ASSIGNMENT BOOKLET
Assignments for Courses 1,2,3,4 and 5
ASSIGNMENTS
(For July 2016 and January 2017 Sessions)
Diploma in Creative Writing in English
(DCE)
School of Humanities
Indira Gandhi National Open University
Maidan Garhi, New Delhi – 110 068
DCE
2
Diploma in Creative Writing in English
Dear Students,
We hope you are already familiar with the system of evaluation to be
followed for the
Diploma in Creative Writing in English. At this stage you should read again
the pages of
the Programme Guide that give the details of the evaluation procedure. A
weightage of 30
per cent, as you are aware, has been earmarked for Continuous Evaluation,
which would
consist of one assignment per Course.
The Assignment booklet for Courses 1,2,3,4 and 5 is being sent herewith. It
has a total of 5
assignments, of which 4 must be submitted by you. The assignment for Course
1 is
compulsory and every student must attempt this. You are required to do the
assignments
for only three courses, out of DCE-2,3,4 and 5.
Following is the calendar for submission of assignments:
Course 1
Course 2 Last Date of Submission of Assignments :
Course 3 For July 2016 Session: 31st March 2017.
Course 4 For January 2017 Session: 30th September 2017
Course 5
All assignments must be submitted on or before the date set.
All assignments pertaining to any Course must be submitted in one batch. No
piecemeal
submission is acceptable.
In case you are not able to keep this deadline in the first year, say 2017,
you should submit
your assignments in 2018, 2019 or 2020 that is, you have a total of 1+3
years to submit
your assignments.
At the commencement of every academic year, your progress will be intimated
and you will
be asked your plan of studies for that year. At this stage, please ask for
the assignment
Booklet of that year, not for your year of enrolment. Irrespective of your
year of
enrolment, you do the assignment in force for the year in which you submit
it.
Do not plan to take the terminal examination for any course if you have not
done the
assignments set for it first. You will not be permitted to do so.
3
Instructions for submitting your assignments:
1. You should attach a slip in the following format to the top of the
relevant course
assignments
Course Title __________________ Name ______________________ For Office Use
Assignment No.________________ Address_____________________ Grades:
Enrolment No.__________________ _____________________ Letter ______
Date sent on ____________________ _____________________ _____________
_____________________ Evaluated by
_____________________ _____________
PLEASE FOLLOW THE ABOVE FORMAT STRICTLY TO FACILITATE
EVALUATION AND TO AVOID DELAY.
2. The answer sheets should be complete in all respects. Make sure you have
answered all the
questions in an assignment before you submit it.
3. Use only foolscap size writing paper (but not of very thin variety), for
writing your answer.
4. Leave 5 cms margin on the left, top and bottom of your answer scripts so
that comments, if
any, can be made.
5. Start every assignment on a fresh sheet so that you can prepare separate
sets for each block.
6. You should not send printed articles as your answers to assignments.
7. Please write ASSIGNMENT FOR DIPLOMA IN CREATIVE WRITING IN ENGLISH
on top of the cover in which you send your answer/response sheets.
Note: Remember the submission of assignment is precondition of permission
of appearing in
examination. If you have not submitted the assignment in time you will not
be allowed to
appear in the examination.
4
DCE – 1
Assignment
(General Principles of Writing)
Programme Code: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE/TMA/ 2016-17
Maximum Marks: 100
1. How is the opening important for a story? Give examples of various types
of openings and analyze
how they influence the reader’s expectation of what will follow. 20
2. Using the omniscient mode of narration, write a short account of a man
sentenced to imprisonment
for a crime he did not commit. 20
3. What is a formula story? Write a short story on the theme of duty and
reward on the lines of a
formula story with an appropriate ending. 20
4. Write a dialogue between siblings who have just learnt that they have
been adopted. How do they
react? What do they plan to do? 20
5. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
At the top of a squatty, three-story brick in the quaint old Greenwich
Village west of Washington
Square, artists Sue and Johnsy had their studio. They had met at the table
d'hote of an Eighth street
"Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop
sleeves so congenial that the
joint studio resulted.
