university of sydney creative writing

Centre for Continuing Education, the University of Sydney ABN: 15 211 513 464 160 Missenden Rd Newtown, 2042 (02) 8627 6700 [email protected] Payment options: https://cce.sydney.edu.au/Make-a-Payment-CCE Terms and conditions: cce.sydney.edu.au/legal Date of issue:

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Persuasive Writing Course

Marketing communications. connect better with your audience..

An immersive writing course for content marketers, covering all the persuasive copywriting skills you’ll need to capture more leads and inspire more actions.

Using a sequence of tools and techniques, we start by planning your messages from scratch. We then apply your messaging blueprint to a range of short, everyday formats such as eDMs, social media headlines, email marketing headlines and newsletters.

Throughout the day, you’ll learn the essentials of using brand tone, weaving in persuasive elements and crafting for flair. Through exercises, examples and open discussion, you will gain a solid overview of promotional writing in your business.

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• use the strategies that creative agencies take to develop a campaign, from formalising the tone of voice to writing the first banner ads
• generate more emotive angles for your marketing copy
• gain practice writing for different audiences within one brand, including dialling formality up and down, and adapting the content for different formats
• incorporate the best persuasive arguments possible for each piece of writing, choosing from a list of 10 possibilities
• review your own and others’ writing for simplicity and effectiveness, focusing on five essential indicators.

Campaign launch

No project should start without thoroughly workshopping the brief. Here, you’ll define the product’s tangible and emotional benefits, and the multiple different creative directions you could develop from this. In this section, we also formalise the ideal tone of voice and set a timeline of deliverables and outcomes.

Designing the user journey

Learn to craft your campaign around headings, memes, names and other short units that encapsulate the essence of what you’re trying to say. In this section, we cover different tips and techniques for writing these, and place them into loose templates that suggest the split-second impact of your messages.

The 10 elements of persuasion

Good persuasive writing employs a number of powerful psychological triggers, and we look at ten important ones in this section. Examples include telling your reader ‘why’, showing you understand your prospect, and giving them something for free.

Drumming up hype

We look at the essential formats you’ll need to master in the early campaign stages: eDMs, digital banners, registration forms, invitations and more. This section also talks about how to extend the core tone of voice to reach different audience segments effectively.

Add stylistic flair

Learning to review for effectiveness: ensuring that SEO is cleverly used (but not overused), verbs and adjectives are strong and evocative, and you’ve added plenty of rhythm using devices such as alliteration and parallel grammar.

Intended audience

Aimed at mid-career marketers who can explain their business features and benefits clearly enough, but want some tips on how to make their messages more memorable, on-brand and inspiring.

If your business style doesn’t allow for much storytelling or free association, consider our Business Writing Course: Essentials instead. Here, you’ll learn to write internal comms (letters, memos and so on) and short summaries in a clear, factual style that may well fill your business marketing needs.

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

Learning methods include open discussion, group exercises, pair work and individual response to mini tests throughout the day. Most of the exercises can be adapted to a marketing piece you are currently working on, or you can practice using the fictional examples.

• Expert trainers
• Central locations
• Free, expert advice
• Course materials – yours to keep
• CCE Statement of Completion

What others say.

The tutor clearly knew the subject matter really well, and the opportunity to apply what we were learning on our own individual live work was hugely beneficial. It was also great to be able to mix with others from different industry sectors and get their thoughts on my work.

Great interaction between presenter and participants. Very inclusive of everyone. Although some topics were not applicable to my needs they were none the less interesting and structured well so they were still easy to follow. Those topics that were applicable were very helpful and informative.

The tutor was great, very helpful and approachable.

I liked the format of the class, its real-world application and the advice/expertise provided.

Great course – this has helped me substantially! Thank you!

I got exactly what I wanted out of the course. The presenter had a wealth of knowledge and was able to relate the course material to real life examples.

