Overview
This unit invites students to explore a selection of novels by a number of significant writers from the twentieth century and from a range of national literatures. These novels address a range of issues including post-colonialism, the transition from the psyche to psychology, sexuality, the American Jazz age, Southern post-bellum agonistics, gender, magic realism, existentialism, slavery, racism, the holocaust and identity. The unit also charts the passage from modernism to post-modernism.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Nil
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).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2018
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.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
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.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback – Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
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.
Feedback from Student evaluation
Many students indicated that they greatly enjoyed studying the novels set for the unit, and appreciated being able to choose which texts they wanted to write on for their assignments.
Continue to provide the opportunity for students to engage with a range of classic modern novels, and to choose the texts they are most interested in writing on for their assessment tasks.
Feedback from Student evaluation
Several students commented positively on the assessment, stating that the assignments were 'clearly explained' and that they enjoyed 'starting with the Book Review and working up', and praising the 'In depth critical feedback on assignments'. One student said the assessment tasks had 'helped make me a better writer'.
Continue to provide scaffolded assessment for the unit along with clear explanations and detailed feedback for assessment tasks.
Feedback from Student evaluation
Several students commented that they found the Zoom sessions useful, including students who could not attend but were able to access the recordings.
Continue to provide regular Zoom sessions and make recordings of all sessions available,
Feedback from Student evaluation
Students indicated that they valued the range of sources and readings provided for each week as well as the 'Clear and in depth study guides and lecture notes'.
Continue to provide students with a wide range of readings and detailed study guides and lecture notes.
Feedback from Student evaluation, student emails
Some students found that some links in Moodle were unavailable.
Check all links to library resources at the beginning of term.
- analyse and compare selected modern novels within a framework of issues such as ideology, gender, race and the politics of literature;
- articulate the evolution of the novel from socio/moral/expressive realism through modernism and post-modernism; and,
- interpret, analyse and evaluate complex literary texts.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 20% | |||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 40% | |||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 40% | |||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | |||
| 2 - Problem Solving | |||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | |||
| 4 - Information Literacy | |||
| 5 - Team Work | |||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | |||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | |||
| 9 - Social Innovation | |||
| 10 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
| 1 - Written Assessment - 20% | ||||||||||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 40% | ||||||||||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 40% | ||||||||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
Additional Textbook Information
Students will need to have access to the set novels:
Wk 1 Introduction
Wk 2 Joseph Conrad: Heart of darkness (1899)
Wk 3 Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (1912)
Wk 4 F Scott Fitzgerald: The great Gatsby (1925)
Wk 5 Ernest Hemingway: The sun also rises (1926)
Wk 6 Virginia Woolf: To the lighthouse (1927)
Wk 7 William Faulkner: As I lay dying (1930)
Wk 8 Albert Camus: The outsider (1942)
Wk 9 Sylvia Plath: The bell jar (1963)
Wk 10 Gabriel Garcia Marquez: 100 years of Solitude (1967)
Wk 11 Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s tale (1985)
Wk 12 Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing style: Harvard (author-date)
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
s.butler@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Introduction: The Modern Novel
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
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Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness (1899)
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Thomas Mann – Death in Venice (1912)
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Ernest Hemingway - The sun also rises (1927)
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Virginia Woolf – To the Lighthouse (1927)
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William Faulkner – As I Lay Dying (1930)
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Albert Camus - The Outsider (1942)
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Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar (1963)
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Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 100 Years of Solitude (1967)
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Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
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Toni Morrison – Beloved (1987)
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1 Written Assessment
Weighting: 20%
Length: 1000 words (+/- 10%)
Details
You are required to choose one novel from the unit (preferably one of those studied in the first four weeks, so that you will have the benefit of the unit materials to help you) and write a Book Review of that novel. Your Book Review should be based on your own close reading of the novel, and should cover the following points:
- A brief description of the book
- A brief discussion of the book’s historical, social and/or literary context
- An analysis of the book’s main themes
- An evaluation of the book’s significance: is it an important work of literature? If so, why? If not, why not?
You may want to model your review on the kind of book reviews you can find in literary newspapers and journals. For example, look at the Review section of the Weekend Australian, or the weekend supplements to The Age or the Sydney Morning Herald. You may also want to look for exemplars in Australian Book Review, the Sydney Review of Books, the New York Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement.
Be selective in the exemplars you choose. Do not model your review on the kinds of reviews you might find on the GoodReads or Amazon.com websites. These reviews tend to be solely focused on whether the book is enjoyable to read or not; in your review, you will be thinking much more broadly about the strengths and weaknesses of the book and its contribution to literary culture. A marked-up exemplar is provided on the unit’s Moodle website.
