Special Consideration:

If you experience serious and unavoidable difficulties when assessment tasks are due, you can consider applying for Special Consideration. Please read the information available here and, if you are eligible, apply via ask.mq.edu.au.

Late Penalty:

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark) will be applied each day a written assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a mark of ‘0’ (zero) will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. Submission time for all written assessments is set at 11.55pm. A 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical issue.

This late penalty will apply to written reports and recordings only. Late submission of time sensitive tasks (such as tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, scheduled practical assessments/labs will be addressed by the unit convenor in a Special consideration application. For more information please see: https://teche.mq.edu.au/2022/07/standardised-late-submission-rules-come-into-force-for-s2-2022-onwards/

Grades:

In line with the Macquarie University Assessment Policy, grades align with the descriptors available here. 

Important Academic Dates:

Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates

Unit Delivery:

• Lectures: Lectures start in week one.
• In this unit, lectures will be live in-person and streamed via echo and available as recordings through echo on ilearn. Please check ilearn for the schedule. Also check timetables for locations.
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• Tutorials: Tutorials start in week one.
• In the unit, tutorials will be offered both in-person and via zoom. It is strongly recommended that students attend all tutorials in order to engage with unit concepts fully, discuss upcoming assessments, workshop their writing and share questions. Participation rolls will be marked by individual tutors. This unit requires engagement with key course concepts and is not suitable for self-directed study. Please engage actively in your tutorials, as students who do engage and workshop their creative projects with their tutor and peers, regularly perform well in this unit, as well as reporting greater satisfaction with their experience!
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• ilearn: Students can find all relevant materials and communications from convenors such as lecture notes, echo recordings, announcements, discussion forums and Q & A's for assessments on ilearn. Please engage and familiarise yourself with ilearn, as students who do engage regularly perform better in this unit!
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• Study and Wellbeing support. For students requiring any study or wellbeing support, for instance if you are unsure how to reference and use Harvard in text referencing and bibliography etc, or require support with grammar or English expression, or if you are struggling with your physical or mental health during semester, we suggest you take up some of the studywise and student support options that MQU offers. Please see the listings below in Student Support and Student Services segments of this unit guide.

Unit Resources:

• Readings: In this unit, students are required to complete the weekly readings. The readings will be available via Leganto links in ilearn.
• Assessments: In this unit, students will be required to create a final project using their own equipment (including phones, computers) or equipment that can be borrowed from the library (such as laptops). If you have any questions, please contact Catherine via email.

The subjects below are the current offering of the course weekly topics. Students will find the most recent weekly subject topics on ilearn, as on occassions, the lecture order could change during the course, due to staff illness etc. Please check announcements and ilearn for any important information https://ilearn.mq.edu.au/ 

Links to readings for the week will also be found via the Leganto link on ilearn. https://ilearn.mq.edu.au/

• Week 0 - Story Exchange

• Week 1 - Multimodal Storytelling - an introduction

• Week 2 - Back to Basics: Narratives - From Fairy Tales to Advertising

• Week 3 - Resistance, Retellings, Counter-narratives: Crafting Feminist Horror

  Week 4 -Telling Interactive Stories 1: future storytelling, multi-modality, audience as storytellers

• Week 5 - Unpacking stories from real life: Journalism and Ethics

• Week 6: Crafting Stories for multi-modal storytelling: Plot, character, narrative, structure

• Week 7 - Crafting Stories for multi-modal storytelling 2: Settings, Emotions

  Week 8: Telling Interactive Stories 2 – UX, UI: Narrative and procedure in Games

  STUDY RECESS - 21 Sept 2026 to 5th October

  Week 9 - Media Choices: Telling stories on the screen (PUBLIC HOLIDAY)

  Week 10 - Media Choices: Telling audio stories (Dr Virginia Madsen)

  Week 11 - Storytelling Futures: Telling and selling multi-platform Stories, AI and emerging platforms –

   

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This years story project will be due at the end of week 5, for students to receive their marks before the break after week 8.

This year, to respond to the increased use of AI due to Open AI policies, we are encouraging our students to learn the important techniques of multi-modal storytelling: structure, character, point of view, emotions, settings, audience engagement and interactivity, via our teachings and examples, so that these skills can be taken with you into all your future employment opportunities.

Excitingly, in media employment, human strengths are rising in value: while AI boosts productivity by quickly summarising data, 'irreplaceable human skills', such as judgement, creativity, empathy and arguably leadership, are become more central, and will be key capabilities in journalism, strategic comms, PR, content design and education/training roles (Rumbens, ABC 2026)

Thus, while AI is able to be used in your final assessments, we have a range of in class tutorial activities, including workshopping of your project drafts, which will be observed and encourage your own writing and craft skills, as well as group work, communication and problem solving, building personal competence and resilience. 

Please do not rely on AI to learn the fundamentals of storytelling, rather use AI only as a tool to push your creativity and assist you in ways you may not be able to explore yourself. Also, remember, you don't have to use AI and your work will not necessarily be better if you do! AI tends to create work from genres, and won't always be as creatively inventive as you are!

In addition, any reflection or rationale components of a narrative of Story Project Plan or Story Project process, students are expected to indicate which AI prompts or feedback from other students you used to edit your project, or re-prompting you used and why.

Put on your storytelling hats and write on!

Dr Catherine Fargher