Course Title: Produce Writings - Novel

Part B: Course Detail

Teaching Period: Term1 2007

Course Code: COMM5401

Course Title: Produce Writings - Novel

School: 345T Creative Media

Campus: City Campus

Program: C4171 - Certificate IV in Professional Writing and Editing

Course Contact : Program Administration Brendan Lee

Course Contact Phone: +61 3 9925 4368

Course Contact Email:Brendan.lee@rmit.edu.au

Name and Contact Details of All Other Relevant Staff

Olga Lorenzo
9925 4058
olga.lorenzo@rmit.edu.au
 
Laurie Clancy
9925 4340
lclancy@bigpond.net.au

Nominal Hours: 105

Regardless of the mode of delivery, represent a guide to the relative teaching time and student effort required to successfully achieve a particular competency/module. This may include not only scheduled classes or workplace visits but also the amount of effort required to undertake, evaluate and complete all assessment requirements, including any non-classroom activities.

Pre-requisites and Co-requisites

None

Course Description

This course introduces you to the basic conventions of novel writing. You originate a concept early in first semester and then refine this concept while developing the first draft of a novel. Produce Writings – Novel supports the attainment of skills and knowledge required for competent performance as a writer in a range of writing contexts.

The competency Produce Writings – Novel VBP552 is delivered and assessed alongside the following competencies:
CUVCOR03A: Develop, refine and communicate concept for own work
CUVCOR11A: Source information on history and theory and apply to own work
CUSRAD01A: collect and organise information

National Codes, Titles, Elements and Performance Criteria

National Element Code & Title:

VBP552 Produce Writings - Novel

Learning Outcomes

Not applicable On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to develop the concept for a novel, create and refine a synopsis and begin the first draft of a manuscript.

Details of Learning Activities

Students learn through classroom-based lectures, workshopping, writing exercises, discussion and class presentations. Students are expected to do their own research and writing off-campus.

Teaching Schedule

The following schedule is a rough guide, subject to change depending on class needs.

Weeks	Topics
1	Introduction
2	Getting ideas for novel themes
3	Craft elements in the beginnings of novels
4–6	Voice and point of view
7–8	Rhythm and pace
9–11	Show, don’t tell
12–14	Dialogue
15–17	Characterisation
18	Semester review
19	Review
20–21	Sense of place and atmosphere
22	Politics and the novel
23–24	Texts set by teacher
25	Realism, modernism and post-modernism
26–27	Texts set by teacher
28–29	Imagery, metaphor and symbolism
30–31	Texts set by teacher
32–33	Endings
34	Genre
35	Practicalities of selling novels
36	Semester review

Learning Resources

Prescribed Texts

References

Other Resources

This will vary according to the teacher.

For Olga Lorenzo
Weeks 1–18:
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
The Love Child by Fran Cusworth
Weeks 19–36:
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
One True Thing by Anna Quindlen

For Laurie Clancy
Weeks 1–18:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner
Moral Hazard by Kate Jennings
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
Weeks 19–36:
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Overview of Assessment

Assessment for this course is ongoing throughout the semester. Your knowledge and understanding of course content is assessed through participation in class exercises, oral presentations and through the application of learned skills and insights to your writing tasks.

Assessment Tasks

1. Novel excerpt

A 5000-word excerpt from your novel, including word count, and edited to publishable standard.

Weighting:
80% of total assessment

2. Presentation

A five-minute presentation on one of the set texts, focussing on a single element of craft.

Note: this is neither a book review, a discussion of the themes of the novel nor a recounting of the plot. It is a discussion of only one element of craft covered in the teaching schedule above: for example, pace, dialogue or point of view. The presentation should focus on ’what I learned’ about this element of craft while reading this book. Students should take notes while reading.

Weighting:
10% of total assessment

3. Class participation

Students are expected to participate in class discussions, consistently workshop manuscripts, respond to feedback, provide a positive contribution to the work-in-progress of other students, contribute to an analysis and discussion of set texts, and participate in the writing and discussion of class exercises.

Weighting:
10 % of total assessment

Assessment Matrix

Not applicable

Other Information

Not applicable

Course Overview: Access Course Overview