The non-exam assessment overview: the critical genre study (analysing a genre across texts and wider reading) and the creative writing tasks (one literary and one non-literary), informed by genre research and referenced accurately.

What this dot point is asking

The non-exam assessment (NEA) is the coursework component, worth a fifth of the qualification. It has two linked halves: a critical genre study (analysing a genre across texts and wider reading) and creative writing in that genre (one literary and one non-literary piece, informed by the research). This page is a single overview of what the NEA requires and how to approach it; your centre sets the exact tasks, word counts and deadlines.

The answer

The critical genre study

• Choose a genre offered by your centre: Gothic, dystopia, science fiction, life-writing, travel writing, journalism and others.
• Build a focused thesis about how the genre works, then evidence it across texts.
• Range through wider reading, not a single text, to show command of the genre.
• Integrate method and context (AO1 to AO3): analyse the language and literary techniques and how context shapes the genre.

The creative writing tasks

The second half is original writing informed by the genre study, in two modes:

• One literary piece - for example a Gothic short story or an extract exploiting setting, atmosphere and narrative voice.
• One non-literary piece - for example travel journalism or life-writing, controlling structure and register for a real audience and purpose.

The writing should deliberately deploy the conventions you analysed, demonstrating craft and control of language. Where a commentary is required, it explains how the genre research shaped your choices and their intended effect.

Referencing and process

Examples in context

Linking the critical study to the creative work. Suppose you choose the Gothic. Your critical genre study might argue a thesis that the Gothic generates fear less through overt monsters than through the manipulation of setting, the uncanny and the unreliable narrator, evidencing this across a set text and wider reading with integrated analysis of lexis (a semantic field of decay), structure (delayed revelation) and context (the genre's anxieties about the past). The creative half then puts that analysis to work: your literary piece, a Gothic short story, deliberately deploys a decaying setting, an uncanny doubling and a narrator whose reliability the reader comes to doubt, while your non-literary piece, perhaps a piece of atmospheric travel writing about an abandoned place, borrows the genre's techniques of setting and suspense for a real audience. A reflective commentary then closes the loop, explaining how each creative choice grew from the conventions you analysed. The strength of the NEA lies in exactly this coherence: the creative writing is informed by the critical study, and the critical study is precise enough to guide the writing.

Try this

Q1. What are the two linked parts of the NEA? [2 marks]

• Cue. A critical genre study (analytical) and creative writing in that genre (one literary and one non-literary piece).

Q2. Why is wider reading essential to the critical genre study? [2 marks]

• Cue. It shows command of how the genre works across texts, not just in one, supporting a genuine thesis about the genre.

Q3. Explain how the critical genre study should inform the creative writing tasks. [20 marks]

• What the marker wants. The creative pieces deliberately deploy the genre conventions analysed in the study, with controlled craft and, where required, a commentary linking the writing back to the research and accurate referencing.