The course was one of the best short courses I have undertaken. It was relevant, didn’t cover old marketing principles and it was delivered in a fresh, fast-moving way that never allowed my mind to wander to other things. The presenter is a great trainer in this topic!

The tutor was simply lovely, explained everything to the class in simple terms which to me was great as I had no prior knowledge of marketing. They kept the lesson flowing and really knew what they were talking about. They also took interest in each of our companies and would use examples close to each so we could better understand, which is fantastic.

Persuasive Writing Course - Copywriting and content Capture more leads & inspire more action with a persuasive writing course for content marketers. Online & face-to-face. Individual and corporate team training. Enrol now.

Class schedule

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<p>An immersive writing course for content marketers, covering all the persuasive

2024-08-29 Thu 29 Aug 2024 2024-08-29

9am - 5pm 9am - 5pm (UTC+10:00)

1 session, 8 hours total

Stephanie Oley

Thu 29 Aug 2024

9am - 5pm (UTC+10:00)

Face-to-face (venue TBA) - Face-to-face (venue TBA)

2024-11-26 Tue 26 Nov 2024 2024-11-26

9am - 5pm 9am - 5pm (UTC+11:00)

Tue 26 Nov 2024

9am - 5pm (UTC+11:00)

2024-06-04 Tue 4 Jun 2024 2024-06-04

Tue 4 Jun 2024

Online via Zoom - Online via Zoom

If there isn't a class to suit your preferred time or delivery format, please JOIN the waiting list.

Featured facilitators

Stephanie is an experienced business writer and coach who has developed a sound method of teaching concise, jargon-free writing that tells the story and sets clear reader expectations. Her early...

What others say

- Sharon Illingworth

- Sandra Nathaniel

Great course - this has helped me substantially! Thank you!

- Alexandra Lucas

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English & creative writing

English and creative writing at UNSW School of the Arts & Media houses a passionate group of writers and scholars working in diverse fields. Our research consistently achieves high rankings. In the latest (2018) Excellence for Research in Australia (ERA) assessment, we scored 5 for creative writing (well above world standard) and 4 for literary studies (above world standard). 

Our internationally renowned researchers produce monographs, novels, poetry collections, edited collections and essays in major international journals. We attract significant external funding from the Australia Council and Australian Research Council (ARC). We also receive support from international funding bodies such as the Research England Development Fund, the Canadian Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council, the Swedish Research Council and the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO). 

Our academics include the presidents of the Australasian Association for Literature and the Association for the Study of the Australian Literature (ASAL), the incoming president of the International Society for the Study of Narrative, as well as past and present executive members of the Australian University Heads of English.

English and creative writing at UNSW Sydney is home to a thriving postgraduate research culture, with a strong record of successful completions in a broad range of areas. We particularly welcome research proposals in any of the fields below. 

Research strengths

UNSW School of the Arts & Media is the largest hub globally for research in Australian literature. We address the global dimensions of Australian writing, including diasporic and expatriate writing, writing by refugees and asylum seekers, Indigenous writers alongside continuing engagement with more foundational works. 

Among our many recent publications are monographs on Christina Stead and America, and on literary islands and colonialism, as well as edited collections on the works of Elizabeth Harrower, Antigone Kefala and Shirley Hazzard. Our academics include the president and two former presidents of the peak scholarly body ASAL. We also host Southerly, Australia’s oldest literary journal. 

The large and constant flow of local and international postgraduate students expand and invigorate our research strength in contemporary studies in Australian literature. Our many institutional and publishing activities create a wealth of opportunities for our students’ academic and professional development. 

We welcome enquiries about higher degree research (HDR) supervision across all areas of Australian literature. Recent projects include: queer Australian masculinities; the Australian girl; contemporary Indigenous women’s writing; sound and Australian literature; Brian Castro and weird English; Indigenous speculative writing and ecopoetics; Australia and utopia; studies of Antigone Kefala and Eleanor Dark; and a biography of Marjorie Barnard. 

