TMA 01 (2000 words)
This TMA should be submitted via StudentHome using the Universitys online TMA/EMA service by 12:00 midday (UK local time) on Monday 23 November 2020.

This TMA carries 7.5% of the overall assessment marks. You should write no more than 2000 words in total (the required length for each part of the assignment is given in the following sections).

This is a two-part assignment; you must attempt both parts in order to pass.

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Question
Part 1 (1000 words)
Drawing on concepts that you have encountered in the first five units of the module, identify creative features to be found in the following poem by U. A. Fanthorpe.

London Z to A
1    Her buildings come and go like leaves.
Ziggurats bud. New highways soar
Like suckers, ambitious into air.
Behind the boarded windows
5    Pruning happens.
In the marble city only the barbarous
Street names last.
And driving south
Down remembered gone roads, the cheesy
10    Cockney faces blossom in witty
Brittle faades: Stark Naked
Ltd; A Touch of Glass; Den
Of Antiquity; Just Looking; Just 4 U;
Hat Trick. The strictly dapper parks
15    Offer no comment. But the corner pubs
Honour forgotten generals, dispossessed peers,
A stag, a tree; and streaming rude
Over tarmac and paving, barks, bellows, halloos,
Men, dogs and cattle, Lewisham awash
20    With their steaming muddy passage,
The Kentish Drovers.
U. A. Fanthorpe (1984) London Z to A in Selected Poems, London, Penguin, p. 101.
Write no more than 1000 words for this part.

Part 2 (1000 words)
a.Taking your inspiration from Fanthorpes poem, rewrite it as either a review of a holiday resort or as a travel guide.
Write no more than 300 words for this step.

b.Drawing on concepts that you have encountered in the first five units of the module, reflect on what you learned about creativity from the process of rewriting the poem.
Write no more than 700 words for this step.

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Guidance notes
Part 1
For this part of the assignment, you are asked to identify elements of creativity found in the given text. You are not expected to research the Fanthorpe poem, or Fanthorpes life and work. The focus of your attention here is on the poem itself.

Look closely at the poem and find those features that you regard as creative. Comment on what makes them so. In reflecting on the poems creativity, you should consider the discussions around the concepts of linguistic creativity that you have encountered in the module so far. For example, Chapter 2 of the Stylistics book is relevant. Unit 2 of the module discusses the different lenses through which creativity can be viewed. It also introduces criteria that Kaufman and Sternberg use to identify creativity. The unit explores how an audiences expectations can be manipulated by the use of particular textual features. Can you find such features in the given text? To what degree do they account for its creativity?

You might like to comment on other concepts linked with creativity from the opening five units such as foregrounding, deviation, identity and subtext, which help in an appreciation of the creativity to be found in the poem. You might also consider contextual considerations as discussed in Unit 1 and Jakobsons Typology of Language Functions discussed in Unit 4. You should reference your use of the module materials throughout.

Part 2
In this part of the assignment which is divided into two steps you are asked to rewrite the poem in another genre and then to reflect on what you have learned about creativity from the process of rewriting. Note that you are not being assessed on your creative writing skills or any notion of literary merit. Nor are you expected to research the original poem. You can read the poem in isolation, and rewrite it from that alone, along with your reaction to it.

For your rewrite, you will need to think about the genre you plan to use and how you might harness creative features, or themes, from the original poem to produce a new text. Consider the expectations you have of a review of a holiday resort or travel guide. What features might you expect to find, and how can you adapt elements in the poem to fit these expectations?

Look back at Book 1, Chapter 3, Activity 3.4 where you were asked to rewrite an extract from a Harold Pinter play, and consider how you set about that task. When you have rewritten the poem, reflect on what you took out, what you left in, and how and why you transformed the remaining content. You will need to link the features you discuss with theory encountered in the module so far. For example, did you try to retain the mood/feel of the original, or did you deliberately change it to fit the new genre? Here you might discuss genre expectations and the way your rewriting is shaped by the genre youre writing in, the audience youre writing for and the purpose of the text you create. Were there what Derek Neale calls creative constraints at work, and what were they? Was there a negotiation between the original text and the one you have created? Did the process of rewriting throw light on the creativity in the original?

You should include references to the concepts and arguments from the module that you are drawing on in your discussion.