The first paper in this course should deal critically with a passage from one of the following course texts: Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, Alcott's Little Women, or Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Note that you need to focus on a smaller segment of the work, not the novel as a whole -- a "passage" refers to nothing longer than a chapter of a novel, and may be as short as one scene (e.g., the segment in Looking Glass when Alice is rowing on the Thames with the sheep, which is just part of the chapter "Wool and Water"); for Struwwelpeter, you should deal with a single poem.

        To "deal critically" with the passage means to look carefully at its language and other features and use the evidence of those features to support an interpretation, either of the passage as a whole or of some aspect of that passage. This is essentially what we did in class when we looked at the scene between Alice and Humpty Dumpty in terms of its commentary on the meaning of language.  You will need to frame a workable thesis about the passage you are studying, and support it with your own reasoning, with evidence from the text, and with commentary from outside sources where appropriate.

        Exactly what approach you take to the passage will depend on you. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Look at the segment, "The Wasp in a Wig," which was dropped from Through the Looking Glass (page 211 in your text). Present an argument why it should or should not have been included, based on connections to the rest of the novel.
• Analyze the description of Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer, discussing any racial stereotyping you might find there, and argue whether such a character would be acceptable in children's books today.
• Select one of the chapters in Little Women which focus on an individual girl, and show what character trait is being examined in the chapter, and what moral lesson is being taught.
• Compare a chapter of Little Women to a corresponding section of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and explain how Alcott makes use of and departs from the earlier book.
• Select any of the poems included within the Alice books or Little Women and explain how that poem is connected to the theme or other issues raised in the prose surrounding the poem.

        Papers should be 4-6 pages in length, and will be due in class on Thursday, October 30. Any references to outside (print) sources should follow the MLA style manual, which is available in the library or on-line; references to on-line sources should follow the models for documentation of electronic sources, on-line at Janice Walker's ACW Style Sheet.

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