Save Creative Writing in TAFE

David is misleading people when he states above that the creative units weren’t in the old course – they were explicitly linked to a large 340 hour unit called REFINE WRITINGS which broke down into three SPECIALISATION units as listed below. The specialisations HAD TO BE REPORTED as such on student results sheets. This is not the case with the much smaller unit he alludes to in the new course - the new 112 hour Refine Writing etc. unit (a generic catch=all non-specialist unit by anyone’s reading) DOES NOT require reporting of the specific disciplines studied and – if we do the maths that’s 200+ hours lost PLUS a specific title . It has not gone unnoticed also that cultural context units like Myths and Symbols for Writers and Literature for Writers have vanished – how to be original when one doesn’t understand the history of writing???

Best of luck to the students, coordinators and teachers affected by this kind of dodging of responsibility – the new Diploma is obviously seriously flawed and needs to be fixed. David, however, did try to fix some blatant flaws in the old course – but unfortunately at the expense of creating new problems.

Here follows an extract from the old course document re: the specialisation component in that course – HALF THE COURSE!

Extract Direct from the old Diploma Course document 21675VIC

*The writing unit, VBP 553 Refine writing and editing techniques, in the Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing does not specify any particular style or genre of writing because this would result in the addition of numerous units of competency to the course without any actual change to the structure.

However the course structure states that the assessee must nominate the area of specialisations in which he or she is to be assessed.

It is essential that the Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing fully describe the specialisations in which individuals achieve competence in writing. There is, for example, a big difference between writing a novel and writing the magazine for a corporation. To address this requirement, the qualification and Statements of Attainment must clearly state the appropriate specialisations. This information should be recorded either on the qualification/Statement of Attainment or an accompanying transcript.
The assessee must complete a minimum of three (3) specialisations.
The following lists the main specialisations which will apply.

Specialisations:
• Novel, Popular Fiction, Writing for Younger Children, Writing for Older Children, Writing for Young Adults, Short Story, Public Relations, Corporate Writing, Non Fiction, Journalism, Scientific/Technical, Histories, Playwriting, Screenwriting, Comedy Writing, Adaptations, Poetry, Education, Myths and Symbols, Literary Non-fiction, Photography for Writers, Writing for the web, Editing , Desktop publishing, Writing for digital media, Small Press publishing