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 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
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).
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%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 19.35% 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 Evaluation Survey
Update unit content with more recent knowledge and research.
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.
New secondary sources successfully integrated into the unit.
Source: Student Feedback via Moodle
Update the primary texts (short stories) to reflect the interests and needs of contemporary students
The unit coordinator will introduce more contemporary short stories into the unit through the weekly Moodle modules and library eReading list.
A set of more contemporary primary texts was successfully integrated into the unit.
Source: Student Evaluation Survey
Improve organisation of learning materials
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.
New scaffolded assessment items and topics were developed reflecting an improved organization of learning materials.
Source: Tutorial
Some students felt there were too many learning resources not organized efficiently.
A Universal Design for Learning structure will be adopted: a multimodal sequence of video, text, audio, and interactive elements allowing students to engage with concepts in ways that support diverse learning preferences, accessibility needs, and study contexts.
In Progress
Source: Tutorial
Some students feel Zoom sessions need more structure and clear agenda
Cognitive Load Theory will be applied. The adoption of a consistent, predictable weekly rhythm (Video > Text > Podcast > Activity), will reduce "extraneous cognitive load."
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- interpret, analyse and evaluate selected short stories from the nineteenth and twentieth century using a variety of advanced text-based interpretative and analytical techniques;
- analyse and compare selected short stories within a framework of issues such as ideology, gender, race and the politics of literature;
N/A
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • |
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • |
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | • |
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | • | |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | • | ||||||
| 3 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | |||||||
| 1 - Written Assessment | • | • | |||||||||