Save Creative Writing in TAFE

Contact the author of the petition

This discussion topic has been automatically created of petition Save Creative Writing in TAFE.

Christine Bell
Guest

#51 Save Creative Writing in TAFE

2010-11-26 00:33

I started my writing career with a TAFE Diploma of Professional Writing & Editing qualification. The hands-on creative writing crafting experience and involved tutor/class feedback were huge contributors to my knowledge and skill base. On completion of the current course, participants and employers can be assured the graduate has the skills for multiple roles, both corporate and creative. By reducing the course to narrow parameters of corporate/commercial core subjects will deny students pathways to degree creative writing courses. The value of the course to me and many fellow writers I know who've undertaken the current Diploma has been publication and a thorough knowledge of the creative and professional writing industry. Please do not deny future writers this invaluable learning start. Christine Bell.
Elise Hurst
Guest

#52 Course cost

2010-11-26 02:03

I would like this petition to spark a new look at what it takes to be a writer, potential income after study and most importantly a rethink on the cost of the courses for those who already have a higher degree. I think that the most undervalued aspect of the course is the range of students and what they bring to workshopping - most particularly anyone who has been in an aspect of the industry for a while and who has already done some study.

It is not just about hours and electives, it is about keeping the quality of students who flow through the course and allowing them to proceed at their own pace.

I did the course over five years, part time, and cannot imagine getting the same lasting benefit from it in a single year, or even two. And I am not alone. Many students are full-time workers trying to make the shift into a new career.

I would also like some recognition of the fact that building a creative career post-study is frequently a long and impoverishing experience. I'd like to see a new writer paying back the full fees from their future income. It's not like moving into plumbing or building where there are established rates and unions to help enforce them. We risk excluding too many people who don't have a high enough income to support the writing habit. Let's at least allow people to get the skills they need in the time it takes to learn them - and in a manner that will not bankrupt them.

Jeffry Babb
Guest

#53 Jeffry Babb

2010-11-26 02:49

I am an experienced writer and editor, with publications on four continents. The Cert IV and Diploma are a sound introduction for all aspects of writing for publication. Strange as it may seem to a non-professional writer, all writing has an element of creativity, and creatvity is fostered through a variety of writing styles, including creative writing.
As a ten-year veteran of newspaper writing and editing, I know creativity is essential for editing and headline writing. Without creativity, editing is just dull.
Carol Challis
Guest

#54 Narrow minds nurture more narrow minds...

2010-11-26 05:00

This is 'tick the box' curriculum planning with no consideration to the loss of creativity and ideas.
Amanda Burton
Guest

#55 For business and for pleasure

2010-11-26 07:06

I work in an industry where the level of business writing skills in astonishingly and disparingly poor. Good writing is becomming a lost art and one that should be nutured as much as possible before it is lost altogether.
I completed the PWE Diploma several years ago - including many creative writing units - and found the whole experience invaluable in my daily (drearily non-creative) workplace writing tasks.
Rather than dumbing down learning, let's promote literacy in all its forms, before the 'tweets' take over the world!
Marian Quigley
Guest

#56 Creative Writing

2010-11-26 07:47

Creativity needs nurturing!!!!
Melita Knight
Guest

#57 Unfair

2010-11-26 10:52

The government want people to have an education and get jobs, but how can we do this when half of our subjects are gone! Creative writing subjects are a huge draw for people to the course. If they keep eliminating our choices, not enough people will want to do the course and it will end up being cut completely. It is unfair to student who wish to go into the creative writing field and it's also unfair to those already in the course who expected that they would be able to do a wide variety of subjects.
Emily Moon
Guest

#58

2010-11-26 11:03

Save creative writing for Tafe students!
Jenny MacDonald
Guest

#59 Ms

2010-11-26 11:30

I completed tThe Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing at CAE and found employment before I'd finished the course. Narrowing down delivery of course content ignores the invaluable experience gained from studying and developing a wide spectrum of writing.
Cemil Bilici
Guest

#60

2010-11-26 12:12

Ultimately, David is a shill for the Universities who want the monopoly on teaching Creative Writing. The problem is that when you come out with a Bachelors you come out the other side trained on how to review literature.

Anyone can be trained to edit. Most of the worlds copyediting is done out of India. The economy of the future is in Ideas and Knowledge based, not skills. The old PWE course trained you how to THINK and gave you the knowledge base to know, apply, and be qualified to apply editorial judgement. You can't be an editor unless you have experience with writers, if you know about the craft, and regularly read.

Skills is a dead end. Thanks Dave.
Sandy Mitchell
Guest

#61 Corporate writing - yawn...

2010-11-26 13:01

Learnt far more skills in the creative writing subjects that can be easily translated into non-fiction than the other way 'round... Let's face it: Anyone can follow a style guide, who needs a course for that? Not everyone can construct a complex and compelling narrative.
Monique Mahony
Guest

#62

2010-11-26 14:10

Save Creative Writing in TAFE, because too many of our educational institutions are cutting arts programs right accross the board. How is the current and next generation suppose to know how to express themselves if we take their tools for expression away?!?

