This is an intensive and challenging course for students interested in developing skills in four genres – Poetry, Multimedia, Creative Non-Fiction and Short Fiction. Our focus is on language and form, and on learning (and demonstrating) imaginative and technical skills in all four genres. Students should have some knowledge of literary terms before beginning this course as well as confidence in writing in English.
The course has a unique structure that reflects its subject and an integrated approach to learning: we have weekly seminars (rather than lectures), which include craft instruction, close reading of set texts and writing exercises, and weekly writing homework. For five weeks of the semester, the seminars are three hours long. For the other seven weeks, we have two-hour seminars and a one-hour mandatory workshop held on a different day. In workshops creative work begin in the seminars and submitted as writing homework is discussed and reviewed. This work forms the basis of the two assessed portfolios, which cover all four genres.
Both reading and writing skills are assessed throughout the course – through reading quizzes, course book notations, writing exercises and portfolios of revisions. The role of the course within the English major is to enhance both writing and reading skills, to encourage experimentation with form and language, and to introduce students to a range of contemporary work by writers from Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific and around the world.
Our course is informed by principles of manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, sharing experiences and obligations. Peer review is a part of every workshop and students keep a Writer’s Workbook of notes (from texts and seminars), exercises, notes, research and ideas.