Wandering+in+Wonderland+-+A+WebQuest

//Tut, tut, child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it// //( L. Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Chapter IX)//



Here's a [|Glog]to visualise the story...


 * //Alice's Adventures in Wonderland//** would be described as a fairy tale by some, but not by others. The classification of books into different genres is not absolute, it is more a guide to assist in the description of those books, so whether //Alice in Wonderland// is a fairy tale is really a matter of opinion.

Fairy tales can be described as stories which feature, amongst other things, talking animals, fabulous creatures and magical or fantastical events. They are also strongly associated with children. As a matter of fact, //Alice in Wonderland// can certainly be described in these terms. This children's story features numerous talking animals, and the Gryphon is a fabulous creature. The playing card characters are quite magical, or at least fantastical, and the strange events featuring such things as Alice's frequent changes in size and the transformation of the Duchess' baby into a pig, are all consistent with the type of impossible things featured in fairy tales.

Lewis Carroll himself described his book as a fairy tale. In a letter to a friend, discussing what title he should give his first Alice book, he said: > P.S//. I should be very glad if you could help me in fixing on a name for **my** **fairy-tale**, which Mr Tenniel (as a consequence of your kind introduction) is now illustrating for me, and which I hope to get published before Xmas. The heroine spends an hour underground, and meets various birds, beasts, etc. (no fairies), endowed with speech.// As a result, it is easy to think that Alice in Wonderland is a dreamland fairy tale for children. On the surface it appears to be just that. However, if you look closer, you will realise that Alice's world translates into much more than a children's fairytale.

The story has been studied and analysed by psychoanalysts since the early 1900's and although it is filled with chaos there is lots to learn from its underlying messages. Through this WebQuest, you will be able to reconsider and re-evaluate what you have always considered to be a bedtime story. While working on your project, remember Marcel Proust's famous words: “//Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas à chercher de nouveaux paysages, mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux. ”// To get started, read the simplified version of the story [] or read the whole novel on line: []

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Are you getting //"curioser and curioser"// ? Hurry up then,**there is no TIME !!!**

**//Alice//****//'s Adventures in Wonderland//** (commonly shortened to **//Alice in Wonderland//**) is a novel written in 1865 by [|Lewis Carroll]. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a [|rabbit hole] into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and [|anthropomorphic] creatures. The tale plays with [|logic] in ways that have given the story lasting popularity with adults as well as children. It is considered to be one of the best examples of the " [|literary nonsense] " genre, and its [|narrative] course and structure have been enormously influential, especially in the fantasy genre. If you have not read the real //Alice in Wonderland// yet, then you are in for a treat. It is imaginative, crazy, funny, clever, and wild all at the same time. Our study of Alice in Wonderland will focus on the following: - The life and times of Lewis Carroll. - A closer look at the puns, riddles, and jokes in the book (Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and threw in all kinds of puzzles in the book) - A close study of the many themes of Alice in Wonderland, - An exploration of the elements of wonders, distortion, fantasy, and whimsy - An investigation of some of the most intriguing interpretations of the novel - Last, but not the least, pure enjoyment of the book!
 * **INTRODUCTION**

The term "[|Wonderland]", has entered the language and refers to a marvelous imaginary place, or else a real-world place that one perceives to have dream-like qualities. It is, like much of the //Alice// work, widely referred to in popular culture. "Down the Rabbit-Hole", the **Chapter 1** title, has become a popular term for going on an adventure into the unknown. In drug culture "going down the rabbit hole" is a metaphor for taking hallucinogenic drugs, as Carroll's novel appears similar in form to a [|drug trip]. In **Chapter 6**, the Cheshire Cat's disappearance prompts Alice to say one of her most memorable lines: "...a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!" In **Chapter 7**, the Mad Hatter gives his famous [|riddle] without an answer: "Why is a [|raven] like a writing desk?" Although Carroll intended the riddle to have no solution, in a new preface to the 1896 edition of //Alice//, he proposes several answers: "Because it can produce a few notes, though… they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" (Note the spelling of "never" as "nevar"—turning it into "raven" when inverted. This spelling, however, was "corrected" in later editions to "never" and Carroll's pun was lost.) Puzzle expert [|Sam Loyd] offered the following solutions: Many other answers are listed in //[|The Annotated Alice]//. In [|Frank Beddor]'s novel //[|Seeing Redd]//, the main antagonist, [|Queen Redd] (a [|megalomaniac] parody of the [|Queen of Hearts]) meets Lewis Carroll and declares that the answer to the riddle is "Because I say so". Carroll is too terrified to contradict her. Arguably the most famous quote is used when the Queen of Hearts screams "Off with her head!" at Alice (and everyone else she feels slightly annoyed with). Possibly Carroll here was echoing a scene in [|Shakespeare's] //[|Richard III]// (III, iv, 76) where Richard demands the execution of [|Lord Hastings], crying "Off with his head!" When Alice is growing taller after eating the cake labelled "Eat me" she says, "**curiouser and curiouser**", a famous line that is still used today to describe an event with extraordinary wonder. The Cheshire Cat confirms to Alice "We're all mad here", a line that has been repeated for years as a result.
 * Famous lines and expressions **
 * Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes
 * Edgar Allan [|Poe] wrote on both (See famous poem “The Raven”)
 * They both have inky quills ("inkwells")
 * Bills and tales ("tails") are among their characteristics
 * Because they both stand on their legs, conceal their steels ("steals"), and ought to be made to shut up

