57122 Short Fiction Workshop
Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a
particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source
of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.
Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 8 cp
Result type: Grade, no marks
Requisite(s): 72 credit points of completed study in spk(s): C04411 Master of Media Practice and Industry (Extension)
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Anti-requisite(s): 50002 Introduction to Short Fiction AND 50223 Writing Short Fiction
Description
This is an advanced workshop subject for students who are interested in short fiction, and keen to commence work on a collection of short stories. The focus of this subject is on form: what makes a short story? How do I turn a simple narrative into a short story?
In this subject writing tasks are cumulative so that each task builds understanding and/or writing skills, informed by formative feedback from the lecturer and peers which students can then incorporate into their future writing.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
| a. | Reflect critically on their writing |
|---|---|
| b. | Revise and re-draft work in progress |
| c. | Reflect critically on fictional texts in English |
| d. | Study and practise formal and technical elements of short story writing |
| e. | Place the short story collection in a social, political and cultural context |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject engages with the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs), which are tailored to the Graduate Attributes set for all graduates of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences:
- Write to a publishable standard across a range of genres, demonstrating an advanced understanding of the appropriate use of different writing forms (1.1)
- Negotiate and understand the specifications of commissioned writing tasks in diverse environments (1.2)
- Understand, reproduce and experiment with genre and form (2.1)
- Locate and evaluate an extensive range of sources in literary practice (2.2)
- Convey complex ideas in writing clearly and effectively to specialist and non-specialist audiences, across a range of media formats (6.1)
Teaching and learning strategies
Activities will consist of a mix of workshop, compulsory exercises, reading and commentary on students' work, brief seminar presentations, in-class discussion and analysis, reading projects.
Each class will involve reading and discussing the work of published authors, as well as workshopping student exercises. Students are expected to write and circulate for peer assessment drafts of their work-in-progress. Additionally, students study a select range of short fiction, including work from the great practitioners of the 20th and publications from leading contemporary short story writers. The aim of this subject is to provide focus and encouragement to enable students to produce finished short stories.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Critical Essay
| Objective(s): | c and d | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 35% | ||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 2,000 words | ||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 2: Final Assignment
| Objective(s): | a, b and d | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 65% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 3-4,000 words | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
References
A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, George Saunders
Raymond Carver, Fires, (London: Picador, 1985)
Steven Earnshaw, Ed, The Handbook of Creative Writing (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007)
Jack Hodgins, A Passion for Narrative (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993)
Adrian Hunter, The Cambridge Introduction to the Short Story in English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction (London: Methuen 1983)