Note that you will be expected not only to read your selected novel and develop your own ideas about its themes and significance but also to do some further research about the history of the book and the way it has been viewed by other readers and critics. For instance, in developing your analysis of the novel, you may want to look at what other critics have seen as its strengths and weaknesses. Acknowledge your research in your review using in-text referencing, and include a reference list using the Harvard (Author-Date) style. Only two or three sources are needed.
Please note: the novel you choose for this assignment cannot be chosen again for assignments 2 and 3. Each assignment must deal with different novels.
Week 4 Friday (30 Mar 2018) 11:55 pm AEST
Week 6 Friday (20 Apr 2018)
This assignment will be evaluated on the following criteria:
- Identification and analysis of the novel’s main themes
- Understanding of the novel’s historical and social context
- Cogent evaluation of the work’s significance
- Appropriate acknowledgement of all sources using the Harvard (author-date) style
- Clear and effective writing, with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation
- analyse and compare selected modern novels within a framework of issues such as ideology, gender, race and the politics of literature;
- articulate the evolution of the novel from socio/moral/expressive realism through modernism and post-modernism; and,
- interpret, analyse and evaluate complex literary texts.
- Communication
- Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
2 Written Assessment
Weighting: 40%
Word length: 1500-2000 words
Task:
Choose a question from one of the discussion questions listed on the Moodle website for one of the set novels and write a 1500-2000 word response in essay format. Please note: the novel you choose for this assignment cannot be the same novel you choose for assignments 1 or 3. Each assignment must deal with different novels.
The essay must include both in-depth analysis of your chosen novel and references to a range of scholarly sources (minimum of 5). Note that all references need to be academic (i.e. peer-reviewed journal articles and/or scholarly books) and obtained using the Library's databases and/or resources. Wiki and other non-scholarly references from the Internet will not be accepted.
A guide to analysing a novel and using academic sources in your essay is provided on the unit’s Moodle website.
Week 8 Friday (4 May 2018) 11:55 pm AEST
Week 10 Friday (18 May 2018)
This assignment will be evaluated using the following assessment criteria:
- Development of a convincing and coherent argument in response to the question
- The relevance, insight and depth of analysis of the chosen novel, supported by evidence from the text
- Effective use of a range of academic sources (minimum of 5) to support both argument and analysis
- Clear and effective writing, with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation
- Appropriate acknowledgement of all sources using the Harvard (author-date) referencing style.
- analyse and compare selected modern novels within a framework of issues such as ideology, gender, race and the politics of literature;
- articulate the evolution of the novel from socio/moral/expressive realism through modernism and post-modernism; and,
- interpret, analyse and evaluate complex literary texts.
- Communication
- Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Information Literacy
- Information Technology Competence
- Cross Cultural Competence
- Ethical practice
3 Written Assessment
Weighting: 40%
Length: 2000 words (+/- 10%)
Write an essay answering ONE of the following questions (note: in answering this question, students should not use novels discussed in Assessment Items 1 & 2):
-
Gender and sexuality are key issues explored in many modern novels, sometimes transgressively so. Choose at least two of the set texts and explore the ways in which they deal with gender and sexuality.
- Modern literature uses a variety of narrative techniques and multiple points of view to generate a complex portrait of the human psyche. Discuss with reference to at least two of the set texts.
- The modern novel challenges, plays with and even rewrites official versions of history, bringing to light perspectives, experiences and points of view that might otherwise remain hidden. Discuss with reference to at least two of the set texts.
The essay must include both in-depth analysis of your chosen novels and references to a range of scholarly sources (minimum of 6). Please note that all references need to be academic (i.e. peer-reviewed journal articles and/or scholarly books) and obtained using the Library's databases and/or resources. Wiki and other non-scholarly references from the Internet will not be accepted.
A guide to analysing a novel and using academic sources in your essay is provided on the unit’s Moodle website.
Week 12 Friday (1 June 2018) 11:55 pm AEST
Essays will be returned as soon as practicable after the end of term.
This assignment will be marked using the following evaluation criteria:
- Development of a convincing and coherent argument in response to the question
- Engagement with key concepts relating to the modern novel
- The relevance, insight and depth of analysis of the chosen novels, supported by evidence from the texts
- Effective use of a range of academic sources (minimum of 6) to support both argument and analysis
- Clear and effective writing, with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation
- Appropriate acknowledgement of all sources using the Harvard (author-date) referencing style.
- analyse and compare selected modern novels within a framework of issues such as ideology, gender, race and the politics of literature;
- articulate the evolution of the novel from socio/moral/expressive realism through modernism and post-modernism; and,
- interpret, analyse and evaluate complex literary texts.
- Communication
- Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Information Literacy
- Ethical practice
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
