The assignment for this lesson is to rewrite a portion of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own using conventional language. Your rewrite should show a solid understanding of Woolf’s meaning. At the end, you must write a short paragraph about the differences between the Woolf version of the passage and your paraphrased version.
The rubric reads:
Content — 12 points
Your assignment shows a good understanding of Woolf’s main ideas; in rewriting the paragraph, you do not significantly change the meaning.
Explanatory text: Your focus is on changing the form, not the content, of Woolf’s essay. Compare it to the original to make sure the meaning is intact, and make sure you have a good understanding of the original paragraph in the first place.
The rubric reads:
Your assignment explains in a substantive way the effects of Woolf’s style on her message.
Explanatory text: Your brief reflection should explain what was lost or gained by “translating” Woolf’s work into conventional English. Is her message better captured in the original passage or in your version?
The rubric reads:
Style — 18 points
Your assignment is written in a formal and conventional way that contrasts with Woolf’s essay, especially by:
Relying mainly on simple, straightforward sentences
Explanatory text: In your rewrite, you should break up Woolf’s longer, more complicated sentences. Start with simple sentences, but feel free to add compound or complex sentences to add variety.
The rubric reads:
Avoiding qualifiers
Explanatory text: Qualifiers are interruptions to clarify or further explain something. Examples are I suppose and probably. Be confident and state the ideas from Woolf’s essay as facts.
The rubric reads:
Avoiding the use of the first person
Explanatory text: The first person includes the pronouns I, me, and my. Avoid these pronouns, in addition to qualifiers, to give your rewrite a more objective tone than Woolf’s original.
The rubric reads:
Completing your thoughts before moving on to others
Explanatory text: Woolf often jumps between ideas and even interrupts herself. Your rewrite should address only one idea at a time, although you should build bridges between ideas so that the reader can follow your thought process (and indirectly Woolf’s as well).
The rubric reads:
Avoiding elaborate punctuation, such as ellipses and dashes
Explanatory text: Ellipses are the three periods (. . .) writers use to show that they’ve left something out or, more informally, that they’re thinking or trailing off: I guess . . . pick the pink dress. Dashes have many uses, one of which is to show interruptions: Bill — and trust me, I’ll get to the point soon — is rich.
The rubric reads:
Avoiding especially long lists of information
Explanatory text: You should combine material or break lists into smaller units so that the ideas are more easily digestible. You can spot these lists in Woolf’s writing because she often separates all the items with semicolons.
The rubric reads:
Your assignment avoids obvious mistakes in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation.
Explanatory text: Even the most unconventional authors — the great ones, anyway — are still deliberate about every word and sentence they choose, so you don’t often see careless mistakes in their work. Clean, edited writing is common to formal and unconventional authors.