UNSW School of the Arts & Media has a long history of excellence in modernist studies. Our research spans a wide variety of topics within the broad field of modernist studies, including modernist poetics, the modernist novel, modernist periodical studies, and modernism and media. 

Our research addresses the formal experiments and political meanings of modernism’s responses to and critiques of global modernity. Recent publications include edited collections on modernism and sound, modernism and technology, and modernism and work. Our academics also regularly publish articles on modernist and modernism-adjacent subjects in leading journals. Among our academics are the treasurer of the Australasian Modernist Studies Network and two editors of the network’s journal Affirmations: of the modern.

Our school welcomes research proposals on all aspects of modernist literature and culture. Recent projects include: studies of rhythm in modernist short fiction; philosophical poetry in a time of crisis; bodily experience in the writing of Virginia Woolf; architectural subjectivity in the fiction of Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys and Christina Stead; and ‘textual becoming’ in Proust.

UNSW School of the Arts & Media’s renowned literary historical research fosters interdisciplinary dialogues between literature and artificial intelligence, literature and visual culture, literature and sound, literature and the history of political struggle, book history and literary biography.  

Our research includes work on historical poetics and the historical development of the novel, with a strong focus on archival research. Work includes an editorial project on Charlotte Bronte and a large collaborative project on ‘Rioting and the literary archive’, which traces literature’s enduring engagement with forms of popular resistance and riotous assembly. 

Recent publications include a range of monographs and edited collections, as well as pieces in major international journals, such as ELH, NLH, Textual Practice, Victorian Studies, Modernism/Modernity, Studies in the Novel, and NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction. Our academics have edited special issues of Poetics Today, on narrative theory and the history of the novel, and of Critical Quarterly, on historical poetics and the problem of exemplarity. Forthcoming publications include an edited collection on ‘Writing the global riot: literature in a time of crisis’, the ‘Edinburgh companion to literary sound studies’ and the authorised biography of Australian-US author Shirley Hazzard. UNSW is also home to the  Juvenilia Press .  

Postgraduate supervision encompasses diverse areas of literary history, ranging from single-author studies to more expansive thematic and historical approaches. Projects include: studies of voice in the 19th-century novel; literary precarity; reading domestic spaces; Thomas Chatterton and the performance of literary professionalism; writer characters in fiction from the 1890s to the present; the Anthropocene in science fiction; time and empathy in cognitive literary criticism; and the sonic animal in 19th-century fiction. 

UNSW School of the Arts & Media has a strong focus on literary theory and literary approaches to philosophy. Our researchers are experts in queer theory, feminism, narratology, postcolonial theory, animal studies, ecocriticism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Derridean and de Manian deconstruction and Deleuze studies. We engage with figures as diverse as Søren Kierkegaard, Alain Badiou, Maurice Blanchot, Bruno Latour, Peter Sloterdijk, Jacques Derrida, Sigmund Freud, G. W. F. Hegel, Jacques Rancière, Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Lacan.  

The work of our academics has appeared in monographs and journals such as symploke, Substance, Angelaki, Continental Philosophy Review, Filozofski vestnik and Crisis & Critique. We also engage in large international and national research projects investigating literary and critical climate change. Forthcoming publications include the ‘Routledge companion to narrative theory’ which locates the novel in the context of the larger multidisciplinary study of narrative, and a special issue of S: Journal on the work of the contemporary French philosopher Barbara Cassin. 

UNSW School of the Arts & Media’s research in world literatures spans the fields of postcolonial, diasporic and transnational literary studies. Australia’s settler colonial history means we engage in ways that contribute to and shape the dynamic fields of postcolonial and transnational writing. We focus on works in English, in translation and in other languages. One key question is: What do we do with texts when they circulate outside their context of origin?  

From the deployment of big data to close textual analysis, our research examines both the aesthetics and politics of literary representation in context, as well as the modes of literary production and the circulations of literature in globalised modernity.  

