Can anyone find an example of a creative writing EPQ online please?

[fredaflapjack]

DC is doing an EPQ with college - but there are only 3 people in the EPQ class, and college say they've never had someone do a creative writing one. DC has looked online but is struggling to find examples of the format. Can anyone point us in the right direction?

(Just for context, College has had RI from ofsted, very low percentage go on to the local university, and very very occasionally one will go on to competitive HE so they're not the best placed to help)

Thank you

No link, but I know the student.

She wrote a 5000 word short story as her artefact. The research part of the project was about the historical period and the works of other authors who based stories around that period, and academic reviews of their writing.

In addition to the short story, she had to write a 1000 word dissertation about how she did her research and what she learnt and used for her own short story.

She also had to complete a long-ish template documenting each stage of the research from first ideas to a post-completion reflection on the whole process. And she had to deliver a 40 minute presentation on her project to an invited audience of other students and staff, and answer questions from the audience.

Creative Writing EPQs are relatively common. Less experienced EPQ schools tend to favour a research, followed by a standard essay approach - more seasoned EPQ schools are more adventurous. In the last few years , I have seen 3 screenplays and two stories as described above and one actual novella!

The school should easily be able to get exemplars and advice from AQA.

This might be helpful too: www.futurelearn.com/courses/epq-success

The key thing with an artefact EPQ is that the research guides the product. With creative writing, you’d need to show how research, other writers’ work and suggestions from readers had influenced the creative decisions. One way of doing this is to annotate the creative text to show literary influences, reasons for lexical choices or evidence of historical/ other research that led to character-based, clothing, name or setting - based responses.

All these research sources need to be mentioned and evaluated in the Production Log. Annotated creative writing should appear in an appendix. If you check the different exam boards that offer EPQs, then one of them will have some exemplar materials on the website. Be aware that there may be differences between what the boards want.

One of my students did an art exhibition as her artefact a couple of years ago. She submitted pictures of the final pieces and of the process of producing them. She also had to do a written extended piece of writing on her project, and the standard presentation. She also collected feedback from the exhibition from people who attended, and used this as part of her research and evaluation.
If you go on the AQA site and download the eqp spec, you will also find the marking criteria and grid describing what's included in each assessment objective (AO1-AO4), and which part of the project evidences which AO. I always share this with my students as it's helpful for them to check they have covered all AOs effectively through their project.
She will also need to be completing a time stamped log throughout the project - our school uses project Q, as the sections are all set up with clear guidance, but her supervisor or epq coordinator needs to set this up.