please specify four to six PLO statements for the PG Certificate and four-eight for the PG Diploma in the sections 5.b.ii and 5.b.iii as appropriate. Taken together, these outcomes should capture the distinctive features of the programme. They should also be outcomes for which progressive achievement through the course of the programme can be articulated, and which will therefore be reflected in the design of the whole programme.
54	PLO	On successful completion of the programme, graduates will be able to:
55	1	Write and develop scripts of high aesthetic quality, and to collaborate with production teams to realise those scripts on the stage.
56	2	Construct and present compelling ideas and arguments demonstrating systematic research, resourcefulness, and rigour in a variety of written and oral formats, utilising knowledge or processes from the forefront of playwriting practice.
57	3	Conduct, with minimum guidance, research for the development of theatrical writing, making professional use of people and source materials as appropriate.
58	4	Generate works for the stage in a wide variety of lengths, genres and styles, and demonstrate the potential to write for related media, such as radio plays and interactive media.
59	5	Exercise initiative and personal responsibility in the professional practices associated with script development.
60	6	Engage confidently in professional communication with others in the new writing marketplace autonomously and competently, in order to derive the maximum benefit from its processes and opportunities.
61	7
62	8
81	5.c. Explanation of the choice of Programme Learning Outcomes Please explain your rationale for choosing these PLOs in a statement that can be used for students (such as in a student handbook). Please include brief reference to:
82	i) Why the PLOs are considered ambitious or stretching?
83	These Programme Learning Outcomes are designed to enhance, at an advanced level, students' creative, intellectual and analytical skills in a way which combines high-quality creative experiments with academic rigour and independent critical thinking. Throughout its duration the programme (and the PLOs) underlines the critical importance, to the crafting of successful and marketable plays, of the interplay between intellectual and creative initiative and fundamental technical and craft skills. The programme gives its students the opportunity to extend their own experience of, and professional effectiveness in, playwriting for different contexts, audiences, styles and genres.
84	ii) The ways in which these outcomes are distinctive or particularly advantageous to the student:
85	The programme is centred on the relationship between rigorous research and ambitious creative and aesthetic experimentation. This emphasis on playwriting for the stage is unusual among competitor degrees, which often cover creative writing more broadly, either alongside poetry and prose, or alternatively with wiritng for screen and other broadcast media. While remaining academically demanding and rigorous, therefore, this programme develops the students' playwriting practice and explores the ways in which research into playwrights, and analysis of particular traditions and patterns of playwriting and production, is a crucial aspect in informing their own creative work. The course is thus in close dialogue with the rehearsal and development processes of professional theatre companies and equips its graduates with an enhanced understanding of, and competence in, those processes, to carry with them into the next stage of their careers.
86	iii) Please detail how you would support students from diverse entry routes to transition into the programme? For example, disciplinary knowledge and conventions of the discipline, language skills, academic and writing skills, lab skills, academic integrity
87	Each cohort for this MA arrives with very diverse previous patterns of experience. Some may come, for instance, from first degrees which were predominantly essay-based and analytical; others may have taken Creative Writing degrees at undergraduate level and have chosen to specialise; some may have studied Theatre and Performance in highly practical contexts but may have limited knowledge of playwriting history and traditions. The programme's modular structure is therefore central to enabling students from diverse entry points to successfully transition to this level of study. For example, the short, intensive 'Thinking Through Playwriting' module, and the ways in which this module develops students' competancies towards the PLOs, is central to the degree in many ways: it is designed to lay the theoretical and practical foundations for the students' studies. It focuses on developing research skills appropriate to a postgraduate level of study, including traditional scholarly disciplines for written work as well as the foundational skills for researching plays, reflective writing and manipulating the different elements of playwriting. The logic behind this short, intensive module is to bring the diverse cohort quickly to a shared understanding and shared vocabulary so that they can begin more advanced work together later in the term.
88	iv) Please explain how the design of the programme enables students to progress through to the end of the award? For example, in terms of the development of research skills, enabling students to complete an independent study module, developing competence and confidence in practical skills/ professional skills, (See: QAA Mater's degree characteristics http://www.qaa.ac.uk/publications/information-and-guidance/publication?PubID=2977#.WS1JOevyu70).
89	The programme is designed as a series of logical steps. As above, the first module is designed to lay the theoretical and practical foundations for the students' work. The following parallel modules, 'Playwriting in the Marketplace' and 'Form and Realisation' are designed to build on this first module in different ways. The 'Marketplace' module students will take students from thinking about and reflecting on their craft to processes of play development in the UK and how to write supporting documentation to engage with these processes. In the 'Form and Realisation' module, students will experiment with a variety of ways of writing, both in order to deepen their appreciation of playwriting history and traditions, and in order to identify areas of strength and interest as a writer. The 'Guided Writing Project' module brings together these two areas of study into an intensive project under the guidance of a playwriting professional. The aim is that, by the time each student launches into work on their 'Extended Practical Writing Project', they will have had extensive opportunity to enhance and practise the skills most crucial to their success in writing a full-length play.
90	v) How the programme learning outcomes develop students’ digital literacy and use technology-enhanced learning to achieve the discipline and pedagogic goals which support active student learning through peer/tutor interaction, collaboration and formative (self) assessment opportunities (reference could be made to such as blogging, flipped classrooms, response 'clickers' in lectures, simulations, etc).
91	This element represents only a relatively modest presence in the programme, partly because the programme's key focus is on the face-to-face interactions of the workshop and seminar room. A wide range of online sources, however, is used for it and we develop the students' skills with regard to online research via the use of theatre blogs and online archives. Students also are assessed on presentations which deploy a variety of electronic materials in their support.