We’re interested in the networks of Australia’s diverse writing cultures and the circulation of their work in global contexts. Our publications range from colonialist histories and imaginaries to the production and circulation of contemporary Iranian literature, to questions of trans-Indigenous writing and representation.  

Recent and forthcoming monographs by our academics include Christina Stead and America, the imaginary geographies of colonialism and Iranian literature since the revolution. Themed issues of Southerly include the writing of detained refugees, the Persian diaspora, the inter-generational legacies of migration in Australia and the mobility of textual circulation. 

We have many local and international postgraduate students working on topics ranging from Irish-language poetics to Iranian women’s romance fiction, to contemporary African fiction. Our school is a long-standing sponsor of the Institute of World Literature (Harvard University) and UNSW academics and postgraduate students regularly participate in the institute’s summer programs. PhD projects include: post-Independence African novels; psychogeography and the novel; domestic violence in postcolonial writing; and Irish women’s writing. 

Creative writing at UNSW School of the Arts & Media is a dynamic program, boasting researchers who are award-winning novelists and poets. Our academics have won numerous prizes including the Literary Fiction Book of the Year in the Australian Book Industry Awards, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the Best Young Australian Novelist award. They have also been shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premier’s Awards and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. 

We have judged major prizes such as the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the ALS Gold Medal. We publish creative work in Australia’s top literary journals such as Meanjin, Overland, Island, Westerly, Southerly, Cordite Poetry Review and Australian Poetry Journal. 

Our researchers are committed to public and cultural engagement and frequently collaborate with the broader publishing industry and media outlets. We have longstanding relationships with the Adelaide International Festival, Tasmanian Writers’ Festival, Perth Writers’ Festival, Asialink, Varuna, The Writers’ House and the Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College, Oxford University. 

Editing and publishing at the School of the Arts & Media plays a leading role in the dissemination of traditional and non-traditional research. We explore new forms of scholarly communication as editors and editorial board members of academic journals such as Affirmations, Southerly, S: Journal, Continental Thought & Theory, Journal of World Literature and Iranian Studies. 

We promote strong international outreach through our founding role in Open Humanities Press, which publishes open-access journals and books in a variety of humanities fields. Bernard Stiegler, Timothy Morton, Claire Colebrook, Joanna Zylinska and Isabelle Stengers, among others, have been published recently. 

Southerly magazine is Australia’s oldest literary journal and publishes scholarly work on Australian literature alongside creative fiction and prose. Southerly is particularly notable among Australia’s literary journals for publishing more fiction and poetry, and it also publishes essays, commentary and reviews. The themed component of each issue is often prompted by research interests of UNSW academics including intergenerational migrant writing; Utopian fiction; writing by refugees in Australian detention centres; and transnational writing cultures of the Persian diaspora in Australia. 

Our academics are also working on Live Crossings , an online open-access creative practice magazine publishing work by refugees and asylum-seekers as well as Indigenous writers and artists.

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The Department of English , in partnership with Kingston University London (KUL) , offers a dual degree program in which a student may earn an M.A. in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing from UNC Charlotte and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from KUL. The program aims to enable students to develop as creative writers through practice in more than one genre and through the creatively engaged study of literature, as well as to prepare students for professional advancement in fields such as writing, editing, publishing, or teaching on the secondary or college levels.

Admission Requirements

Students must have a B.A. in English or substantial coursework in English courses; some creative writing courses are desirable but not required. 

Applications must be submitted online through the Graduate School at  gradadmissions.charlotte.edu/apply by February 1.  Materials to include:

• Application and fee
• Transcripts from all postsecondary institutions attended
• Three academic letters of recommendation (preferably from instructors who can address the student’s writing achievements and potential)
• Statement of purpose (750 words maximum) tailored to the dual degree program, addressing whether the student is applying in poetry or fiction, their interests in writing and ambitions, their background and reasons for applying for this program, and how they are suited to handle an intensive program with an accelerated pace
• Creative writing sample (in PDF format) demonstrating highest quality recent work (for details, see the Department of English website at english.uncc.edu/graduate-program-information/mamfa-dual-degree-program)

Note: Standardized test scores (e.g., GRE, GMAT, MAT) are not required.