That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors
called Pneumonia, stalked
about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite
of a little woman
with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-
fisted, short-breathed old
duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted
iron bedstead, looking
through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick
house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy,
gray eyebrow.
"She has one chance in -let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the
mercury in his clinical
thermometer. "And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people
have of lining-up on the
side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your
little lady has made up her
mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She -she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
(i) Why did Sue and Johnsy become friends? What interests did they share? 2
(ii)Why does the author call pneumonia ‘short-breathed’? 2
5
(iii) Personification is a literary device in which something inanimate or
abstract is described as a
living being. Find an example of personification in the story and write a
description of it in
your own words. Write a paragraph using this device to personify something
that you see
commonly in your daily life (a mirror, a clock, a wall etc) 6
6. What does an editor do? How is his work an important aspect of
publishing? 10
6
DCE-2
FEATUREWRITING
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 2/ TMA/1/2016-2017
1. We often come across cases of domestic violence, with women bearing the
brunt of their
husband’s frustrations and anger. Although a number of laws are in place to
protect
women-this menace still exists. Keeping this in mind write a feature on
“Domestic
Violence and how it can be Curbed.”
(20)
2. Review a book that you have read recently. Provide an evaluative judge
and a summative
conclusion. Do keep in mind all the norms given in your block on Book
Reviews.
(20)
3. Write a travel article based on your visit to a foreign destination,
describing in detail the
tourist spots visited, dress and cuisine peculiar to that place. Remember
to give a “creative
slant” to your article by personalizing it. Do not make it a data based
research piece.”
(20)
4. Interview a celebrity whose comments have been blown out of proportion
by the media.
Write up the interview in the form of ten questions and their possible
answers, which will
help to clear his/her image..
(20)
5. Write a short feature on any one of the following topics. Remember that
there are a
number of perspectives to a subject. Choose the one that appeals to you
most and focus
on that.
a) Victory has many fathers---defeat is but an orphan
b) Youth is a blessing---old age a curse.
(20)
7
DCE – 3
SHORT STORY
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 3/TMA/1/2016-2017
1. Given below is the beginning of a short story. Complete and conclude it:
I was at a wedding, enjoying myself with friends and family. The
festivities were in full
swing. Feeling the need for a smoke, I stepped out from the venue. Walking
beside the
lake, under a star-studded sky, I lost count of time, till suddenly I
remembered the
festivities and returned post-haste to the venue. To my utter amazement I
found that the
function had ended, the wedding guests had departed, and the venue was
covered in
darkness.
25
2. Ideas for short stories may come from personal experiences or from
observing the world
around us. Write a short story for children on any one of the following:
a) My Last Day in School
b) A Failed Mission
c) An Unforgettable Encounter.
You can make the story either a serious or a comic one, depending on what
you can handle
better.
25
3. Based on the following hints, build up a detective story:
A room has been ransacked………a dead body is lying in pool of blood………..no
murderweapon
is in sight……….. and the doors and windows of the room are all bolted from
the
inside.
25
4. Write an open-ended short story on one of the following situations:
a) Being Stalked
b) Marooned on an Island
25
8
DCE – 4
WRITING FORMEDIA: RADIO TELEVISION
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 4/ TMA/1/2016-2017
1. Write a Radio play revolving around any one of the following, making use
of narration,
dialogues and SFX:
a) An encounter with a ghost
b) No pain, no gain
c) An idle mind is a devil’s workshop.
25
2. Write a radio documentary on any one of the following:
a) A major social issue of your town/city
b) Increase in cyber-crimes
25
3. The following exercise makes you aware of the relationship between
pictures and words.
