Save Creative Writing in TAFE

We are working on getting you access to the new course. Perhaps Dr Gary could post it for us. I can give you the links to the old course which everyone is so staunchly defending. Go to http://trainingsupport.otte.vic.gov.au/curriculum and type in Professional Writing under Keywords. You may be asked to identify whatt sort of person you are. This is for data.Just click Other.

You will than be able to view the current course . I recommend the Executive Summary which is succinct and covers all the major points. You can also download the whole thing if you like.

You may be surprised to find that :

1. There's no mention of a Novel or Poetry Writing Unit or anything like it and the electives look pretty drab. As I've been trying to explain it's up to the colleges to turn the structure into subjects and provide your teaching material.

2. You'll also note that it's only a maximum of 650 hours long - one year. It has never been a two year course. It's two years if you approach it by doing the Certificate IV as well. You can still do this. Nobody is doing away with the Certificate IV.

Well at least you will be a little better informed now. I'll see what I can do to get you the new course structure. It's too long to type out but here's the new core :

Manage projects
Develop and apply creative arts industry knowledge
Provide services on a freelance basis
Write extended stories
Write non-fiction
Refine writing skills
Refine editing skills

A smart and creative teacher can use most of these to focus on your writing. In the other two you learn about the practical world of getting published, working with other creative people, networking, industry contacts, the appropriate fees to charge and so on. We anticipated that teachers would use this opportunity to bring in working publishers and editors to help you.

After that you have 300 hours devoted to whatever type of writing you would like. We've given you 14 specific choices ranging from Write for children to Write song lyrics but if your teachers want to develop others and include them they are welcome.

Oh and we also provided units on desk-top publishing for people who want to publish themselves. At the back of our thinking was the desire to see a course where students could have contact with all the aspects of professional writing or if they wanted to they could use the range of units to work on a major work from a variety of angles. You can start a novel under projects or bring it with you, , continue your chapters under extended stories, refine it under writing skills and prepare it for publication under editing. That's just an example. The course is as flexible as the teachers wish to make it.

Good luck