Please note that students admitted to the UNC Charlotte M.A. program are conditionally admitted to the KU M.F.A. provided the student meets all UNC Charlotte requirements during the first year. They must perform satisfactorily, and complete all 24 credit hours, at UNC Charlotte before continuing on to KU to complete the M.F.A. requirements.  This is a full-time residency program; part-time status or online courses are not options.  Fall admission only.

Degree Requirements

This is a 36 credit hour program in which students earn 24 credit hours at UNC Charlotte in their first year, and spend one year at Kingston University London (KUL) to earn the additional 12 credit hours required for the M.A.  Students take additional modules at KUL to meet the requirements for the M.F.A.  This program requires a thesis to be written while at KUL that also satisfies the research portion of the UNC Charlotte degree.  

UNC Charlotte Courses (24 credit hours)

Students spend their first academic year at UNC Charlotte and take the following:

Core Course (3 credit hours)

• ENGL 6101 - Introduction to Literary Studies (3)

Elective Fiction Writing Course (3 credit hours)

Select one of the following:

• ENGL 5203 - Writing Fiction (3)
• ENGL 5206 - Writing Creative Nonfiction (3)
• ENGL 5207 - Writing Young Adult Fiction (3)
• ENGL 5208 - Poetry Writing Workshop (3)
• ENGL 5209 - Fiction Writing Workshop (3)
• ENGL 5280 - Writing About Place (3)

Elective Poetry Writing Course (3 credit hours)

• ENGL 5202 - Writing Poetry (3)

Elective Creative Writing Courses (6 credit hours)

• ENGL 6073 - Topics in Creative Writing (3)
• ENGL 6073 - Topics in Creative Writing (3)    

Elective Literature Courses (6 credit hours)

Select two of the following, one of which must be in modern and/or contemporary literature:

• ENGL 5002 - Women and Literature (3)
• ENGL 5072 - Topics in Literature and Film (3)
• ENGL 5074 - Topics in Children’s Literature, Media, and Culture (3)
• ENGL 5102 - British Children’s Literature (3)
• ENGL 5103 - American Children’s Literature (3)
• ENGL 5104 - Multiculturalism and Children’s Literature (3)
• ENGL 5116 - Shakespeare’s Early Plays (3)
• ENGL 5117 - Shakespeare’s Late Plays (3)
• ENGL 5132 - British Drama to 1642 (3)
• ENGL 5151 - Drama (3)
• ENGL 5325 - Trauma and Memory in Contemporary American Literature (3)
• ENGL 6072 - Topics in Literature and Film (3)
• ENGL 6103 - Introduction to Children’s Literature and Culture (3)
• ENGL 6104 - Major Figures and Themes in Children’s Literature (3)
• ENGL 6112 - Shakespeare’s Tragedies (3)
• ENGL 6125 - The Romantic Era, 1785-1832 (3)
• ENGL 6141 - American Romanticism (3)
• ENGL 6142 - American Realism and Naturalism (3)
• ENGL 6147 - Perspectives in African American Literature (3)
• ENGL 6680 - Seminar in British Literature (3)
• ENGL 6685 - Seminar in American Literature (3)
• ENGL 6687 - Seminar in Global Literature (3)

Unrestricted Elective Course (3 credit hours)

Select any graduate ENGL course:

• ENGL 5XXX - English Elective Course (3)
• ENGL 6XXX - English Elective Course (3)

KUL Courses (12 credit hours)

In the second year of the program at KUL, students take the following modules:

• Advanced writers workshop
• Teaching creative writing
• Reading for writers
• Visiting speakers
• Research presentations
• Advanced dissertation project

12 credit hours of thesis taken at KUL is applied to the UNC Charlotte M.A. in English as M.A. project hours ( ENGL 6895   ).  In both semesters of the second year, students also register for the following UNC Charlotte placeholder course (no credit hours, no fees):

• ENGL 6777 - UNCC-ENGLMFA (0)

Students in good standing who are unable to proceed to KUL in their second year may opt to continue in the M.A. in English    at UNC Charlotte.