Given below are fifteen picture-descriptions from which you are to write a
commentary to
complement ten images. Choose ten picture descriptions and arrange them so
that a story
emerges. Frame the commentary for the T.V. under the following three
headings:
Picture Description Commentary/Dialogue SFX
a) An old man leaning on a stick
b) Cigarette-case and lighter
c) A child holding balloons
d) A doctor and a nurse
e) Group of shouting villagers
f) A funeral procession
g) A Snow storm
h) A grave yard
i) A frozen lake
j) A Man riding a horse
k) A locked trunk
l) A sweet-shop
m) Deserted shed
n) A collapsed bridge
o) A speeding ambulance
25
4. Write a Public Service announcement to be relayed over TV on any one of
the following
topics. Suggest visuals, narration, sound effects and dialogues wherever
required
a) Each one teach one
b) Ban female foeticide
25
9
DCE – 5
Assignment
(Writing Poetry)
Programme Code:
DCE Assignment Code: DCE5/TMA/2016-17
Maximum Marks: 100
1. Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
TO THE CUCKOO
O Blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listen'd to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love—
Still long'd for, never seen!
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place,
That is fit home for thee!
10
(i) What are the words or phrases which tell you that the poet has listened
to the cuckoo’s song
many times earlier?
5
(ii) This poem has been written in the form of an ode. An ode is a poem of
praise and may be
an address to someone or something or even a time of day. Pick out the
features that
characterise an ode and write a short one of your own.
10
(iii) Look at the shift in tense throughout the poem. What sense of time
does it convey?
5
2. If you were a singing bird in a cage, how would you feel if you saw
another flying freely in
the sky? Write a short poem describing this.
20
3. Write two verses on the theme of memories using images.
20
4. What do you understand by ‘rounded ending’ of a poem? Write two verses
with different types of
rounded ending.
20
5. (i) What are the images that come to your mind when you think of the
spring season? Using
those images, write a nature poem.
10
(ii) How are clichés used in poetry? Write a short poem with clichés that
have unexpected twists.
10
Assignments for Courses 1,2,3,4 and 5
ASSIGNMENTS
(For July 2016 and January 2017 Sessions)
Diploma in Creative Writing in English
(DCE)
School of Humanities
Indira Gandhi National Open University
Maidan Garhi, New Delhi – 110 068
DCE
2
Diploma in Creative Writing in English
Dear Students,
We hope you are already familiar with the system of evaluation to be
followed for the
Diploma in Creative Writing in English. At this stage you should read again
the pages of
the Programme Guide that give the details of the evaluation procedure. A
weightage of 30
per cent, as you are aware, has been earmarked for Continuous Evaluation,
which would
consist of one assignment per Course.
The Assignment booklet for Courses 1,2,3,4 and 5 is being sent herewith. It
has a total of 5
assignments, of which 4 must be submitted by you. The assignment for Course
1 is
compulsory and every student must attempt this. You are required to do the
assignments
for only three courses, out of DCE-2,3,4 and 5.
Following is the calendar for submission of assignments:
Course 1
Course 2 Last Date of Submission of Assignments :
Course 3 For July 2016 Session: 31st March 2017.
Course 4 For January 2017 Session: 30th September 2017
Course 5
All assignments must be submitted on or before the date set.
All assignments pertaining to any Course must be submitted in one batch. No
piecemeal
submission is acceptable.
In case you are not able to keep this deadline in the first year, say 2017,
you should submit
your assignments in 2018, 2019 or 2020 that is, you have a total of 1+3
years to submit
your assignments.
At the commencement of every academic year, your progress will be intimated
and you will
be asked your plan of studies for that year. At this stage, please ask for
the assignment
Booklet of that year, not for your year of enrolment. Irrespective of your
year of
enrolment, you do the assignment in force for the year in which you submit
it.
Do not plan to take the terminal examination for any course if you have not
done the
assignments set for it first. You will not be permitted to do so.
