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Whilst species with longer lives may spend days in bed,
days in rages, days in tears,
This one day is all you have to make a difference.
And now, as his legs and head passed through his arms with greater facility
seemed even to be drawn through by some invisible power....
Girl: It took her back to the precise moment when she...
Boy: ...dun white brown belly divided into stiff arched segments...
Girl:...so fly into it head on and live. You have one day.
Dr Liesl King: It's all about being in the classroom and doing really interesting activities
to get stuck in to the analysis of texts.
But it's also about going out and looking at different contexts.
That help us to appreciate where stories might have taken place.
Boy: It's been a whole range of writing and poetry from all corners of the world.
All in English but all just so varied and different.
Dr Ann-Marie Evans: We read slave narratives, we read classic American literature
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and we end the module listening to jazz and dancing the Charlston with The Great Gatsby.
Dr Liesl King: [laughs]
Janine Bradour: It encourages students to think about the ways that
literature works for them in their professional lives,
And the ways in which writers talk about Literature and their jobs.
They wanted me to do more flesh fictions
of like the other body parts of the person
and put them in other parts of like the farm...
Girl: That is a REALLY good idea!
Girl: I thought that was... more effective
Like the words were more haunting.
Girl: ...and there is a great support network around you
Your tutors are experts in their field
And it's a real pleasure to actually get their passion
Dr Liesl King: Level one is really the foundation year
and we give you a taster of different things
that you might want to go on to study at level two
or levels two and level three
Girl: And you start to sort of find out what you enjoy and what you are good at
Dr Liesl King: At level two you'll have a chance to choose from a wide range
of literary genres, such as detective fiction,
science fiction, the literature of childhood, or gothic and horror.
Girl: I just love the amount of opportunities studying at York St John gives you
you've got a wide, diverse range of literature that you look at over your three years
When you tell anybody you want to be novelist,
they look at you as though you've just said you want to fly to Mars.
[students laugh]
Whereas here it is taken seriously and you're given so much support.
Dr Liesl King: In level three you'll have the chance to study a range of historical fictions.
So you might choose to look at Shakespeare,
You might choose to look at post war American literature,
Or you might choose to look at the up-to-date contemporaries,
such as our module on gender and sexualities.
Janine Bradbury: Gender, sexualities and popular culture is a really fun module
It's for final year students and we look at popular cultural texts
and popular literary works.
Dr Anne-Marie Evans We take a group of final year literature and creative writing students
to Paris for a five day residential visit.
We have a literary tour of Paris and we visit sites that have a literary significance.
And it's a really fantastic opportunity for students to realy kind of reflect on their degree
and also think about the future as well
Boy: You get to learn the nuts and bolts of how people might put texts together.
Dr Anne-Marie Evans: and our students then have the opportunity to write
both creatively and critically on their experience in Paris.
and some of these works also go towards our Arts & Humanities showcase: CREATE
so it's a really fantastic and a really exciting opportunity for our students.
Girl: And there are so many readings of local authors and stuff
which are just a genuine pleasure to really go and enjoy.
Girl: You're writing for a blog or for a magazine
and it's a very good skill to begin to learn
and you're doing it independently so you sort of get to experiment.
Girl: This is your day to discover the world, to make friends, to fall in love.
Then hold back the tears as you realise that this precious gift will soon pass you by.
So fly into it head on. And live. You have one day.
[applause]