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The Handbook of Creative Writing!$!Steven Earnshaw, ed.!$! Edinburgh!$!Edinburgh UP!$!2007

Description

Students are brought into close contact with creative practice in both mainstream and emergent forms of fiction and narrative as they investigate the question 'what is fiction?'. The subject introduces a wide range of recent and modern forms of fiction writing as technical examples and thematic models. Throughout the semester students produce and collectively workshop their own writing in fiction or script. At the same time, critical debate within the class explores the limits and the possibilities of the contemporary text together with the functional operation of categories such as 'author', 'genre', 'narrative', 'performance', 'subjectivity', 'meaning', 'reading', 'writing' and 'text', including in relation to innovative formats such as hypertext or other electronic formats. Students are encouraged to choose within a wide range of fictional forms for their creative writing.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Minor Fictional Piece

Objective(s): a, b, d

Weighting: 30%

Length: 1,000 words

Task: To write one 1,000 word piece in relation to a specific fictional form, and then redraft, taking into consideration critical feedback from workshopping.

Assessment criteria:

* Accomplishment of narrative

* Inventiveness and originality of writing

* Integration of critical feedback

* Level of informed and creative exchange

Assessment item 2: Critical presentation

Objective(s): b, c, e

Weighting: 20%

Task: To present a short analysis of a fictional form in class, placing it within the context of a general overview of fictional forms, and submit a one-page summary.

Assessment criteria:

* Insight and originality in discussion of chosen material

* Level of critical analysis

* Level of informative and creative exchange

* Timely use of UTS Online

Assessment item 3: Major Narrative or Equivalent in Selected Fictional Form

Objective(s): a, b, e

Weighting: 50%

Task: To write a 2500 word narrative in the form of a short story or the beginning of a novella or approximately ten pages of a screenplay and to workshop it online and in class. Students are expected to: - Participate in UTS on-line and in class peer-to-peer assessment to redraft 2500 word narrative or approximately ten pages of a screenplay - Post a draft of narrative on UTS online - Read as allocated one other person's draft on-line - Create comments to give and exchange in class and on-line

Assessment criteria:

* Inventiveness, originality and consistency of writing

* Structure of work

* Integration of self-assessment and critical feedback

* Level of informative and creative exchange

* Timely use of UTS Online

Supplementary Texts

Pat Cooper and Ken Dancyger, Writing the Short Film (Oxford: Focal, 2005) Marguerite Duras, The Lover. Any edition. Adrian Hunter, The Cambridge Introduction to the Short Story in English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Any edition. Robert McKee, Story: Substance, structure, style and the principles of screenwriting (London: Methuen, 1999) James Wood, How Fiction Works (London: Jonathan Cape, 2008).
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