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Children’s Literature Modules

Curriculum Details

  • 9 courses
  • 180 credits
  • Two-year course duration

The programme curriculum invites you to explore how stories for children and young people both shape — and are shaped by — culture, publishing, and society. You’ll examine how ideas of childhood are constructed across time and place, how publishing industries influence what reaches young readers, and how texts can reinforce or challenge social norms, power structures, and cultural values.

Delivered fully online in focused 8-week modules, the programme can be completed part-time in two years, with flexible pacing of up to four years to fit around professional and personal commitments. Shorter entry and exit routes are also available.

Across the programme, you’ll build expertise in literary analysis, inclusion and diversity, publishing histories, contemporary digital publishing, and research methods. Alongside critical study, you’ll develop your own creative practice, experimenting with voice, form, and narrative while reflecting on ethical authorship and representation.

Throughout your studies, you’ll work toward a substantial independent final project — either a theoretical dissertation or a creative portfolio with critical commentary — allowing you to specialise in the questions and forms that matter most to you. Optional live events, guest lectures, and industry connections provide additional opportunities to engage with leading voices in the field and expand your professional network.

Multiple entry and exit routes available. Take breaks when you need them and choose a qualification that best suits you:

Please note that occasionally we may make changes to our programme curriculum. You may not always study modules in the order they are listed here.

Phase 1 – 60 credits

Credits

Analyse how literary genres and narrative forms shape meaning across historical and cultural contexts, and how ideas of childhood influence storytelling conventions.

Explore how identities, power, and representation operate in children’s and YA texts. You’ll engage with questions of marginalisation, intersectionality, and social justice — and reflect on your own positionality as a reader, writer, or researcher.

Examine how publishing industries have shaped the production, circulation, and canonisation of children’s literature — and how ideas of childhood have evolved alongside them.

Develop your own creative work focused on childhood or adolescence, experimenting with voice, perspective, character, and structure.

Phase 2 – 60 credits

Credits

Gain insight into today’s publishing landscape, including digital innovation, audiobooks, marketing strategies, and emerging storytelling platforms.

Produce ambitious creative work that challenges existing literary norms and explores new possibilities for children’s and YA literature.

This module equips you with the research methods and ethical awareness needed to design and support analytical or creative work in children and young adult literature.

This module helps you develop a strong methodological framework for your final project, guiding you to position your work within key research traditions, justify your methodological choices, and critically reflect on how your own perspective shapes your inquiry.

Phase 3 – 60 credits

Credits

In your final phase, you’ll complete a substantial independent project. You can choose between: A dissertation presenting an original scholarly argument, or A portfolio combining original creative work with critical reflection. This capstone project allows you to specialise in your area of interest while integrating the theory, research, and creative practice developed throughout the programme.

Other entries

Credits

Phase 1

  • Inclusion and Diversity
  • Form and Genre
  • Publishing Histories
  • Writing Childhoods

Phase 2

  • Contemporary Publishing
  • Writing Futures
  • Methods
  • Methodology

Postgraduate Diploma Details

Phase 1

  • Inclusion and Diversity
  • Form and Genre
  • Publishing Histories
  • Writing Childhoods

Postgraduate Certificate Details

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