Teaching Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Instructions for You

Objective: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass may be taught in the classroom, but Lewis Carroll's novels narrate how learning can also take place in a different way. Alice's explorations in fantasy worlds show the reader an example of informal learning, where an individual accumulates knowledge through their own experience. In both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, textbooks, blackboards, and guidance are left behind in reality, and Alice's eyes are forced open as she encounters new characters and navigates unfamiliar worlds on her own.

Even though they don't blatantly have a lesson to teach, both of Carroll's novels show us how learning can take place at any time. In this two-day lesson, students will consider how and what they've learned independently, outside of the classroom, about the novel's themes.

You can expect to spend about eighty minutes of class time on this lesson, with slight variations if you assign the essay as homework rather than an in-class assignment.

Materials Needed: Access to Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University, a computer to research an alternative school or institution, and a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. You can also direct students to Shmoop's summary of the books.

Step 1: We're going to start by having students pair-share about how they've learned through experience versus their formal education at school. Don't worry—we're not encouraging students to quit your class and start home schooling. We've got your back.

Afterwards, you'll ask everyone to give their opinions about learning through school ("formal learning") versus learning through experience ("informal learning"). When all of your students have spoken, you can use their contributions to identify an overall class definition of informal learning.

Here are a few questions to throw their way to get them thinking about the topic:

• What have you learned outside of school?
• Where did you learn?
• How did you learn?
• Did this differ from learning at school? How?
• Did this experience benefit you? How so?

We want students to really see the difference between formal and informal learning. Essentially, formal learning means that the teacher is the king or queen of the castle and ultimately all information comes from him or her. Informal learning is where the students take the reins and are encouraged to learn by doing and experiencing.

Then it's time to get textual. Ask the students to list some moments from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass when Alice learns informally. If they're stuck, you can provide the following examples to get them thinking:

• Alice bringing herself back to an appropriate size in Chapter Five of Alice's Adventures.
• Alice learning to quiet the daisies in Chapter Two of Looking-Glass by threatening to pick them, showing her growing knowledge of how the world works
• Alice identifying that what appeared to be a giant rain cloud in Chapter Four of Looking-Glass is in fact a monstrous crow

Step 2: Sure, learning outside the classroom is all well and good, but the unfortunate truth is that you've got to hit the books and get the grades if you want to go to college. Play students the 2005 commencement speech given by co-founder of Pixar and Apple Inc. Steve Jobs at Stanford University. Have the students watch up through the first story, and then ask them: "How is Steve Jobs' decision to drop out of Reed College an example of informal learning, similar to what Alice experiences in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass?"

Here are a few ways that your students might answer this question:

• Steve Jobs goes to college but for the wrong reasons, and realizes it doesn't benefit him.
• Jobs' decision to quit allows him to enroll in various courses he's interested in, which leads to his discovering his appreciation of calligraphy.
• This is all similar to Alice, whose learning occurs in part through exploration of the new worlds she enters.

You could then discuss how Steve Jobs is like Alice, in the sense that both benefit from their informal learning. Steve goes on to found Pixar, while Alice's time in other worlds adds to her intellectual development as she learns about dreams and the psyche.

Step 3: Have students research an alternative or unusual college—lest you object, our tip is the fascinating Deep Springs College, though you can also have them pick out institutions that specifically interest them. (We'll accept choices as varied as "Hogwarts" or "the army.") Then, ask each group to write short one-page essays that respond to the following questions:

• How does the educational approach of the school you chose differ from how you learn in the classroom?
• What are the results of the institution's approach?
• What do students learn at this school?

Step 4: Let's get back to a class discussion, and have each group share what they wrote. When all of the presentations are over, ask the students to think about the following possible principles of "informal learning":

• No walls in the learning environment.
• Exploration of the world that the students inhabit, not just the university.
• Learning about life through firsthand experience, rather than through a teacher's guidance.

Step 5: The students should have a clear grasp of informal learning now. Ask them to write an essay on the topic by giving them the following prompt: "Learning can take place at any time, anywhere. Write a two-page essay in which you comment on informal learning, showing how people can learn through experience rather than instruction. Your essay should include a personal experience of when you learned something valuable outside of school."

Step 6: If there's time left, ask the students to read their essays out loud, so others can hear about different ways of learning outside of school.

Instructions for Your Students

We're going to start this lesson by talking about informal learning. No, we're not talking about calling your teacher by his or her first name (please don't!), but instead about when you learn through experience, rather than through instruction.

Informal learning can encompass anything and everything, from realizing that the next-door neighbor doesn't like your kicking the soccer ball into their yard, to figuring out the best way to style your hair. Basically, you do something, and then learn more about whatever that thing is in the process.

Step 1: As you're reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, it's important to distinguish between formal learning (when someone such a teacher instructs you), and informal learning (when you learn by yourself through experience). To start, you'll discuss the differences between these two approaches with a partner. Talk about times when you've learned informally, beginning by answering the following questions:

• What have you learned outside of school?
• Where did you learn?
• How did you learn?
• Did this differ from learning at school? How?
• Did this experience benefit you? How so?

Now let's apply this all to the text. As a class, discuss instances from the books when Alice learns informally. She often doesn't have another person to tell her what to learn and why she's learning it, but instead explores the world and begins to understand its inner workings in the process. If you're stuck, here are a couple of examples:

• Alice bringing herself back to an appropriate size in Chapter Five of Alice's Adventures
• Alice learning to quiet the daisies in Chapter Two of Looking-Glass by threatening to pick them, showing her growing knowledge of how the world works
• Alice identifying that what appeared to be a giant rain cloud in Chapter Four of Looking-Glass is in fact a monstrous crow

Step 2: Informal learning doesn't sound too bad, does it? If Alice can do it by meeting unicorns on a human chessboard, we feel like anyone can figure it out.

Let's look at a short clip of co-founder of Pixar and Apple Inc. Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. We're going to watch the first of three stories he tells to the graduating class.

Once you've watched the speech, talk to your classmates and teacher about the following question: "How is Steve Jobs dropping out of Reed College an example of informal learning, similar to what Alice experiences in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass?"
Think about how Steve Jobs, as he enrolled in various college courses rather than completing a major he had no interest in, is like Alice and yourself, learning through experience. Here are a few pointers to get you going:

• Steve Jobs goes to college, but for the wrong reasons, and realizes it doesn't benefit him.
• Jobs' decision to quit allows him to enroll in various courses he's interested in, which leads to his learning an appreciation of calligraphy.
• This is all similar to Alice, whose learning occurs in part through exploration of the new world she has entered.

Step 3: We've seen how Alice and Steve Jobs learn informally, so let's move on to another example. For this one, you'll split up into groups of three or four, and research an alternative or unusual college—lest you object, our tip is the fascinating Deep Springs College, though you can also pick out other institutions that interest you. (We'll accept choices as varied as "Hogwarts" or "the army.")

When you're finished, sit down with your group and Shmoop out a one-page essay together about how the college or institution you found provides their students with an informal learning experience. Think about how the students in this university are like Alice and Steve Jobs, learning through exploration and life experience.

Step 4: Each group will read their essay. Once each group has shared, discuss how the different institutions offer an informal learning experience with your class and teacher and think about how this is similar to Alice's experiences in other worlds.

Step 5: Now you're going to write your own essay on informal learning. As we've discovered, learning can take place at any time and anywhere. Write a two-page essay that comments on this topic, showing how people can learn through experience, rather than instruction. Your essay should include a personal experience of when you learned something valuable outside of school.

Step 6: If there's time, everyone will read their essay out loud. Check out how others have experienced informal learning, and see if it's similar to your ideas.