Units

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Sample subject outline - Semester 1 2013

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

This unit is designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills necessary to be a better writer or a more engaged and confident reader, or both. It demonstrates how great books deal with important ideas and values, which though particular to their time are still relevant today. The unit gives you a grasp of the uses to which language can be put and of the development of storytelling, which is central to the way we understand ourselves and our culture.

This unit is only available to postgraduate students. Undergraduate students wishing to study the short story should enrol in KWB207. Parts of this unit are taught concurrently with KWB207.

This unit is concurrently taught with KWB207, with appropriate learning outcomes tailored for postgraduate students.

Aims

This unit aims to provide you with a grasp and enjoyment of a representative sample of great books which are classics of creative writing (mainly from European literature) that have endured and continue to influence contemporary work. It will give you a better knowledge and understanding of the craft of storytelling and stimulate you to develop your own writing and to take a critical stance towards these books, which are always in a process of reinterpretation.

Objectives

On completion of this unit you should be able to:
1. Read and understand literary classics from a broad range of historical periods.
2. Understand the historical context in which works of literature are produced.
3. Understand ideas explored by the books, by using your ability to think clearly and logically in communicating your thoughts and responses to other people.
4. Recognise the assumptions made by earlier writing about readers' emotional reactions and moral values, and be more able to imagine, and to be tolerant of, other ways of seeing the world.
5. Show you are conversant with a range of forms, styles and structures of writing.
6. Write a creative piece that relates to one or more of the set texts in terms of ideas, style, craft, historical context or characterisation, for example; or write an analytical essay.

Content

This unit will include content such as:
Beowulf, Gulliver's Travels (journeys one and four), Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, Slaughterhouse 5 and Atonement.
Short stories by Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield, and Elizabethan and seventeenth century poems will be made available on the unit's Course Material's Database.

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

Classes comprise lectures and tutorials. Students will be strongly encouraged to read the set texts prior to the related lectures and tutorials, so as to gain maximum benefit from the unit. The emphasis is not on literary theory but on engaging with quite demanding texts. Experiences that require active participation and mental effort are more likely to stay with us.

Assessment

LATE ASSIGNMENTS
An assignment submitted after the due date without an approved extension will not be marked. If you are unable to complete your assignment on time, you should submit on time whatever work you have done.

Faculty Assessment Information
To access the Creative Industries Faculty Assessment Information please refer to the Blackboard site for this unit.FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
You will receive formative feedback on your progress in this unit during tutorials and discussions throughout the semester. Weight: 0%

Assessment name: Reflective Journal
Description: (Summative and Formative) Each lecture week after the first you will write 250-400 words as a response to the relevant text - addressing specific questions we provide you with, regarding craft, ideas and your personal connection to the text. The feedback on the first submission of this journal will guide you for the second submission. (2500 words minimum).
Relates to objectives: 1-5
Weight: 60%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Mid to late semester

Assessment name: Creative Work or Essay
Description: (Summative) Submission of a written creative piece which relates to one of the set texts and its ideas, craft, style or voice, for example. Or submission of an analytical essay dealing with themes, ideas, craft, for example. (1500 - 2000 words).
Relates to objectives: 1-6
Weight: 40%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: End of semester

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

Required Texts
Beowulf, Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels (read journeys one and four), Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice, Emilty Bronte Wuthering Heights, Charles Dickens Great Expectations. All these book length texts are available in Penguin classics. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 and Ian McEwan's Atonement are published by Vintage. . .
Short stories by Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield, and Elizabethan and seventeenth century poems will be made available on the unit's Course Materials Database.

Recommended extra reading for those who wish to read more great books in the future: Voltaire 'Candide'; Mary Shelley 'Frankenstein'; George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) 'Middlemarch'; Stendhal 'The Red and the Black'; Tolstoy 'Anna Karenina'; Flaubert 'Madam Bovary'; E.M. Forster 'A Passage to India'; Franz Kafka 'The Trial'; Gabriel Marquez 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'; Christina Stead 'The Man Who Loved Children'; Henry Handel Richardson (Ethel Florence Lindesay)'The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney'; Margaret Atwood 'The Blind Assassin'; David Malouf 'An Imaginary Life'; A.S.Byatt 'Possession'; .Other modern greats: Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Audrey Thomas, Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, Gunter Grass, Bernhard Schlink, Thomas Mann.

Risk assessment statement

There is no considered risk management for this unit.

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 04-Oct-2012