Time Required:
40 minutes, plus additional class time to review worksheet

Materials:
Scholarship Essay Topic student reproducible #1 (PDF),
Style Points student reproducible #2 (PDF), pen

Directions:
1. Review the concept and definition of author voice. (The presence or "implied author" behind the characters, narrators, and personae of literature.)

2. Have students mention different authors they have read and discuss how factors such as time period, gender, and social class can affect author voice

3. Have students discuss what they know about Virginia Woolf. Write the following opening from Mrs. Dalloway on the board:
Mrs. Dalloway said that she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumplemeyer's men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning-fresh as if issued to children on a beach. What a lark! What a plunge!

4. Ask: How do Virginia Woolf's life experiences affect her voice? How does author voice resonate in this passage? From the opening few sentences, what does the author want readers to learn about Clarissa Dalloway?

5. Have students write a sentence that reveals something about themselves. Review sentences aloud and discuss. Have students rewrite their sentences to appeal to a specific audience (e.g., young children, a college or scholarship committee, etc.)

6. Distribute Scholarship Essay Topic student reproducible (PDF) and Style Points student reproducible #2 (PDF) and ask students to complete the worksheet.

7. Review together.