92	vi) How the PLOs support and enhance the students’ employability (for example, opportunities for students to apply their learning in a real world setting)? The programme's employability objectives should be informed by the University's Employability Strategy:
93	http://www.york.ac.uk/about/departments/support-and-admin/careers/staff/
94	For the reasons outlined in ii) above, the MA is designed to engage with contemporary writing for the theatre, both from a scholarly and practical perspective. The 'Guided Writing Project' is intended as only one of the formal ways in which students will apply their learning to a real-world setting, in developing play ideas with a theatre professional. Students will also meet with dramaturgs, programmers and artistic directors of theatres and companies, to explore how their work fits into the contemporary playwriting marketplace. As our PLOs indicate, the programme places a significant emphasis on communication and professional engagement with theatre organisations, rather than purely developing students' aesthetic and intellectual interests. So, in addition to the specific skills that students can focus on in their extended practical writing project, at its core are a set of competences which are fundamental to employment in theatre, and other media. These are also, as our PLOs make clear, crucial transferable skills into other realms of employment.
95	vii) Consultation with Careers The programme proposal should be discussed with Careers. Please contact your Faculty Employability Manager. Please provide details of Careers' comments and your response.
96	Teaching relies heavily on professional writers, and from them, students receive ongoing advice and practical examples of how to manage a career as a professional playwright. In addition to services available from the university Careers department, the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media also advises students on employment opportunities, whether in full-time work or in internships, and has a dedicated member of the academic staff compiling and promoting employment offers.
97	viii) How is teaching informed and led by research in the department/ centre/ University?
98	The programme is designed to ensure that this occurs. The modules are designed to be research led, so that, for example, the 'Form and Realisation' module will be taught by a specialist (or specilaists) from the department in particular theatrical forms, which might be Shavian political theatre, documentary theatre or postdramatic playwriting. The writers explored in the 'Thinking Through Playwriting' module can also vary depending on the expertise of the tutor(s).
99	5.d. Progression For masters programmes where students do not incrementally 'progress' on the completion of a discrete Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma, please summarise students’ progressive development towards the achievement of PLOs, in terms of the characteristics that you expect students to demonstrate at the end of the set of modules or part thereof, and provide appropriate detail of the module diet students will need to complete. This summary may be particularly helpful to students and the programme team where there is a high proportion of option modules and in circumstances where students registered on a higher award will exit early with a lower one. Note: it is not expected that a position statement is written for each masters PLO, but this can be done if preferred.
100	i) If the Postgraduate Certificate is an exit award only please:
101	Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Cert award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes). NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award a statement should be provided detailing what a student exiting with each award will be able to do								Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Cert as an exit award. NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award the module diet required for each award should be given
102	The progress towards the PLOs will be as follows: PLO1: Write and develop scripts of high aesthetic quality, and to collaborate with production teams to realise those scripts on the stage. PLO2 Construct and present effective ideas and arguments demonstrating systematic research, resourcefulness, and rigour on a variety of written and oral formats, utilising knowledge or processes from current playwriting practice. PLO3: Conduct research for the development of theatrical writing, making professional use of people and source materials as appropriate. PLO4: Generate works for the stage in a wide variety of lengths, genres and styles, and demonstrate the potential to write for related media, such as radio plays and interactive media. PLO5: Begin to exercise initiative and personal responsibility in the professional practices associated with script development. PLO6: Demonstrate a capacity to engage in professional communication with others in the new writing marketplace competently, in order to benefit from its processes and opportunities.								Students will have completed 60 credits to exit with a PG Cert. The diet will be: Thinking Through Playwriting (20 credits), and then a minimum of two of the three following modules: Playwriting in the Marketplace (20 credits), Form and Realisation (20 credits) and Guided Writing Project (20 credits).
103	ii) If the Postgraduate Diploma is an exit award only please:
104	Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Dip award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes)								Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Dip as an exit award
105	n/a								n/a
106	5.e. Other features of the programme
107	i) Involvement of partner organisations Are any partner organisations involved in the delivery of the programme?
108	Please Select Y/N:		No	if Yes, outline the nature of their involvement (such as contributions to teaching, placement provision). Where appropriate, see also the:
109	Please Select Y/N:		No	University guidance on collaborative provision
110	N/A
111	ii) Internationalisation/ globalisation How does the programme promote internationalisation and encourage students to develop cross-cultural capabilities?
112	The programme, though focusing on playwriting in the UK, explores a wide range of playwrights and practitioners. These include contemporary and canonical writers from the European and American playwriting traditions, and practitioners from around the world. This range of voices and approaches is important to the programme and informs the students' creative and analytical work.
113	iii) Inclusivity How will good practice in ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion be embedded in the design, content and delivery of the programme?
114	This refers to the protected characteristics and duties on the University outlined in the Equality Act 2010
115	Members of the Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media's Equality and Diversity Committee have been involved in the design of the programme. Particular care has been taken to ensure that the programme is inclusive in nature: that it fosters collaboration and the sharing of working processes in the teaching sessions. Developing a playwriting group where all are equal and everyone feels able to actively contribute is critical to the programme's success.
116	6. Reference points and programme regulations
117	6.a. Relevant Quality Assurance Agency benchmark statement(s) and other relevant external reference points Please state relevant reference points consulted (e.g. Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, National Occupational Standards, Subject Benchmark Statements or the requirements of PSRBs): See also Taught Postgraduate Modular Scheme: Framework for Programme Design:
118	https://www.york.ac.uk/media/staffhome/learningandteaching/documents/programmedevelopment/Framework%20for%20Programme%20Design%20-%20PG.pdf