Too many people believe that culture is for the "arty farty" set, but culture is the arts, sport, politics. It is the way we as individuals identify ourselves as those individuals, within our community, that community as part of the greater society. The arts are as important in our educational institutions as is our freedom of speech, which we are also slowly giving away. What will be next?

Judith Rodriguez
Guest

#63 How writers learn and work

2010-11-26 14:35

Writing courses based on narrow ideas of utility are educationally naive (to put it mildly). They will not produce efficient technical writers and bright PR writers; these and other paying lines of writing need a background of experimentation and discipline in a much wider variety of writing forms and genres. "Creative" does not mean useless. It does express a responsible idea of education in the use of language. The petition resists a reductive travesty in which students become victims of mis-managers of education.
Patricia Stone
Guest

#64

2010-11-26 22:58

A world without the imagination of creative writing would be a colourless world. We need the creative world to give us stimulation and interest in our lives. We all need to feed our brains otherwise we would become automomans. We also need a way to express our feelings and communicate them to others.
Marlene Marburg
Guest

#65 Thank you

2010-11-27 05:12

Dear Gary,
I have read your petition, and am very grateful that you have the passion and time to draft this on behalf of all. I say all, because the quality of writing does not just concern those who enjoy its practice, but those who receive the benefits of its practice.
In an age when academic excellence in fields of technology and science is encouraged and advanced, it is again a shame that arts- related fields are dishonoured.
Recently I went before the confirmation panel for my PhD. My methodology is poetic autoethnography. The convenor of the panel suggested that I put my poetry in the appendix!!! I am a published poet and poetry is my way of being and learning in the world. Apparently it is not his way. This discrepancy will continue while the decision-makers fail to see beyond their own blinkered disciplines.
Thank you again

Guest

#66

2010-11-27 06:04

I have seen at least one graduate from this course benefit from the practical communication skills offered in this course. The person is now much more employable, competent in IT aspects of communication, and making fast progress in a University course.
Margaret McCarthy
Guest

#67 Save Creative Writing

2010-11-27 07:49

I've been teaching (and learning) in this area for twenty years and am deeply worried about the threat to creative arts, especially writing.

There is more to study than building a direct link to a job. Studying directly for a job is thought-limiting and narrow when it comes to building a skill base and growing knowledge. Education can not be solely about producing measurable work skills.

Creative writers are articulate, thoughtful people. Learning to identify a story line and develop a narrative may be one of the more useful skills a student may acquire. Certainly, TAFE and University strategic policies could be improved by some of our graduates understanding of what they are trying to say.
I'm saddened by what I see coming down from above. Fortunately, I'm heartened by what I see from the students, my immediate management and this petition.  

Thanks for your petition, Gary. Good luck in working to help turn this trend around.

Shirley Whiteway
Guest

#68

2010-11-28 04:10

I believe that the full content of the new 12 month course could not possibly be taught in this time.
Leesa Briones
Guest

#69 Creative writing in the professional world

2010-11-28 04:14

I completely agree with the statement that creative writing is a must for those wanting to excel in professional writing and proof-reading.
I also would like to state that I personally would only want to take a course in professional writing and proof-reading that would cover ALL aspects of writing. This would give me the skills and experience needed to be flexible in all areas.
I am appalled to hear of the way the course re-structure is being conducted, and I believe that the trainers and lecturers in the course should have a say over the course structure, as they know what works best.
Lisa Takdare
Guest

#72 Save Creative Writing at TAFE

2010-11-28 10:50

What a joke that The United Nations awards Melbourne the City of Literature and yet creative writing courses like the ones offered at TAFE are endangered. You'd think with so much support for events like the Emerging Writers Festival and Melbourne Writers festival as well as the demand for Australian writers both here and overseas, that educational institutions would be hanging on to their creative writing courses for the prestige alone.
Joanne Scicluna
Guest

#73 TAFE petition

2010-11-28 12:40

I have taught in the Professional Writing Course at Deakin University, Burwood, for eight years. In this time I have had the pleasure of teaching many students from Holmesglen and Box Hill TAFEs who have used the pathway offered to further their study at Deakin. Across the board these students have demonstrated their excellent written skills including a great understanding of craft. These skills are most certainly attributable to the study they have undertaken in the current Writing course at TAFE. The proposed changes to the TAFE writing course will, I am sure, have a detrimental effect upon these excellent writing standards.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Jo-anne Scicluna
Associate Lecturer in Professional and Creative Writing
Deakin University
Burwood

9244 3956
jean ely
Guest

#74

2010-11-29 04:09

Thank you for the opportunity to sign this petition

Guest

#75 Rob the writer

2010-11-29 04:10

I am not a fan of the courses complexities and it belief in itself it can deliver all that is needed in what is an artistic and subjective field in itself. 50 hours for novel writing may even be too much in my mind - you need only learn structures and styles while developing you uniques skills. Delivering a novel as some kind of completeness to the course is not really a viable outcome - said novel, despite extra care by the student, will always be barely a readable draft just fit enough for serious editing. Editing focuses and the main imperative here... I will not agree that there needs to be some kind of professional development in place. Every writer is an amateur until widely published - you can get a cert or diploma in that