Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Character Looking Glass Maze”

After analyzing important characters, conflicts, and themes in the novel, students select a character and design a “Looking Glass Maze” for the character to go through that reflects an understanding of the key themes in the character’s arc.

In the novel, Alyss must undergo the Looking Glass Maze trial before she can unlock her full powers. As part of the test, Alyss confronts her deepest fears, her most painful memories, and her worst impulses. Ultimately, Alyss realizes that she must set aside her anger to achieve emotional balance within herself and to place cause before self, which enables her to pass the maze, reinforcing the novel’s themes on the Importance of Emotional Balance and Identity and Responsibility Beyond the Individual.

• In this activity, you will design a personalized Looking Glass Maze trial for one of the following characters:
• Redd
• Dodge
• The Cat
• Hatter Maddigan
• General Doppelgӓnger
• Bibwit Harte
• Queen Genevieve
• Charles Dodgson
• Your Maze should include:  
• 2-3 character traits: significant qualities of the character’s personality.
• 1 or more challenges: Identify one or more key conflicts (internal or external) your character faces in the text and use them  to create a challenge that the character must face within the maze.
• 1 (or more) realizations: Realizations are the lessons your character must learn to  pass the Maze. These should reflect the resolution of your character’s conflict; it may be the theme of their character arc in the novel or the lesson you think the character needs to learn to  overcome their conflict.
• 1 reward: A reward is an object the character obtains at the end of the Maze that symbolizes their growth. You can be creative with this; it does not have to be a symbol explicitly associated with the character in the text. Choose an object that you think symbolizes the character and their journey.
• Example—Alyss Heart:
• 3 character traits: determined, creative, individualistic
• 1 or more challenges: confronting the pain of her past, overcoming her anger à Alyss faces visions of her worst memories and is faced with a vision of her Aunt Redd; Alyss’s challenge is to not give into her feelings of hate and desire for revenge
• 1 or more realizations: she cannot give into revenge; she must put cause before self à Alyss sacrifices herself to Redd for the good of the cause in the vision instead of killing Redd out of revenge
• 1 reward: Heart Scepter à symbolizes Alyss unlocking her full imaginative powers and ascending the throne of Wonderland using the powers of creation
• You have several options for presenting your Maze.
• Poster: Create a collage of graphics, text, and other materials on a poster that identifies your character’s fundamental traits and depicts each part of their journey through their Maze, clearly communicating conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols.
• Model: Using whatever materials you have available, create a 3-D model that depicts each part of the Maze your character has to go through, displaying their important character traits, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols.
• Narrative: Tell the story of your character going through their Looking Glass Maze in either a short story of 1-2 pages or a verse poem. Demonstrate characterization, conflict, resolution, theme, and symbols using description, dialogue, word choice, figurative language, and other literary devices.
• Comic: Depict your character’s journey through their Maze in a cohesive narrative comic. Use dialogue, design, and visuals to communicate characterization, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols.  
• Short Film or Animation: Create and direct a short film or animation following your character’s journey through their Maze. Demonstrate characterization, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols using costumes, background, props, action, and dialogue.
• Play: Create a script and show your character’s traits, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols through dialogue and blocking.
• Performance: Compose and perform a song or dance number that uses movement and music to display your character’s traits, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols throughout their Looking Glass Maze.
• Incorporate at least 3 direct quotations from the novel to support your choices.
• Present your Character Maze to the class.

Teaching Suggestion: If students are unfamiliar with the specifics of character and thematic analysis, this activity can be used to introduce key terms. It may be helpful to cover characterization techniques, for example, and the kinds of conflicts found in literature. Teachers can use The Character Looking Glass Maze as either an individual or a group project; some mediums may be better suited for group work or solo assignments. Options for the medium can be expanded or limited as necessary. Students can also use specific  sections or elements of the novel in their projects to support their choices.

Differentiation Suggestion: Teachers can adapt this activity for less advanced English students by restructuring to produce a word or image collage project. Magazines or similar items may be provided for students to cut out pictures or words that represent their chosen character’s traits, conflicts, resolutions, themes, and symbols. A provided word bank may also be useful.

For students who struggle to engage with complex, multi-step projects, the assignment can be broken down into simpler steps. Pre-created worksheets for character traits, conflicts, themes, and symbols may be helpful  for students to organize their ideas at each step of the assignment.

Students can first begin by identifying the key character traits they’d like to use from the text; then, they can analyze the character’s core conflicts and determine  which of the 7 conflict types they correspond to (character vs. character, character vs. self, etc.). Students can use a brainstorming template such as a thought bubble or another graphic organizer to think of a symbolic object for their character.They can then brainstorm what the primary message or theme conveyed via their character is.

More advanced students can write an additional defense essay of their project, explaining the rationale behind their choices with textual evidence to support their analysis.