WRTG 3020-013, 029
Topics in Writing: Alice in Wonderland
Dr. Paul Thomas Murphy
Office: TB-1, Room 204. (TB-1 is between Sewall Hall and Clare Small Gym.)
Office Hours: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 1-2—or by appointment.
Mailbox: TB-1, first floor hallway.
E-mail Address:
Office Phone: 492-6011.
Course Description: This is a topic-based writing course centered upon Lewis Carroll's two tales, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. We will begin the semester by discussing the tales, and throughout the semester we will be looking at a number of published critical essays concerning Carroll's work. The focus of the course, however, will be upon your critical ideas about these works. You will be working upon two major writing projects—culminating in one essay analyzing Carroll's work, and one essay arguing against another critical perspective.
Texts: Your own written work: the primary texts in this course.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-Glass (Penguin Classics Edition).
Anne Raimes, Pocket Keys for Writers.
Critical essays on the Alicebooks, available through course e-reserves, via Chinook.
Coursework: You will be graded upon your spoken and written work for this course. For spoken work, see participation, below. You will be writing several short assignments in this course—short analyses of the Alice books, as well as assessments of critical articles. Also, you will be responsible for two full-length essays. These essays will be the last step in a process of writing and revising. You will be submitting drafts of work in progress about every fourth or fifth class day for workshops. Although I will not be grading these preliminary drafts, they are necessary to class discussion and necessary to the process of your own writing. Therefore, it is imperative that you get your drafts in on time. You will lose 5 points from your essay grade for each class day any draft is late—including the final draft.
Participation: Your written and spoken participation is as important as your attendance. Also, I will be considering preparation as an important component of participation. Please read and mark your colleagues' drafts before you come to class, and be ready to comment on their papers. 10% of your grade depends upon your preparation and participation. To put it simply: if you prepare and participate regularly, you will get 10 points towards your final grade; if you don’t prepare or participate, you will get 0 points, and drop a full grade. If you foresee a problem with participation, please see me during the first week of classes; if you foresee a problem with preparation, you shouldn’t take this class.
Attendance: I'll allow three absences, but after that you will lose three points from your final grade for each subsequent absence. If you miss a class, find out from another student (or from me) what you missed; you'll be responsible for knowing what went on. Moreover, if you miss a class before a workshop day, please pick up and prepare the drafts for that next workshop. (Those drafts will be in my mailbox, at TB-1.) If you will be missing a class when you are due to pass a draft around, please call me or arrange to have someone bring your copies to class—otherwise, I will consider your draft late.
Come to class on time; late arrivals count as absences.
Plagiarism: Your work must be original. If you plagiarize any work in any way, you will fail the course. Ignorance will not be an excuse.
Electronic Devices: Please turn off any electronic devices before class. Using electronic devices for anything except for the class itself—texting, surfing, checking e-mail, and so on—means you’re not involved with the class, and will result in an absence for that day.
Special Note on Disabilities: If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities. Contact: 303-492-8671, Willard 322, and
Paper and Paragraph Format: Please type and double-space all work. In your heading, please include your name, the course number, and my name. Also, please make 19 copies of any work that we will be discussing in workshop—one for every member of the class. (You should realize that photocopying is a textbook cost; I cannot accept shortage of cash as an excuse for a late draft.) Your analytical and argumentative essays should be as long as they need to be—but you should consider three full pages (900 words) as an absolute minimum length.
Grading: Participation: 10%
Shorter Work: 20%
Analytical Essay: 35%
Argumentative essay: 35%
(Also remember that attendance can affect your grade.)
Alice, CU, and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education:
This course is designed to fulfill advanced writing curricular requirements established by the University of Colorado and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Specifically, this course will extend your rhetorical knowledge, your experience in the writing process, your mastery of writing conventions, your ability to communicate knowledge.
—rhetorical knowledge: Rhetoric is the art of using language effectively, to move a specific audience; through discussion of Alice as well as Pocket Keys for Writers and critical essays concerning Carroll’s works, and especially through workshops on your drafts, you will gain just that: intensive training in the art of writing effectively, communicating ideas to a specific audience.
—writing process: This is a workshop class, involving the composition of several drafts culminating in an effective final draft; the process of writing, therefore, is at the very heart of this course. With the assistance of the entire class, you will develop strategies for generating ideas, and for revising and editing, both in this specific subject and in general. You’ll learn to critique your work and others’, use a variety of technologies for writing and research, as they apply to your work, and learn to evaluate secondary texts for accuracy, relevance, credibility, reliability, and bias.
—mastery of writing conventions: We will be discussing throughout the semester specific writing conventions: style, syntax, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. A significant amount of your evaluation will depend upon your knowledge of these. More than this, you will be focusing on a work of literature, and you will learn about literary conventions as they apply to Alice. Finally, you’ll be learning about a specific way to document sources—MLA citation style.
—ability to communicate knowledge: With all writing, you are addressing a specific audience. Developing an awareness of that specific audience, and adapting the content and style of your writing to reach that audience, are key components of this course.
3020-013
Topics in Writing: Alice in Wonderland
Tentative Schedule for the Course:
Week 1: Introduction to the course and to the Alice books; discussion: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Week 2: Discussion: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Week 3: Discussion: Through the Looking-Glass.
Week 4: Discussion: analysis; discussion of theses.
Week 5: Workshops: analytical openings.
Week 6: Workshop: analytical openings; discussion: “Alice’s Journey to the End of Night”; workshop: revised openings/first supporting points.
Week 7: Workshops: revised openings/first supporting points.
Week 8: Discussion: “Liberated Alice”; Workshops: analytical full drafts.
Week 9: Workshops: analytical full drafts
Week 10: Workshop: analytical full drafts; discussion: “Alice’s Invasion of Wonderland.”
Week 11: Analytical Essay Due; lecture: argument; workshop: argumentative openings.
Week 12: Workshops: argumentative openings.
Week 13: Workshops: argument proposals.
Week 14: Small group workshops: argumentative full drafts.
Week 15: Small group workshops: argumentative full drafts
Argumentative Essay Due during Exam Week
Reading Schedule: the Alice tales:
August 29: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, first poem and chapters 1-4 (5-39).
September 1: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapters 5-8 (40-77).
September 3: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chapters 9-12 (78-110).
September 5: Through the Looking-Glass, prefatory material, chapters 1-3 (111-155).
September 10: Through the Looking-Glass, chapters 4-7 (156-204).
September 12: Through the Looking-Glass, chapters8-12, final poem (205-241).