54074 Writing Laboratory
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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 2021 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 8 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Requisite(s): 54072 Narrative and Theory OR 58330 Narrative and Theory OR 54073 Genre Writing OR 58902 Writing Through Genre OR 58216 Imagining the Real OR 58217 Experiments in Culture OR 54071 Imagining the Real
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Anti-requisite(s): 58313 Writing Laboratory
Description
This subject encourages an innovative and experimental approach to writing. The laboratory is an environment that enables students to link concepts and practices. The subject is focused on inquiry as well as practice, to encourage critical reflection on creativity in an evolving publishing environment. It explores key questions and texts from cultural, critical and literary debates, stressing ideas about contemporary experience. Students may compose in any medium or form they choose, to develop a written project for their main assessment task: fiction, non-fiction, screenwriting, graphic or multimedia, poetry, philosophical or fictocritical writing, or other innovative forms. This subject considers the design as well as the content of writing, and students are asked to practise innovative and non-traditional ways of presenting or delivering written work that is also of a professional standard.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
| a. | Identify a range of historical and contemporary experimental practices and concepts in the field of writing |
|---|---|
| b. | Write in innovative, experimental, and/or imaginative forms |
| c. | Investigate and evaluate evolving online, digital or other innovative publishing practices |
| d. | Apply appropriate formats for the design, construction, publication and exhibition of written works |
| e. | Revise a creative project to a standard of professional practice |
| f. | Reflect on their own creative practice |
| g. | Engage with Indigenous creative writing in a sophisticated manner |
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:
- Possess a well-developed awareness of professional practice in the context of the communication industries (1.1)
- Apply theoretically informed understanding of the communication industries in independent and collaborative projects across a range of media (1.2)
- Possess information literacy skills to locate, gather, organise and synthesise information across diverse platforms to inform the understanding of the communication industries (2.1)
- Be reflexive critical thinkers and creative practitioners who are intellectually curious, imaginative and innovative, with an ability to evaluate their own and others' work (2.2)
- Employ professional skills responsibly and respectfully in a global environment (3.2)
- Integrate knowledge of Indigenous issues in professional practices and engage responsibly in communicating with and about Indigenous people and communities (4.2)
- Possess well-developed skills and proficiencies to communicate and respond effectively and appropriately across different contexts (6.1)
Teaching and learning strategies
Lectures will incorporate different perspectives on the creative research and writing activities proposed at the core of the laboratory, for example: the lyric essay, poetic and postmodern forms of composition, on-line and multimedia composition, and other experimental approaches to writing. Material will be offered for students to read, view and download before classes, and this preparation will be vital for the generation of class discussions and for responding to the assessment tasks. The lecture series is designed in a modular structure, allowing segments to be given by different research-based and practice-based specialists who have particular interests in innovative approaches to writing. There are both guest lectures and student presentations. Students will read/review a range of texts and will practise writing both within and outside class time; they will engage in feedback with their peers on their draft work. At least one week (perhaps more) will be devoted to an out-of-class activity such as attendance at a literary event and/or observational research activities.
Seminars will involve class discussions in which proposed projects are pitched and advice is given on research, design techniques, delivery modes and publication opportunities. Students post ongoing research and notes towards their project in their e-journal, found on UTS Online. Work progress can be shared and will be discussed each week and in these ways, students receive formative written and oral feedback from their peers and from the lecturer.
Content (topics)
Writing Laboratory may address some or all of the following topic areas: the nature of experiment and its modern history in relation to writing and creative text; contemporary debate about experimental writing; the role of the writer as designer, composer and editor; innovative critical contexts for the practice of writing; the essay as an experimental structure; the poetic composition in traditional and non-traditional formats; exemplary case studies in contemporary writing; and web-based composition and the writing and constructing of text-based works in a public space.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: The Workbook
| Objective(s): | a, b, c, d, e, f and g | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 40% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 2500 words | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 2: The Work
| Objective(s): | b, c, d, e and f | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 60% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 3000 words or equivalent for non-prose projects (in consultation with lecturer) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Minimum requirements
Classes are based on a collaborative approach that involves essential work-shopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor.
In this subject assessment tasks are cumulative so that each task builds understanding and/or skills, informed by formative feedback. Consequently, all assessments must be submitted in order for you to receive feedback. Students who do not submit all assessments will not pass the subject.
References
Alexander, J., Brien, D.L. and McAllister, M. 2015, Diaries are better than novels, more accurate than histories, and even at times more dramatic than plays: Revisiting the diary for creative writers, Text, Canberra, ACT.
Bakewell, S. 2011, Q. How to live. A. Pay attention in How to live: a life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer, London: Vintage.
De Botton, A. 2006, Marxism (chapter 6) in Essays in love, Pan Macmillan
Didion, J. 1968, On keeping a notebook, in Slouching towards Bethlehem, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993, c1968, pp 131-141
Franzen, J. 2002, Mr. Difficult, The New Yorker 78:29, September 30: 100.
Gaffney, E. 2001, Lorrie Moore, The art of fiction no. 167, The Paris Review, http://www.theparisreview.org/ interviews/ 510/ the-art-of-fiction-no-167-lorrie-moore
Heti, S. 2013, How Should A Person Be? Henry Holt & Co, New York. extract from NPR: National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/ books/ titles/ 154928887/ how-should-a-person-be
Jones, R. 2006, Peter Carey, the art of fiction no. 188, The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/ interviews/ 5641/ the-art-of-fiction-no-188-peter-carey
Joseph, S. 2016, Behind the Text: candid conversations with Australian creative nonfiction writers, Melbourne: Hybrid Publishers
Joyce, James,1922, Ulysses (episode 4), Adelaide, SA: eBooks@Adelaide, University of Adelaide.
Lerner, B. 2013, False Spring, Paris Review. Issue 205, p25-42.
Marcus, B. 2005, 'Why experimental fiction threatens to destroy publishing, Jonathan Franzen and life as we know it: a correction', Harper's, vol. 311, iss. 1865, pp.39-52.
Mead, R. 2014, Miss Brooke in Mead, R. Mead, R. The Road to Middlemarch: My Life with George Eliot, Melbourne: Text Publishing.
Stephenson,W. 2012, Stepping into History: Values, context, influences in Gonzo Republic by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012 pp.1-41.
Syjuco, M. 2011 The Crowded Streets, New York Times, Sunday Book Review, Feb 25