3
Instructions for submitting your assignments:
1. You should attach a slip in the following format to the top of the
relevant course
assignments
Course Title __________________ Name ______________________ For Office Use
Assignment No.________________ Address_____________________ Grades:
Enrolment No.__________________ _____________________ Letter ______
Date sent on ____________________ _____________________ _____________
_____________________ Evaluated by
_____________________ _____________
PLEASE FOLLOW THE ABOVE FORMAT STRICTLY TO FACILITATE
EVALUATION AND TO AVOID DELAY.
2. The answer sheets should be complete in all respects. Make sure you have
answered all the
questions in an assignment before you submit it.
3. Use only foolscap size writing paper (but not of very thin variety), for
writing your answer.
4. Leave 5 cms margin on the left, top and bottom of your answer scripts so
that comments, if
any, can be made.
5. Start every assignment on a fresh sheet so that you can prepare separate
sets for each block.
6. You should not send printed articles as your answers to assignments.
7. Please write ASSIGNMENT FOR DIPLOMA IN CREATIVE WRITING IN ENGLISH
on top of the cover in which you send your answer/response sheets.
Note: Remember the submission of assignment is precondition of permission
of appearing in
examination. If you have not submitted the assignment in time you will not
be allowed to
appear in the examination.
4
DCE – 1
Assignment
(General Principles of Writing)
Programme Code: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE/TMA/ 2016-17
Maximum Marks: 100
1. How is the opening important for a story? Give examples of various types
of openings and analyze
how they influence the reader’s expectation of what will follow. 20
2. Using the omniscient mode of narration, write a short account of a man
sentenced to imprisonment
for a crime he did not commit. 20
3. What is a formula story? Write a short story on the theme of duty and
reward on the lines of a
formula story with an appropriate ending. 20
4. Write a dialogue between siblings who have just learnt that they have
been adopted. How do they
react? What do they plan to do? 20
5. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
At the top of a squatty, three-story brick in the quaint old Greenwich
Village west of Washington
Square, artists Sue and Johnsy had their studio. They had met at the table
d'hote of an Eighth street
"Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop
sleeves so congenial that the
joint studio resulted.
That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors
called Pneumonia, stalked
about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite
of a little woman
with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-
fisted, short-breathed old
duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted
iron bedstead, looking
through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick
house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy,
gray eyebrow.
"She has one chance in -let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the
mercury in his clinical
thermometer. "And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people
have of lining-up on the
side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopeia look silly. Your
little lady has made up her
mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She -she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
(i) Why did Sue and Johnsy become friends? What interests did they share? 2
(ii)Why does the author call pneumonia ‘short-breathed’? 2
5
(iii) Personification is a literary device in which something inanimate or
abstract is described as a
living being. Find an example of personification in the story and write a
description of it in
your own words. Write a paragraph using this device to personify something
that you see
commonly in your daily life (a mirror, a clock, a wall etc) 6
6. What does an editor do? How is his work an important aspect of
publishing? 10
6
DCE-2
FEATUREWRITING
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 2/ TMA/1/2016-2017
1. We often come across cases of domestic violence, with women bearing the
brunt of their
husband’s frustrations and anger. Although a number of laws are in place to
protect
women-this menace still exists. Keeping this in mind write a feature on
“Domestic
Violence and how it can be Curbed.”
(20)
2. Review a book that you have read recently. Provide an evaluative judge
and a summative
conclusion. Do keep in mind all the norms given in your block on Book
Reviews.
(20)
3. Write a travel article based on your visit to a foreign destination,
describing in detail the
tourist spots visited, dress and cuisine peculiar to that place. Remember
to give a “creative
slant” to your article by personalizing it. Do not make it a data based
research piece.”
(20)
4. Interview a celebrity whose comments have been blown out of proportion
by the media.
Write up the interview in the form of ten questions and their possible
answers, which will
help to clear his/her image..
