PARTICIPATION (25%)

Communication and collaboration in tutorials are essential to success in this unit. In Week 1, you will be assigned to (i) a tutorial team and (ii) a tutorial week which you will lead. When you are the designated Team Leader, you will encourage and facilitate discussion of the materials and questions in your team, and report the team’s final responses to the class in the second hour of the tutorial. To successfully demonstrate collaboration and communication, you will need to prepare both the required and optional learning materials for that topic, and share your prepared written responses with your team members as a prompt for team conversation during class before the whole-of-class discussion. Your weekly participation in team and class discussion is worth 10 marks and your tutorial leadership is worth 15 marks. Further instructions and the marking rubric are available via Canvas.

SMALL CONTINUOUS IN-CLASS ASSESSMENT (45%)

Small in-class assessments are conducted under examination conditions. You must arrive at your allocated tutorial on time with your student ID card which you will display on your desk. You are not permitted to sit an in-class assessment without your student ID card present. You are not permitted to attempt a skills assessment in a different tutorial time. There are three 20-minute skills assessments, one each in Weeks 5, 10, and 13. You will undertake each assessment in your tutorial covering the following topics: 

1. Connection, Colonisation, Constitution, Country (Week 5)
2. Common Law and Legislation (Week 10)
3. Theories of Law and Justice (Week 13)

Further instructions and the marking rubric will be made available via Canvas closer to the time.

COLLABORATIVE LEGAL WRITING TASK (30%)

You will be allocated to a writing group in Week 3. Your writing group will be presented with a real-life problem of legal significance. This group task will assess both the product and the process of your collaboration. Your mark for this task will comprise both a shared group mark for the product and an individual mark for the quality of your contribution to the collaborative process.

Together you will:

1. organise, schedule and record outcomes of regular meetings;
2. find, interpret, analyse, synthesise and apply common law and/or legislation to describe your client’s problem;
3. critically evaluate your client’s problem;
4. write a solution to support your client's interest in the form of either a judicial decision (if case law) OR proposal to repeal, amend or introduce a new statutory provision (if legislation) OR State or Commonwealth constitutional amendment;
5. describe and rate the quality of each team member’s contribution in 100 words max (excluded from word limit) following a supplied rubric;
6. select the team member to upload the task to Canvas. 

Each individual member of the group must also describe and rate the quality of their own contribution to the process and the product on thh supplied rubric (excluded from word limit). Each individual member of the group must upload this to Canvas themselves.

One team member will upload your team's writing task (2,000 words maximum, excluding references) to Canvas by 11:00pm Saturday 7 June 2025 (Sydney Australia time). The collaborative product is worth 24 marks, with every member of the group receiving the same numerical result for it, corresponding approximately to the mark required to satisfy the standard grades: High Distinction 21/24; Distinction 18/24; Credit 16/24; Pass 12/24. The collaborative process is worth 6 marks, with group members receiving individual marks from the marker taking into account both the self and group evaluations of your contribution to the collaborative process.

Referencing must be made using footnotes (not bibliography) and apply the AGLC Style Guide for both initial and subsequent references. Detailed instructions, the marking rubric and cover sheet will be supplied via Canvas in Week 3. Note: automated simple extensions are unavailable for this task. 

HURDLE TASKS

All assessments in this unit are designated as a HURDLE TASK. This means you must undertake the assessment and achieve a mark above a minimum standard. Students who fail to achieve the minimum standard of [50%] in these assessments, even when their aggregate mark for the entire unit is above 50%, will be given a Fail grade for the unit. As a result, the student's academic transcript will show a fail grade and the actual mark achieved if between 0-49 or a fail grade and a capped moderated mark of 49 for all other marks.

Word limit penalty: A piece of assessment which exceeds the prescribed word limit will attract a penalty of 10% of the total marks available for the piece of assessment for every 100 words, or part thereof. The total word count for essay and other written assessments will exclude all references, and exclude acknowledgements of assistance from editors, automated writing tools or generative AI (where use is permitted).

Use of editors or proof-readers: In completing unsupervised assessments, students may use editors, proof-readers, and automated writing tools (including translation software, grammar checkers, reference generators and artificial intelligence), provided that all use is acknowledged and consistent with University policies and procedures including Academic Integrity Policy. Acknowledgment must be made in writing on the front of the work submitted for assessment, or in an appropriate footnote or other reference, and state the name of the person or software.

Special consideration: Successful grants of Special Consideration may involve alternative tasks, as appropriate. 

Assessment requirements to pass a unit of study: A student must make a genuine attempt at all assessment tasks set out in this Unit of Study in order to obtain a Pass mark and grade (or above); otherwise an Absent Fail grade will be recorded as the student’s result for this Unit of Study.