JOUR12010 - Feature Writing

General Information

Unit Synopsis

In this unit you will develop your advanced journalism skills and start to introduce creative prose to your writing. The unit content and exercises focus on research, editorial and column writing, as well as techniques for human interest and profile features. You will experience the rigors of the modern media industry as you pitch, plan and execute two feature articles of a publishable standard.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 2
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Prerequisite: 36 Credit Points

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2024

Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Online

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Written Assessment 20%
2. Written Assessment 40%
3. Written Assessment 40%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2024 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 36.36% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student Feedback
Feedback
Students commented on the Unit Coordinator's passion for the discipline and encouraged students to interact with their peers
Recommendation
Teaching staff are to maintain their passion for the discipline and encourage students to interact with their peers.
Action Taken
Teaching staff maintained their passion for the discipline and continued to encourage interaction between students.
Source: Teaching Staff Evaluation
Feedback
Although the unit has been terminated, there is scope to incorporate student-focused aspects, such as high levels of student engagement and flexibility, into other units
Recommendation
Incorporate student-focused aspects into other units.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Pitch newsworthy topics for two different long-form feature articles
  2. Apply appropriate news criteria when using news-gathering skills to address news and current affairs in a feature writing context
  3. Produce a publishable profile feature article while adhering to industry standards
  4. Exercise advanced journalistic writing skills and research techniques to produce issue-based news feature article
  5. Critique and discuss feature article genres, audience, and the nature of publication.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Written Assessment •
2 - Written Assessment • •
3 - Written Assessment • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4 5
1 - Communication • • • • •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • • •
4 - Information Literacy • • • •
6 - Information Technology Competence • • • •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence •
8 - Ethical practice • • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - Written Assessment • • • •
2 - Written Assessment • • • • • •
3 - Written Assessment • • • • • •