(20)
5. Write a short feature on any one of the following topics. Remember that
there are a
number of perspectives to a subject. Choose the one that appeals to you
most and focus
on that.
a) Victory has many fathers---defeat is but an orphan
b) Youth is a blessing---old age a curse.
(20)
7
DCE – 3
SHORT STORY
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 3/TMA/1/2016-2017
1. Given below is the beginning of a short story. Complete and conclude it:
I was at a wedding, enjoying myself with friends and family. The
festivities were in full
swing. Feeling the need for a smoke, I stepped out from the venue. Walking
beside the
lake, under a star-studded sky, I lost count of time, till suddenly I
remembered the
festivities and returned post-haste to the venue. To my utter amazement I
found that the
function had ended, the wedding guests had departed, and the venue was
covered in
darkness.
25
2. Ideas for short stories may come from personal experiences or from
observing the world
around us. Write a short story for children on any one of the following:
a) My Last Day in School
b) A Failed Mission
c) An Unforgettable Encounter.
You can make the story either a serious or a comic one, depending on what
you can handle
better.
25
3. Based on the following hints, build up a detective story:
A room has been ransacked………a dead body is lying in pool of blood………..no
murderweapon
is in sight……….. and the doors and windows of the room are all bolted from
the
inside.
25
4. Write an open-ended short story on one of the following situations:
a) Being Stalked
b) Marooned on an Island
25
8
DCE – 4
WRITING FORMEDIA: RADIO TELEVISION
Max. Marks: 100
Programme: DCE
Assignment Code: DCE 4/ TMA/1/2016-2017
1. Write a Radio play revolving around any one of the following, making use
of narration,
dialogues and SFX:
a) An encounter with a ghost
b) No pain, no gain
c) An idle mind is a devil’s workshop.
25
2. Write a radio documentary on any one of the following:
a) A major social issue of your town/city
b) Increase in cyber-crimes
25
3. The following exercise makes you aware of the relationship between
pictures and words.
Given below are fifteen picture-descriptions from which you are to write a
commentary to
complement ten images. Choose ten picture descriptions and arrange them so
that a story
emerges. Frame the commentary for the T.V. under the following three
headings:
Picture Description Commentary/Dialogue SFX
a) An old man leaning on a stick
b) Cigarette-case and lighter
c) A child holding balloons
d) A doctor and a nurse
e) Group of shouting villagers
f) A funeral procession
g) A Snow storm
h) A grave yard
i) A frozen lake
j) A Man riding a horse
k) A locked trunk
l) A sweet-shop
m) Deserted shed
n) A collapsed bridge
o) A speeding ambulance
25
4. Write a Public Service announcement to be relayed over TV on any one of
the following
topics. Suggest visuals, narration, sound effects and dialogues wherever
required
a) Each one teach one
b) Ban female foeticide
25
9
DCE – 5
Assignment
(Writing Poetry)
Programme Code:
DCE Assignment Code: DCE5/TMA/2016-17
Maximum Marks: 100
1. Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
TO THE CUCKOO
O Blithe new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.
Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listen'd to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love—
Still long'd for, never seen!
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place,
That is fit home for thee!
10
(i) What are the words or phrases which tell you that the poet has listened
to the cuckoo’s song
many times earlier?
5
(ii) This poem has been written in the form of an ode. An ode is a poem of
praise and may be
an address to someone or something or even a time of day. Pick out the
features that
characterise an ode and write a short one of your own.
10
(iii) Look at the shift in tense throughout the poem. What sense of time
does it convey?
5
2. If you were a singing bird in a cage, how would you feel if you saw
another flying freely in
the sky? Write a short poem describing this.
20
3. Write two verses on the theme of memories using images.
20
4. What do you understand by ‘rounded ending’ of a poem? Write two verses
with different types of
rounded ending.
20
5. (i) What are the images that come to your mind when you think of the
spring season? Using
those images, write a nature poem.
10
(ii) How are clichés used in poetry? Write a short poem with clichés that
have unexpected twists.
10
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