I will be speaking on my experiences teaching Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway in a comp class.

The last time I had taught Mrs. Dalloway before last spring was to a sophomore seminar of English Concentrators at an Ivy League. There, I had been preaching to the choir. I never had to explain why the study of literature was useful. I just had to show how it worked. Teaching at West Los Angeles College is a different story. These students’ assumption going in is not necessarily that the close reading of a Woolfean sentence will bring them closer to their life or career goals. Or will it? I propose to explore the trade-offs between preparing for the four-year transfer and preparing for the working world. Are the goals really so different?