Dual Degree Total = 36 Credit Hours

Grade requirements.

All courses counted toward the degree must be taken with grades of A or B received.  A course in which a graduate student receives a grade of C is not allowable as part of the 36 required credit hours.  Students earning C grades in their first year will be ineligible for the KUL M.F.A. but may opt to continue in the M.A. in English    at UNC Charlotte.

ChatGPT is now better than ever at faking human emotion and behaviour

Dr Marcel Scharth

Earlier this week OpenAI launched  GPT-4o  (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted as a step towards more natural engagement with AI. According to the  demonstration video , it can have voice conversations with users in near real-time, exhibiting human-like personality and behaviour.

This emphasis on personality is likely to be  a point of contention . In OpenAI’s demos, GPT-4o sounds friendly, empathetic and engaging. It tells “spontaneous” jokes, giggles, flirts and even sings. The AI system also shows it can respond to users’ body language and emotional tone.

Launched with a streamlined interface, OpenAI’s new version of the ChatGPT chatbot appears designed to increase user engagement and facilitate the creation of new apps based on its text, image and audio capabilities.

GPT-4o is another leap forward for AI development. However, the focus on engagement and personality raises important questions about whether it will truly serve the interests of users, and the ethical implications of creating AI that can simulate human emotions and behaviours.

The personality factor

OpenAI envisions GPT-4o as a more enjoyable and engaging conversational AI. In principle, this could make interactions more effective and increase user satisfaction.

Studies show users are  more likely  to trust and cooperate with chatbots exhibiting social intelligence and personality traits. This could prove relevant in fields such as education, where studies have  indicated  AI chatbots can boost learning outcomes and motivation.

However, some commentators worry users may become overly  attached  to AI systems with human-like personalities or  emotionally harmed  by the one-way nature of human-computer interaction.

The Her effect

GPT-4o immediately inspired comparisons – including from OpenAI boss Sam Altman – to the 2013 science-fiction movie  Her , which paints a vivid picture of the potential pitfalls of human-AI interaction.

In the movie, the protagonist, Theodore, becomes deeply fascinated and attached to Samantha, an AI system with a sophisticated and witty personality. Their bond blurs the lines between the real and the virtual, raising questions about the nature of love and intimacy, and the value of human-AI connection.

While we should not seriously compare GPT-4o to Samantha, it raises similar concerns. AI companions are already here. As AI becomes more adept at mimicking human emotions and behaviours, the risk of users forming deep emotional attachments  increases . This could lead to over-reliance, manipulation and even harm.

While OpenAI demonstrates concern with ensuring its AI tools behave safely and are deployed in a responsible way, we have yet to learn the broader implications of unleashing charismatic AIs onto the world. Current AI systems are not explicitly designed to meet human psychological needs – a goal that is hard to define and measure.

GPT-4o’s impressive capabilities show how important it is that we have some system or framework for ensuring AI tools are developed and used in ways that are aligned with public values and priorities.

Expanding capabilities

GPT-4o can also work with video (of the user and their surrounds, via a device camera, or pre-recorded videos), and respond conversationally. In OpenAI’s demonstrations, GPT-4o comments on a user’s environment and clothes, recognises objects, animals and text, and reacts to facial expressions.

Google’s  Project Astra  AI assistant, unveiled just one day after GPT-4o, displays similar capabilities. It also appears to have visual memory: in one of Google’s promotional videos, it helps a user find her glasses in a busy office, even though they are not currently visible to the AI.

GPT-4o and Astra continue the trend towards more “multimodal” models that can work with text, images, audio and video. GPT-4o’s predecessor, GPT-4 Turbo, can process text and images together, but not audio and video. The original version of ChatGPT, released less than two years ago, was based only on text.

