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Study undergraduate media & communication online with Macquarie University through Open Universities Australia. Explore all degrees, subjects and short courses now.

The Bachelor of Arts (OUA) at Macquarie University is a distinctive course that equips its graduates with knowledge and skills that can be applied in any career or in further study. No other course offers as much flexibility and a wide range of study options as the Bachelor of Arts. You will be given the opportunity to turn your passion into a career while developing a strong set of core transferable skills valued by industry and the society. In consultation with industry, the Bachelor of Arts (OUA) places a strong emphasis on skills for success in the 21st century workplace. You will be taught by active researchers, leading academics and award winning teachers.

Make your degree unique and study what interests you. Analyse critically, think creatively and problem-solve at work or in everyday life. Complete foundational studies then tailor your degree with a major. Create a portfolio and build your connections.

Bachelor of Arts

An Introduction to Creative Writing

Grammar and Writing

Creative writing involves expression and skills. It also involves reading. This practical unit introduces students to different approaches and ways of thinking about creative writing. Students engage in a series of lectures and workshops, learning a range of creative writing skills and topics. Students are encouraged to be experimental and adventurous in their writing. Seminars address different creative writing topics and readings so that students can learn about various genres, methods and approaches. The workshops are interactive; they aim to increase understanding of the process of creative writing. The aim of this unit is for students to learn, achieve and realise their creativity and writing skills in their creative work, engaging with lecture and reading content and participating in writing workshops, on-course writing exercises, and doing set assignments.

Play with narrative and time as you develop adventurous creative writing pieces. Reflect on your creative process and the approaches adopted by other writers. Experiment with creative writing styles. Place value on the drafting and revision processes.

Recent surveys of popular historical awareness have demonstrated that most people find out about the past from film and television, yet visual histories are often criticised for the ways they present the past. This subject will consider the limitations and possibilities of history on screen. Do filmic histories represent a more &#39;authentic&#39; engagement with the past, or do they peddle false versions of history to a gullible public? How might we read historical films and television programs carefully and critically to understand diverse historical interpretations? This subject will develop student&#39;s understandings of the critical study of history on film, examining the ways that all historical texts (including films) make arguments about the past. The unit will examine cinematic and televisual representations of Australian, American and British histories.

Screening the Past: History on Film and Television

This unit explores commercially popular fiction and genre fiction in the marketplace today. We begin by analysing the form and features of bestselling novels as well as mass-market genre fiction such as fantasy, science-fiction, suspense/thriller/horror, crime, and romance. We examine how generic forms crossover with each other, and how digital publishing enables the proliferation of hybrid genres and niche subgenres within the popular fiction market. Students learn how to identify different types of research fields that are relevant to their genre of interest, and to integrate this research into their creative writing in practical ways. There will be a particular focus on world-building, characterisation, and the development of character-driven plots.

Writing Popular Genre Fiction

Please note: This subject was previously titled: Concepts and Practice in Fiction and PoetryThe subject encourages responses to different genres and theoretical approaches to creative writing. It aims to develop practical written and reflective skills, and the capacity to use language and form. It encourages students to attempt new ways of writing, to develop their work into finished texts, and to consciously position these texts within the wider discourse. In this subject, creative writing is taught within contexts of contemporary relevance, in order to broaden students&#39; range and encourage reflection about their writing. Students are expected to develop their creative writing and increase their knowledge about its contexts by producing writing throughout the subject. Subject topics and readings provide literary and theoretical examples to stimulate intellectual and creative enquiry.

Brainstorm new ways of writing and reflecting on your work. Build worlds and write with genre, identity and gender in mind. Critique theoretical and creative texts. Produce conceptually-driven creative writing pieces that extend your practice.

Creative Writing 2: Short-form Fiction

Please note: This subject is available in Macquarie Semester 3, which is an intensive semester that spans only 5 intensive teaching weeks, plus a mid-semester recess and an assessment period. Students are advised to enrol in only one or two subjects in Semester 3. Students who would prefer to take the unit over 13 teaching weeks should enrol in the Semester 1 offering. Good grammar is often regarded as a sign of education and competence. Global research shows that 40% of graduates have their job applications rejected because of poor grammar, while 17% of firms are concerned about graduates’ lack of grammar skills. This unit provides you with the basic grammar skills that you will need for writing well in your assignments and job applications. We will show you how to recognise grammatically incorrect sentences that don’t make sense to your reader, then we will help you fix these. You will learn how to: paragraph for different purposes; structure and tailor your writing for various types of work; and edit and proofread your writing so that your work not only suggests intelligence and capability, but also attention to detail.

Polish your basic grammar skills. You’ll learn how to review and improve your writing. Strive to write better assignments and job applications. When you pay attention to grammar, you’ll reap the rewards both academically and professionally. 

This unit investigates the history and practice of one of the most enduring literary genres. It aims to extend students both critically and creatively so that they can read, write, discuss or teach poetry with confidence and better understand its continuing evolution today. Students will study the histories and types of poetic excellence through ancient texts and their present-day equivalents. We will consider how we read, write and teach poetry in ways that borrow from the insights of the past while using the tools of the twenty-first century, such as YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. We will analyse the rise of &#39;Instagram Poets&#39; such as Rupi Kaur to better understand how they reach thousands of followers in a cybernetic reinvention of poetic fame and the transmission of poetry. Students will gain an enhanced understanding of the traditions and techniques of English-language poetry, learn to experiment with poetry and receive supportive feedback from published poets and poetry scholars to improve their creative &#39;eye&#39; and &#39;ear&#39;, as well as their own editing skills.

