About the ‘Virginia Woolf & Bloomsbury’ module
The ‘Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury’ module has been running very successfully in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading for many years. The popular module is initiated, designed and led by Dr Madeleine Davies.
Virginia Woolf was a leading modernist writer and the mother of modern literary feminism.The module explores her work, her milieu, and modernism itself, and it opens out ideas around women’s writing, inter-war culture and society, and the Bloomsbury circle. Selected texts change a little from year to year but the module generally involves the study of:
- The Voyage Out
- Selected Essays: ‘Character in Fiction’, ‘Modern Novels’, ‘Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown’, ‘Professions for Women’, ‘Memories of a Working Women’s Guild’ and ‘Street Haunting: A London Adventure’
- Jacob’s Room
- Mrs Dalloway
- A Room of One’s Own
- Three Guineas
The teaching method involves weekly 3-hour seminars. At the University of Reading, we favour small-group teaching and groups are mainly taught in colleagues’ rooms which are large enough to accommodate the students. Seminars and debate and discussion-led and this is perfect for Woolf whose ideas and positions can be controversial, complex and contradictory.
Towards the beginning of the module, the group is invited on a day-trip to London. Madeleine Davies usually organises and leads this herself but, in 2019, we were lucky enough to have a professional Tour Guide specialising in Woolf. Nan Mousley traced with the group Mrs Dalloway’s walk and then traced the Street Haunter’s path to the Embankment. We moved through Whitehall, Dean’s Yard, St James’s Park, Old Bond Street, and then through the Haunter’s tangled streets on her way to the Embankment (where a pencil is bought!). The visit to London provides an opportunity to extend learning beyond the classroom and to understand Woolf’s psycho-geography. Seeing the sites of the novels, imagining London in the 1920s and 1930s, gives students imaginative access to Woolf’s world, deepens knowledge, and encourages three-dimensional understanding.
Assessment for the module involves the Blackboard Learning Journal (which replaced the exam in 2017) and a formal assessed essay where students can demonstrate their critical skills. The assessments are weighted equally.
The Learning Journal requires students to upload 500 words every week to their online journal. ‘Real time’ submission is important because this provides a record of the development of knowledge and thought. Students can submit pieces in any form they choose and variety is encouraged; the format can accommodate mini-essays, poems, recipes, letters, pieces of art (with commentaries), and reflection on associated contemporary ideas. Critical connection is encouraged in some pieces but students are rewarded for ‘reflection’, ‘engagement’ and ‘development’, and this can be registered in whatever form they choose. Feedback is provided on the early pieces in the first half of the term because, writing in an unfamiliar format, students need the reassurance that their entries are ‘correct’. The removal of conventional hand-rails can prove discombobulating at first but students gain confidence quickly (aided by the formative feedback) and soon begin to take risks, flex creative muscles, and engage with the texts at a deeper and more personal level than critical essays usually allow.
One huge benefit of the Learning Journal format is its inclusivity. The Journal tends to reward those students whose skills may not lie in formal writing but whose ideas and reflections are first class. By providing an opportunity to showcase their skills, the Journal provides a level playing field for students from diverse backgrounds with diverse skills.
Teaching this module is very rewarding indeed. As students increase their knowledge, their sensitivity to Woolf’s writing and ideas develops; conversation flows and readings, interpretations, and challenges begin to open up new ways of reading Woolf. By the time we reach Week 7, the quality of the thinking is truly excellent. A Room of Our Own captures our students’ engagement with the module and with the texts which have as much relevance today as they did 100 years ago.