Cirrus@Austlit

'Collaborative models of involving students in the co-construction of assessment rubrics are rare. Inviting students to take part actively in the design of assessment rubrics is one method of filling this research gap, potentially garnering a shared understanding of assessment requirements. Rubrics traditionally are constructed by educators, based on set criteria, in order to streamline grading more cohesively and equitably. But research demonstrates that assessment rubric use is usually of more benefit to the educator in grading, than to the student in undertaking the assessment task – the educator understands requirements but often specific requirements are not clear to the student. Using a multiple case study research approach which incorporated a modified Delphi method to gather expert views on rubrics, the study outlined in this paper explores the outcomes of collaborating with creative writing students at the rubric design stage of the assessment process. This paper discusses the rubric co-construction process facilitated by a writing lecturer and a team of students from one university who took part in collaborating and developing a creative writing assessment rubric. The processes adopted to implement this co-construction process are reported, the products of which were distributed to a 250-student cohort and reflects on the value of this pedagogical innovation.' (Publication abstract)

'Gillian Mears’ Foal’s Bread (2011) is an award-winning Australian novel that broadens ways of conceptualising the relationship between humans and horses through metaphor, with attention to the nurturing or abuse of both humans and horses. ‘Therapeutic metaphors’ in Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy (EFP) suggest how the horse-human bond can act as a catalyst to promote healing from sexual abuse and domestic violence. Little research has identified this rhetorical link. Concepts such as hybridity, or the melding of identities, embodied in the mythical Centaur, a primary trope in Mears’ novel, reflects upon the sense of union discussed in horse-human bond research. This essay explores metaphoric structures in Foal’s Bread and correspondences in EFP metaphors, arguing that EFP provides an evidentiary basis for Mears’ figurative language, which demonstrates the rethinking of horse-human relationships in the context of the horse’s role in human recovery or amelioration from sexual or domestic abuse.'  (Publication abstract)

'A writer’s manifesto is a statement outlining a writer’s philosophy of life, writing goals and intentions, motives, and sources of inspiration. It is also an ongoing self-reflection on how a writer learns to write well. A writing manifesto demands an interrogation of the literary, political, philosophical and material contexts of a writer’s practice. This paper demonstrates how both undergraduate and post-graduate students can steer their own writing growth by writing a manifesto through an exploration of various methods of writing practice.'  (Publication abstract)

'Here we set out to map, through epitextual moves, the first year of our practice-based research into ‘diary performance’, taking up Watkins and Krauth’s call for ‘new ways of “doing” and of “writing up” research that are discipline and form/genre relevant' (2016. “Radicalising the Scholarly Paper: New Forms for the Traditional Journal Article.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses 20 (1)). We offer the emergent methodology we call diarology much as it was discovered: chronologically, playfully and intuitively, through voicings, listenings, space for awkward silences and the serendipitous, and increasing attention to the métissage of our interleavings. We draw on the possibilities of playful practices both as means of inquiry and as sources of new knowledge, recalling Halberstam who encourages scepticism around modes of ‘disciplinary correctness’, suggesting they confirm the ‘already known according to approved methods of knowing [but] do not allow for visionary insights of flight or fancy' (2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke University Press). The outcome re-purposes found materials to create new life narratives, each iteration finding form and gathering vitality within the extemporaneous/ephemeral architecture of ‘essayesque dismemoir' (Murray 2017. “Essayesque Dismemoir: w/rites of elder-flowering”. PhD Thesis, RMIT University).' (Publication abstract)