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Laura Perez-Landin
Professor Speiser
Writing 2
22 November 2016
Transforming Alices Adventures in Wonderland to a News Article
Alices Adventures in Wonderland, also known as Alice in Wonderland, is a widely known
book about a girl who falls down a rabbit hole into the magical and illogical world of
Wonderland. Not many people would call it a news article, but in this case, I will transform the
famous book into a news article.
In regards to books, their conventions are different to those of articles. Books tend to be
much longer. Alices Adventures in Wonderland is 144 pages long, consisting of 12 chapters.
These chapters include creative headings like The Caucus Race and the Long Tale that hint at
the subject of the chapter. In addition, the book contains many poems and illustrations that go
along with the storyline of the book. Within the text, there is dialogue and creative language
including word play, metaphors, and other rhetorical and literary strategies. Alices Adventures in
Wonderland belongs to a discourse community of literature. Literature utilizes various genres
like poems, novels, essays, and basically anything that involves writing. Literacy practices
include discussions, reading, and analyzing texts to gain insight. Alices Adventures in
Wonderland is a great example to represent this community because it is known by many and
contains a wide range of genres within its text.
News articles, on the other hand, are much different than books. First of all, they are
considerably shorter than books and are straight to the point. Their conventions include quotes
from people at the scene, information from both sides of a story, and an attention grabbing

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introduction and title. Being more succinct, articles focus on delivering facts quickly, lacking the
descriptive and thoughtful manner of a novel. News articles are a way journalists communicate
within their discourse community. Interviews, observation, research, and taking photographs are
common literacy practices within journalism.
Specifically, I chose local news stories to help guide my transformation. I chose that type
of news article because I wanted my article to feel like it is happening to a neighbor, or someone
the reader knows from school. The articles I looked at are Anaheim daycare center worker
accused of molesting two girls, ages 6 and 7 by Joseph Serna, and UCSB Student Charged
with Assaulting Pastor in Isla Vista by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs. The articles are from the Los
Angeles Times and The Daily Nexus, respectively. I chose these articles because they involved
crime, specifically abuse. The first article is more similar to mine, as it is an accusation and not a
charged offense. However, the second one was still helpful to read because it helped me see what
conventions were consistent between crime articles.
While deciding what to include in my article, the journal How to Read like a Writer by
Mike Bunn came into play. I thought about how he said to try to understand the choices the
author made. I read the articles and asked questions like why are the paragraphs and articles so
short? and took note of the serious, informative tone, content of photos, and diction. I figured
that the goal was to keep the readers interested in the article. With social media taking a lead in
news coverage, it made sense that the articles were short, but still contained more detail than a
tweet. Thinking about the conventions and why they existed helped me learn more about this
discourse community. I also reread Navigating Genres by Kerry Dirk, which reminded me to
think of the audience and purpose. The audience from one genre to another (book to news article)
will probably change, so I cannot bring everything that Alices Adventures in Wonderland has

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into a news article. A books audience probably wants interesting language tied with a moral,
while an articles audience may want to read straight forward facts to learn more about the world
around them. Other than the realistic information that the book has, I could not add other writing
like poems or songs. Now that I have written the article, I realized I could have put illustrations
and said they were Alices, but I have to keep in mind how that would affect the length of the
article. Other than audience, the purpose of a book can also be different to an article. Carrols
purpose is to entertain his readers while Bogel-Burroughs and Sernas purpose is to inform.
The story of my transformation is that Alices parents are accused by her teacher of
giving Alice drugs. At first, I wanted to do a Missing Alice article, but after I reread the book I
remembered it was only a dream. A little girl sleeping isnt exactly news, so I tried to create a
problem that would be news. I thought if I knew someone with a dream so vivid and long, I
would ask them if they were on drugs. As Alice is a little girl, I thought the responsibility would
go to a parent if someone accused her of taking drugs. It was difficult to try to encapsulate all of
the book into a nine sentence article and some of the books magic was lost in translation.
After looking at headlines, I made mine more direct and simple Parents Accused of
Giving Child Drugs. Each paragraph is around a sentence or two long, so I tried to mimic that in
my article. Additionally, the articles were 6-9 paragraphs long. Due to the date that the book was
published, I wanted the article to look less like an online news article and more like a newspaper.
In transforming Lewis Carrols Alices Adventures in Wonderland into a news article, I
had to keep in mind the conventions of both, in order to accurately transform one into the other.
Journals from throughout the course helped to thoroughly understand these conventions and why
they are important to the genre.
Works Cited
Bogle-Burroughs, Nicholas. UCSB Student Charged with Assaulting Pastor in Isla Vista. The

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Daily Nexus, 7 May 2016, dailynexus.com/2016-05-07/ucsb-student-charged-withassaulting-pastor-in-isla-vista/.
Bunn, Mike. How to Read like a Writer. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011,
pp. 7185.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: and Through the Looking-Glass. London,
Dent, 1954.
Dirk, Kerry. Navigating Genres. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol.
1, 2010, pp. 249261.
Serna, Joseph. Anaheim Daycare Center Worker Accused of Molesting Two Girls, Ages 6 and
7. Los Angeles Times, 17 Nov. 2016, www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-anaheimdaycare-arrest-20161117-story.html.

Original text: https://www.adobe.com/be_en/active-use/pdf/Alice_in_Wonderland.pdf

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Oxford Times
5 cents

Sunday, September 7, 1865

PARENTS ACCUSED OF
GIVING CHILD DRUGS
By: Laura Perez-Landin
OXFORD -As of Tuesday September 2nd,
Police are investigating parents of Alice
Liddel after the childs teacher accuses the
parents of giving their child illegal drugs.

Gryphon claims that Alice

rambles about a cat that can
disappear at will, a mad
hatter who is stuck in time,
and an army of playing
cards.
An investigation started
immediately after the
accusation on Tuesday, but
no proof has been found.
We take these matters
seriously, but we are coming
to the conclusion that the
child is simply sleep
deprived, explains Chief
investigator Charles
Wickham.

Alice and her family enjoy a cup of tea in the park where the
supposed administering of drugs took place.

Alices sister Lorina insists

that, Alice is an imaginative
child and likes to dream
about a Wonderland in which
nothing is logical.

Parents of Alice refuse to give any

further comment other than this
quote by her mother, We assure
you we have not forced our child
into doing anything of that sort.
Alice is currently still under the
custody of her parents.

Alice in her home with her cat Dinah.

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Alices parents are Charles and Helen Liddel.

Ms. Agatha Gryphon is teacher to Alice
Liddel at Cheshire Academy. She is always
asleep in class, and when she is awake, she
speaks pure nonsense, exclaims Ms.
Gryphon.

If you have any information

regarding this case, please contact
the Oxford Police immediately.