What is A-level Creative Writing like?

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Hello, I'm soon to start sixth form however I'm still deciding on choices to take (I'm a bit late) but the sixth form has given me time to choose what I want to do in September and one of the choices I like is Creative Writing, has any one done this? What kind of writing does this involve, like will you be writing stories or will it be like writing articles and reports, I love writing stories and got A* in my coursework in GCSE English for writing perpective points of views from characters in a book and enjoyed it very much, and also what is homework/exam like , any help is appciated very much 😊

I've just finished Year 12 and did Creative Writing AS this year and will be doing it for A2 next year. As A levels go, it's a lot of fun - especially if you're into writing already, as you've said you are.

I think the best thing about it is that there isn't actually a set specification - it just says to study the four forms of writing: prose, poetry, script, and non-fiction prose (like reviews etc), so we read a pretty wide variety of stuff, unlike in English Lit., where you're set two novels etc. Therefore, you get exposed to lots more literature which is great if you like that sort of thing!

So just as the spec. says to study the four forms, for your coursework (60% of the final grade), you choose two of the four forms to write in - again, there's nothing specific set other than that so you're absolutely free to write in whatever style or on whatever topic you like. You also have to write a reflective commentary as part of the coursework, which is an essay discussing the inspiration/aims/influences etc of your creative pieces. I did poetry and music reviews for my coursework.

Then there's the exam (40% of the final grade) - there's four questions and you pick two. The AS exam is writing non-fiction pieces - for example, they'll give you a set of notes from which you will have to write a restaurant review. Some of the questions are not a million miles away from the AQA English Language GCSE exam - but marked slightly differently because it's an A level - but they're absolutely fine once you get into what you need to do.

Anyway, sorry for the mini-essay but there's hardly anyone on TSR who does A level CW so I feel I have to promote it!

Oh, just noticed you also asked about homework - well, at the beginning of the year we would be told to write a short story involving a certain event or something like that, but once we got going it would be more like bring in whatever you've been writing in the week and we would share it with the class and then get feedback on it. Other than getting on with the coursework for homework, we'd get given stuff to read, or a past-paper question to do, but that's about it.Hope that was in some way helpful - if you have any other questions about it feel free to ask me!

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Thanks so much 😄😄 very kind of you to inform me of this great subject it sounds fun, something definately up my alley of what I want to be doing especially from another persons point of view-very kind of you to write all this out -makes creative writing a whole lot clearer now and makes my decision easier thanks x