Module C: The Craft of Writing in Practice
What this module asks
Module C requires you to compose and reflect on your own writing with a clear awareness of craft. You draw on the styles and techniques of texts you have studied, then explain the choices you made and why. The module rewards purposeful imitation and adaptation, not copying.
Concepts to master
- Mentor texts: studied texts whose techniques you adapt to your own purposes.
- Stylistic imitation: borrowing a structural or syntactic move while producing original content.
- Reflection: a metacognitive commentary explaining choices, effects and revisions.
- Audience and purpose: the controlling frame for every craft decision.
- Cohesion: how voice, imagery and structure hold a piece together.
- Editing: cutting, reordering and sharpening for precision.
Traps in questions
Prompts often require both a creative response and a reflection, sometimes with a specified form or stimulus. A common failure is writing a reflection that summarises the story instead of analysing choices. Another is imitating a mentor text so closely that the writing becomes pastiche without purpose. Students also neglect the stipulated audience, or make claims in the reflection about techniques that are not actually present in the piece.
Rule of thumb
Use the reflection formula: "I chose [technique] in [specific moment] because it [effect on reader], which supports my purpose of [purpose]." This keeps reflection analytical and evidence-based.
Worked example
Suppose you adapt a mentor text's use of second person. In the piece, address the reader directly during a tense scene to create intimacy and unease. In the reflection, quote your own sentence, name the technique, explain its effect, and connect it to your purpose of making the reader complicit in the narrator's choices.
Practice habit
After each draft, write three reflection sentences using the formula, then check that each named technique can be located in your text.