Posted by Galloway on August 03, 19100 at 08:05:38:
In Reply to: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland links posted by Jade on May 19, 19100 at 13:36:49:
As dreams in real life often reflect the every-day conflicts through which we strive, Alice's adventures can be viewed as a child's dream in which characters represent people around her and events are situations to which she seeks solutions. Let the students be creative with this - there are no accepted correct interpretations.
For instance, the tea party could be seen as Alice's attempt to make sense of adult tea parties, from which young children are often excluded (though doubtless they watch and listen from the hall or stairs!). All the small talk that children have a hard time following and all the rules of etiquette they don't know could be twisted in a dream to asking nonsense riddles and changing places at the table at random.
Eating cakes and drinking the contents of bottles could reflect the mystery a child sees in taking medication to feel better or in observing the strange antics of a parent of family friend who is drunk (sometimes frightening, even if the child is in no way threatened).
Ask your students to script their own dreams - take a situation in their own lives and make it fantasy. Write in the style of the contorted reality where we spend eight hours a day - the scenes that shift so cleanly and suddenly, yet make perfect sense while we're there . . .
Have fun!
I highly recommend the book "The Annotated Alice"
Also, "The Hunting of the Snark" by Carroll is great reading for older kids.