Dear all,

I’m posting this now, but your work won’t come back until the office releases it, probably well after results are issued.

For those of you whose work has been returned, I’ve gone to town with the purple pen/pencil. Don’t worry too much; everyone’s work has the same number of scribbles all over it; for the best work I marked finicky things, for the less good work I marked the worst mistakes. These are the things I’d cut/change/rewrite if I was editing it for publication, and there would probably be more in a rewrite.

As I expected, the marking curve made things difficult, particularly at the lower end; some of you received passes when I would really have liked to give you H3s...in some cases where one piece of work was clearly better than the other, I’ve had to default to the lower grade; the individual comments generally reflect that.

Small things: Almost all of you need to watch out for apostrophe placement and homophones (new/knew, too/to): spellcheck doesn’t pick these up. Passive and active voice generally need work too; look out for the “which was”, “that was”, “whiles” – they generally indicate where a bit of punctuation and punchiness could be used. I found a lot of “that” where “who” should be used: it should not be “The fireman that broke the window”, but “The fireman who broke the window.” “That” is for objects: “The car that crashed.”

Often the things I’ve marked are cases of your having an image in mind, but not expressing it well. If you come up with a metaphor, it’s important to be sure it works. Sometimes the clarity of an idea in your mind can fool you into thinking that what you’ve written will communicate it well to your reader’s mind. Don’t assume that. You can waste good images/metaphors if you don’t rigorously test their expression.

Most of you have responded really well to the themes. This tells you that, given a framework and deadlines, you can come up with good piece of writing. The next step is to start coming up with themes, topics (and deadlines) for yourself, to develop what you’re interested in.

As you do that, you’ll also develop more of your own style; the difficulty I’ve found with teaching this subject is coming up with a “one size fits all” approach; everyone has a different way of getting it right, which has inevitably led to much of the focus being on what not to do. Read through your pieces again and focus on what did work, and try to do more of that.

Finally, I’ve realised that of all the creative writing subjects, this seems to be the most personal; almost all of you have workshopped and/or submitted folio pieces that talk about your own lives, sometimes intimately. This is great for developing your writing voice; it’s also been a privilege for me and the other students to be trusted with your thoughts. Thanks for that, and your participation this semester.

Jenny

hi all,

I'm hoping the lack of emails from you all the last couple of days means you're doing well with all your work.

if not: requests for extensions should be with me by 4pm Monday, with reasons, and preferably by Sunday night. I'm around on email on and off over the weekend, but possibly not during the day Monday.

work late without an extension loses 2% per day; ie, you can hand in late and still pass, but you may end up going down a grade because of that. work handed in after 4pm on Wednesday 15/6 without discussion won't be marked; I have to get the marks to the uni by Friday 17th.

If you hand in work after 4pm on Tuesday 7th, can you PLEASE email me when you've done so, preferably with the work attached? I'm not based at the uni and I will have to make special trips in to pick up late work; if I receive it by email that will help me enormously. (will still get the hard copy at some point).

and a final reminder: attach a stamped addressed envelope if you want your work back/comments. keep a BACKUP.

If possible, email me a copy of your work, but the hard copy is what matters.

Jenny

study break

hi all,

brief post re: the study break.

my email (again) is j.sinclair2@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

as before, I won't be reading whole drafts, but I am very happy to discuss questions of style, approach and un-knotting particular problems, by email or in person.

I am away from the morning of Friday May 27 to the evening of Monday May 30. I won't be on email during that time.

If you want to meet me on Tuesday 31 or Wednesday June 1, the available times are below. If you are coming on a day other than your usual class, please note the different room number. I'll be sticking to these times, ie 15 minutes, so please try to be on time and have an idea what you want to discuss. if you feel you'll need longer, get in touch.

DON'T email me re: booking a meeting time. use the comments function to reserve a time, after reading through the times anyone else has taken, (including previous comments).

You can send me outlines and short extracts ahead of the meetings, bearing in mind that for Tuesday I will only have read them earlier Tuesday morning (unless you get them through to me by Thursday afternoon.)

After Wednesday I'm not planning to be in at uni, but email me if you're having particular problems. For questions about the folio structure, please refer to the reader and other posts on this blog before emailing me; if you want comments back on your pieces, please remember your envelope and stamps.

happy writing and thanks for all your efforts and input!

Jenny

Tuesday: Room 216 A, second floor opposite office in John Medley West.

Available:
9.30
9.45
10:00 booked
10.15:
10:30: booked(I have a short meeting elsewhere in the building at this time)
10:45: booked
11:00 booked

Wednesday: Room 106, first floor John Medley West

9:30
9:45
10:00
10:15
10:30: booked
10:45: booked
11:00 booked

hi all,

a small correction to what I've said about the marking process. I am in fact allowed to give extensions for a short period after the submission date.

however, I would rather not, and I'd be looking for reasons such as medical certificates and other unforseeable events that cover a reasonable period of time. something going wrong for a couple of days just before the due date probably won't buy you more than another couple of days, as you are expected to have already done a fair amount of the work by then.

anything handed in late up until June 16 will be marked, with a reduction of 2% for each day late if no extension has been given. Anything after that will not be marked as the results have to go into the uni admin system. and if you simply hand something in ten days late without discussion with me, it's likely you'll get a mark but not much in the way of feedback.

if you do submit late, either with permission or not, please email me and tell me when you've submitted as I don't work at the uni and I won't be checking the pigeonholes that often. an emailed copy of your work at the time of submission would also be really helpful; that will allow me to mark it without physically picking up a copy first, although I will collect the copies at some stage.

thanks,

Jenny

Customer, sorry, student satisfaction survey

Dear all,

The usual hard copy in-class subject assessment survey has been replaced with an electronic thingie.

Although we don't have an LMS page for this subject, I'm assured that the subject will appear on your surveys on your student portal home page.

If not, this is a direct link to the survey module, which I think will open up surveys for all your subjects.

It should be a brief process, and the uni can always do with feedback on all aspects of coursework and teaching, so I encourage you to do it for all your subjects.

......

on other matters, the homework for Week 11 was to look at a disaster through the prism of Twitter, Facebook and blogs, and to try to write a short report on that

of course it's too late for the Tuesday class, but if you're a Wednesday person, here's an excuse to mess around on the Internet and call it work.

For Week 12, we will have a lot of workshopping, David Foster Wallace and cake. I'm also hoping to talk about the concept of the "star" writer, which DFW was, and to look at a couple of others. If you have any favourites you're crazy about, this is the chance to proselytize about them.

by the final week I will have firm times for me to be at uni to meet any of you who want to discuss your work. I'm hoping that will be more or less close to the usual class times. After class I'll post the remaining times here; please check back before emailing me asking for meeting times!

thanks,

Jenny

hi all,

just this week's homework for any who weren't there or didn't catch it: Using firsthand accounts on blogs/Facebook/Twitter as your source, write a short (very short - 500 words max) report of a natural disaster.

if the a/v cooperates I'll be showing a small part of a movie called When the Levees Broke, about Hurricane Katrina, so if you happen to have access to it and want to have a look before next week, please do.

For next Tuesday's class, please make sure you read the Chloe Hooper piece in particular as that's what Tim will be presenting on.

Jenny

homework for week 9/10

for those who weren't there, the writing exercise is to write for 10+ minutes on either: a musical event as an anthropological study (ie writing about people's behaviour, not the music as such)

or: a time when you were convalescing from illness or recovering from grief (ie not the event itself, but the process of regaining some normality, even a new normality)

we'll use these to kickstart next week's discussion, so it would be great if you brought it along ready to read.

Important folio info in post below.

thanks,

Jenny