You will work in groups of four or three, depending on the goal of each group, and visit several websites to collect different types of information about the novel Alice In Wonderland and its author. You will haveto give a short presentation of your "product" within the allotted time. I strongly advise you to make a Mind Map related to your understanding goal about Alice in Wonderland rather than a PPT ( Power Point was used to present last year's WebQuest and we want to change, don't we?)
 * **THE TASK**

A good Mind Map shows the "shape" of the subject, the relative importance of individual points, and the way in which facts relate to one another. This means that they're very quick to review, as you can often refresh information in your mind just by glancing at one. In this way, they can be effective mnemonics - remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can give you the cues you need to remember the information within it. As such, they engage much more of your brain in the process of assimilating and connecting information than conventional notes do.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">When created using colors and images or drawings, a Mind Map can even resemble a work of art!

<span style="font-family: 'times new roman',times,serif; font-size: 120%;">To create an appealing map, you can use one of these **free** online tools [] [] [] [] [] [] (only the "basic" service is free) This nice video can give you an idea of what mind maps are and what they are for media type="custom" key="12371762"


 * <span style="color: red; font-family: 'times new roman',times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**THE PROCESS and THE** **RESOURCES**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**GROUP 1 (4 Students)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**Text and context: Lewis Carroll’s biography, the story origin, the setting, the narrator and the point of view.** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]**

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**GROUP 2 (4 Students)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**The characters (Alice and her family, the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit and the March Hare, the Caterpillar, the Red Queen, etc)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[] (all characters)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**GROUP 3 -** **Literary element (3 students)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**- Nonsense (1 students)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**- Riddle, irony/humour, puns, use of English (1 student)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**- The poems inside the novel (1 student)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[] (topic: the importance of “meaning”)** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Poem origins. In the Victorian Era children had to learn many moralizing poems by heart. Carroll altered some of these (once very familiar) verses for the Alice books, of course to the amusement of the Liddell sisters. Unfortunately these poems are hardly remembered nowadays, so the fun of the parody has disappeared for the greater part. The original poems are compared to Carroll's parodies, and you can read more about their origins. Click on the link below:

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**GROUP 4 -****The themes, motifs and symbols (4 students)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**[]**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**GROUP 5 -** **Beyond Wonderland (3 students)** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**- Alice** **in Mathland**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Someone claims that Alice’s story is all about Maths… An interesting school project based on this presupposition is here:

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">You can also click on these links :

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<span style="font-family: 'times new roman',times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> - **A Psychoanalytical approach to Alice in Wonderland** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19px;">Think about the subliminal motives in dreams, or the meaning of Alice’s unexpected growth and decrease in size...

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">[] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**- Alice** **and Philosophy**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">[|http://books.google.it/books?id=qgKcK9MHbgwC&pg=PA1&hl=it&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false] (p.153 : A Nietzschean interpretation of Alice)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">You can also consider the following : <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">the tea party/ societal expectations the doormouse/ abused lower class (proletariat) King and Queen of hearts/ parody of monarchy rabbit hole/ philosophical quest <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">chaos/order

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Evaluation? No problem! Download the evaluation grids used last year for the "process" and the "product" (see WebQuest on the Elizabethan Age). Is it going to be a ... RE-evaluation???
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">**EVALUATION**

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Students' products (really amazing!!)

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