GPT-4o is also significantly faster than its predecessor.

The ability to work across audio, vision and text in real time is considered crucial to develop advanced AI systems that can understand the world and effectively achieve complex and meaningful goals.

But  some critics argue  that GPT-4o’s text capabilities are only incrementally better than GPT-4 Turbo and competitors such as Google’s Gemini Ultra and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus.

Will major AI labs be able to sustain the recent rapid pace of improvement by continuing to built bigger and more sophisticated models? This is a hot topic of debate among experts, and the outcome will determine the impact of the technology over the coming years.

Wider access

A  less flashy but significant  aspect of GPT-4o’s launch is that, unlike its GPT-4 family precursors, the new AI system is available to all users in the free version of ChatGPT, subject to usage limits.

This means millions of users worldwide just got an upgrade from GPT-3.5 to a more powerful AI system with more features. GPT-4o is significantly more useful than GPT-3.5 for various purposes, such as work and education. The impact of this development will become more apparent over time.

What’s next?

OpenAI’s unveiling of GPT-4o disappointed enthusiasts for ever more powerful AI systems, who hoped GPT-5’s arrival was imminent after over a year since GPT-4’s launch.

Instead, this week’s unveiling of GPT-4o and Google’s latest AI announcements emphasise the features being incorporated into their products. These new developments point to possibilities such as more sophisticated virtual assistants capable of performing complex tasks on behalf of users, involving richer interaction and planning.

Marcel Scharth is a Lecturer in Business Analytics at the University of Sydney Business School. This article originally appeared in  The Conversation .

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University of Sydney Handbooks - 2021 Archive

The university of sydney - arts and social sciences postgraduate handbook 2021.

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Unit outlines will be available through Find a unit outline two weeks before the first day of teaching for 1000-level and 5000-level units, or one week before the first day of teaching for all other units.  

Master of Creative Writing

Graduate diploma of creative writing, graduate certificate in creative writing, workshop units of study, other elective units of study.

This unit of study is not available in 2021

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Certificate in Teaching of Creative Writing Location:  AU Los Angeles Credits for Degree: 12 semester credits Standard Mode of Instruction: Low-residency Standard time to completion: 6 months

Program Overview

The Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing program, offered by the Creative Writing Department of the Division of Graduate and Professional Studies, is open to any student holding an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles (AULA) or another accredited institution, and is one semester beyond the completion of the MFA degree at Antioch. During this semester, the student engages in systematic study of the theory and practice of teaching creative writing and composition, a salutary preparation for working in classroom and workshop settings at any educational level.

Although the Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing is not a formal teaching “credential,” it benefits the following groups:

• MFA holders who desire to teach, but have little teaching experience;
• MFA holders who are either college/university writing instructors or public school teachers who want to learn more about the intersection of creative and expository writing pedagogies, and to incorporate this knowledge into their teaching;
• MFA holders who desire to improve their marketability as teachers; and
• MFA holders who have teaching careers well under way and seek to improve their current positions through postgraduate professional development encouraged or required by their employers.

Note: The California Community College system does not recognize either the MFA or the Post-MFA Certificate as a valid teaching credential for instructors of English. In addition, the Post-MFA Certificate is not a program that leads to a teaching credential for secondary or elementary education.

Post-MFA Program Learning Outcomes

All Post-MFA students incorporate five program learning outcomes and activities into their project period work. The first four of these are accomplished during the student’s supervised teaching placement (overseen by the on-site supervisor) and one in the student’s independent research on creative writing pedagogy (overseen by the Post-MFA faculty).

