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Texts

Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (first published by Simon & Schuster, 2000)

Katherine Boo, Behind The Beautiful Forevers (Scribe 2012)

Description

This unit allows students to significantly advance their writing practice and associated critical and editorial skills through close analysis of the novel and memoir, with an emphasis on story-level and narrative concerns. In Novel and Memoir, students will engage in detailed analysis from a writer's point of view of how a novel is made - the problem-solving process, which includes overall and chapter structure, character development, and other key narrative elements. This unit also gives students a unique opportunity to consider the synergies and differences between writing novels and longer forms of life writing, with extended analysis of the conventions of memoir writing. Lectures, intensive workshop activities, self-directed creative practice, guided critical analysis, and on-line collaboration characterise the teaching and learning in this unit.

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