LITR11043 - The Short Story

General Information

Unit Synopsis

A short story contains multiple points of view and myriad narrative strategies. Moreover, as Patricia Hampl notes, the short story is 'acknowledged to be the most exquisite kind of prose fiction, requiring the perfect craft, the form in which the smallest slip can bring the whole contraption—plot, character, narration—down in a crash. A delicate business'. The aim of this unit is to provide students with an opportunity to explore the complexity and delicacy of the short story while developing their text-based interpretative and analytical techniques.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 1
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 1
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites There are no pre-requisites for the unit.

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 3 - 2024

Term 2 - 2025 Profile
Online
Rockhampton
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Online
Rockhampton

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

This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see assessment details from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.

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 88.89% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 12.68% 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 discussions
Feedback
Clarity of learning materials
Recommendation
Ensure learning materials remain up to date and aligned with the assessment strategies in this unit.
Action Taken
Learning materials were updated and streamlined to good effect as indicated in the satisfaction rate.
Source: Student Evaluation Survey
Feedback
Update unit content with more recent knowledge and research.
Recommendation
The unit coordinator will integrate the latest research on the short story into the unit by updating the library eReading list, and other learning materials.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student Feedback via Moodle
Feedback
Update the primary texts (short stories) to reflect the interests and needs of contemporary students
Recommendation
The unit coordinator will introduce more contemporary short stories into the unit through the weekly Moodle modules and library eReading list.
Action Taken
In Progress
Source: Student Evaluation Survey
Feedback
Improve organisation of learning materials
Recommendation
The unit coordinator will reorganise the Moodle unit to ensure a clearly sign-posted and scaffolded alignment of learning materials, assessment tasks and learning outcomes.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes
This information will not be available until 8 weeks before term.
To see Learning Outcomes from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.