Following Poetry from Epic to Instagram

This unit introduces students to long-form narrative writing in the genre of the novel and novella. Students apply their previous learning of narrative writing technique and craft to the creation and planning of a new work, focusing on creativity and inspiration, research and planning, drafting the plot outline, developing characters, and building the story-world. Students read and discuss novels and novellas from different genres, and engage in intensive writing practice each week, completing exercises that help them to develop the bones of their novel or novella. Students are also introduced to current industry practices and conditions. At the conclusion of this unit students will have produced the opening to a novel or novella, and a book proposal including a synopsis an outline of the work.

Novel and Novella Writing

This unit focuses on developing skills in the production and publication of poetry and short stories. Students explore and analyse creative writing journals that publish poetry and short stories before conceptualising and creating their own work to submit for publication in Macquarie University’s online creative writing journal, The Quarry. Students learn about the publication process, including structural editing, copyediting, proofreading, approaching publishers, the acquisitions and rights process for authors, and producing an online journal.

Wield the essential elements of narrative and structure as you continue to develop your writing practice. Workshop your creative concepts. Uncover new possibilities in the contemporary writing form. Produce a piece of creative writing for peer review.

Publishing poetry and short stories

Historical fiction is one of the oldest genres of the literary novel, but the past is also used in many different ways in popular mass-market fiction such as romance and fantasy. This unit explores the use of history in narrative forms, including medieval literature, the rise of the novel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the explosion of popular genre fiction in the twentieth century. It looks at how the genre became &quot;feminised&quot; and the role of the novelist Georgette Heyer in creating a new subgenre of historical romance. It explores how the past, from the ancient world to Australian history, has been fictionalised. Yet the twenty-first century historical novel is not merely entertaining; it can create debates and challenge public perceptions of the past in unsettling ways. Students will also consider how Australian authors have used historical fiction to retell or offer alternative narratives about the nation. By the end of this unit, students will understand how the past informs literary and popular fiction, and why historical fiction can sometimes be considered a form of historiographical interpretation, especially in novels relating to the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Historical Fiction and a Passion for the Past

Macquarie University

Recent surveys of popular historical awareness have demonstrated that most people find out about the past from film and television, yet visual histories are often criticised for the ways they present the past. This subject will consider the limitations and possibilities of history on screen. Do filmic histories represent a more 'authentic' engagement with the past, or do they peddle false versions of history to a gullible public? How might we read historical films and television programs carefully and critically to understand diverse historical interpretations? This subject will develop student's understandings of the critical study of history on film, examining the ways that all historical texts (including films) make arguments about the past. The unit will examine cinematic and televisual representations of Australian, American and British histories.

This unit explores commercially popular fiction and genre fiction in the marketplace today. We begin by analysing the form and features of bestselling novels as well as mass-market genre fiction such as fantasy, science-fiction, suspense/thriller/horror, crime, and romance. We examine how generic forms crossover with each other, and how digital publishing enables the proliferation of hybrid genres and niche subgenres within the popular fiction market. Students learn how to identify different types of research fields that are relevant to their genre of interest, and to integrate this research into their creative writing in practical ways. There will be a particular focus on world-building, characterisation, and the development of character-driven plots.

This unit investigates the history and practice of one of the most enduring literary genres. It aims to extend students both critically and creatively so that they can read, write, discuss or teach poetry with confidence and better understand its continuing evolution today. Students will study the histories and types of poetic excellence through ancient texts and their present-day equivalents. We will consider how we read, write and teach poetry in ways that borrow from the insights of the past while using the tools of the twenty-first century, such as YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. We will analyse the rise of 'Instagram Poets' such as Rupi Kaur to better understand how they reach thousands of followers in a cybernetic reinvention of poetic fame and the transmission of poetry. Students will gain an enhanced understanding of the traditions and techniques of English-language poetry, learn to experiment with poetry and receive supportive feedback from published poets and poetry scholars to improve their creative 'eye' and 'ear', as well as their own editing skills.

This unit introduces students to long-form narrative writing in the genre of the novel and novella. Students apply their previous learning of narrative writing technique and craft to the creation and planning of a new work, focusing on creativity and inspiration, research and planning, drafting the plot outline, developing characters, and building the story-world. Students read and discuss novels and novellas from different genres, and engage in intensive writing practice each week, completing exercises that help them to develop the bones of their novel or novella. Students are also introduced to current industry practices and conditions. At the conclusion of this unit students will have produced the opening to a novel or novella, and a book proposal including a synopsis an outline of the work.

Historical fiction is one of the oldest genres of the literary novel, but the past is also used in many different ways in popular mass-market fiction such as romance and fantasy. This unit explores the use of history in narrative forms, including medieval literature, the rise of the novel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the explosion of popular genre fiction in the twentieth century. It looks at how the genre became "feminised" and the role of the novelist Georgette Heyer in creating a new subgenre of historical romance. It explores how the past, from the ancient world to Australian history, has been fictionalised. Yet the twenty-first century historical novel is not merely entertaining; it can create debates and challenge public perceptions of the past in unsettling ways. Students will also consider how Australian authors have used historical fiction to retell or offer alternative narratives about the nation. By the end of this unit, students will understand how the past informs literary and popular fiction, and why historical fiction can sometimes be considered a form of historiographical interpretation, especially in novels relating to the Second World War and the Holocaust.

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