Graduates of the Post-MFA program will:

• Accountability to all chains of command (on-site teaching supervisor, Post-MFA mentor, Creative Writing Department chair, and Creative Writing Department office)
• Professional demeanor in all activities related to the program and one’s teaching assignment
• Professional documentation, as needed
• Communicating clearly and in a timely manner with students, supervisors, and colleagues
• Engaging with the life of the department of the host institution, including attending faculty meetings (when invited)
• Demonstrate an understanding of the dynamics that exist in a particular writing classroom or online setting, including the differing viewpoints and learning styles of individual students.
• Professionally critique one’s own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, and adjust one’s own teaching as needed.
• Demonstrate the ability to develop an assignment or lesson plan that responds to the class’s stated learning goals.
• Develop a critical vocabulary from research in pedagogy to identify and articulate various teaching methodologies and their relation to student learning styles.

Program Progression

The Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing is completed in three stages with the following learning activities:

Stage I: Pre-Project Period Residency

The entering Post-MFA Certificate student must attend a ten-day residency on the Antioch University Los Angeles campus during which the student completes the following requirements:

• “Overview of Post-MFA Certificate Program and Readings in Pedagogy” seminar/ orientation
• “Designing a Flexible Workshop Syllabus” seminar
• A Residency Workshop in their chosen writing genre
• Attend all lectures and panels involving Certificate students or pedagogy faculty
• Attend five additional Residency learning activities, such as seminars, lectures, panels, roundtables, etc. 

Post-MFA students are encouraged to generate a list of possible teaching placements (locations and supervisor contact information) before beginning in the program, and to bring it to the first on-campus residency. Students with a list of possible placements prior to Stage I will be able to make the best use of their first on-campus residency.

Stage II: Semester Project Period

During the five-month project period, Post-MFA Certificate students perform the following off-campus activities:

• Teaching Apprenticeship: every student will gain direct experience working as a professional instructor’s “Teaching Assistant.” This apprenticeship will also include some teaching-leadership of the class, guided by the professional instructor.
• Complete Teaching Practicum: every student will have the opportunity to design and lead a teaching experience for real, eager writers, whether in Antioch’s Alumni Circle, or with community organizations like PocketMFA.
• Engage with Contemporary and Urgent Texts: every student will read widely in the pedagogy of creative writing and engage regularly in vigorous zoom discussions with the faculty and other students.
• Develop a Teacher’s Toolkit: A top priority of the program is practicality and flexibility, and every student will leave the program with an immediately useful set of tools and documents to take on their journey to making a living as a creative writing instructor. 

The details of each of the above are negotiated with each student’s mentor and specified in the Project Period Contract.

Stage III: Post-Project Period Short Residency

Post-MFA Certificate students are required to attend at least the first three days of their post-project period residency. A student may choose to attend as many additional days of the post-project period residency as the student wishes. Requirements are as follows:

• Participate in the Post-MFA Panel
• Exit Meeting with Post-MFA Faculty
• Deliver the Annotated Bibliography of Readings in the Field of Writing Pedagogy

Current Tuition and Fees

University Tuition and Fees    

New Scholarship Supports Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing

The Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer Scholarship will be awarded every year.

Students with a passion for writing about the people and landscapes of the West will have a new scholarship opportunity when they enter Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing (GPCW), thanks to the generosity of the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society.

The Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer Scholarship will be available to one qualified first-year graduate student in the GPCW’s Nature Writing concentration starting in the summer of 2024. The scholarship will be granted each academic year, awarding the winner $3,000 each semester for a total of $6,000.

According to Mari Sandoz Heritage Society board member and director of the GPCW Nature Writing Concentration, Laura Pritchett, the scholarship aims to memorialize Mari Sandoz’s legacy as someone who had a passion for writing and loved the landscapes and peoples of the West. Through the scholarship, the board hopes to support significant writing about the West in the contemporary literary landscape.

“Sandoz’s writing emphasized the environmental and human landscape of the West and was recognized for her no-nonsense yet deeply evocative style,” Pritchett said. “She was passionate about sharing her hard-earned and well-honed writing skills. We’re fortunate to have the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society support this scholarship.”

Applying to the GPCW’s Nature Writing program will also serve as an application for the scholarship.

Author credit: Seth Mensing

Photo credit: Courtesy

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