Lesson 10

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • Animal Farm, George Orwell, Signet Classics, 2004

Materials

Tools

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Animal Farm: Reading Schedule

Reference Guides

• Narratives Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will review the climactic events of chapter 8 and discuss how they represent both a high point and a low point in the story of Animal Farm.

Step 1

As a class, review what happens in Chapter 8, focusing on the completion and then destruction of the windmill and the ensuing battle with Frederick and the other men.

Step 2

Listen as the paragraph that describes the animals’ pride in completing the windmill is read aloud, starting with “In the autumn, by a tremendous, exhausting effort…”

Discuss how the passage represents the animals’ reactions to completing the windmill, citing details from the paragraph, such as “Tired out but proud.”

Consider again how the windmill has become an important symbol for the animals of their ability to make the farm their own and how the farm as a setting for the story is thus connected to its thematic meaning.

Develop a class claim about what building the windmill has come to symbolize for the animals and the farm.

Step 3

Listen as the paragraph that describes the animals’ reaction after the Battle of the Windmill is read aloud, starting with “They had won…”

Discuss how the passage represents the animals’ reactions to the battle and the destruction of the windmill, citing details from the paragraph, such as “weary and bleeding.”

Develop a class claim about what losing the windmill has come to symbolize for the animals and the farm.

Discuss how the two contrasting scenes from Chapter 8 represent climactic high and low points in the narrative.

Consider how building, and then losing, the windmill has symbolized the animals’ failed quest to take control of the farm and make the story’s setting their own.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will discuss and form a claim about the climactic turning point in chapter 9, when boxer is abandoned to the “Knacker’s.”

Step 1

With a reading partner, closely reread the central passage from Chapter 9, which describes the demise of Boxer, from

“After his hoof had healed up…”

to

“...was never seen again.”

Step 2

As assigned by your teacher, use a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to note key details and develop a conclusion in response to one of these text-specific questions:

1. What do details from the passage suggest about the nobility and heroism of Boxer?

2. What do details from the passage suggest about how Boxer might now be seen as a tragic character (as discussed in Lesson 5 and explained on p. 16 of the Narratives Reference Guide)?

3. What do details from the passage suggest about the irony of Boxer’s final fate?

4. What do details from the passage suggest about Boxer’s importance to the other animals, especially Clover and Benjamin?

5. How does Benjamin’s higher level of literacy become crucial in this scene—and also ironic given his previous habit of silence?

Step 3

In a class discussion, share and compare the claims you have developed in response to the four questions. As you present your claims, note key details from the text that have led to and support them.

Discuss how the question you considered influenced how you read the passage closely, which details you focused on, and what evidence-based conclusion/claim you reached.

Activity 3: Discuss

In our character study teams, we will consider how the events and turning points in chapters 8 and 9 have affected our character and surmise what the character’s reactions might be.

Step 1

Rejoin your character study teams and update your teammates on what you have noted in your Character Note-Taking Tools while reading Chapters 8 and 9, as well as any new developments in your search for or creation of visual images for your character.

Share and compare the evidence-based claims about your character’s role that you developed in the previous lesson. Prepare to submit your explanations of them to your teacher for review.

Step 2

Discuss the following question and key developments in the story:

1. How do you think your character might have reacted to these events and developments in Chapters 8–9:

• Napoleon’s increasing dominance and authoritarianism

• The “revision” of the commandments

• The completion of the windmill

• The destruction of the windmill and the ensuing battle

• Squealer’s use of language and “figures” to control the animals’ thinking

• Boxer’s noble vow to “work harder” and finish the windmill

• The news that “Boxer has fallen” and his physical demise

• The ruse perpetrated to take Boxer away to the “knacker’s”

• The news that the pigs “had acquired the money to buy themselves another case of whisky”

Activity 4: Write

We will individually develop a claim about our character’s reaction to one of the key events or developments presented in chapters 8 and 9.

Step 1

In your Learning Log, select one of the events/developments that your team has discussed and form a claim about how your character might have reacted.

If your character is described or participates in any of these events or developments, explain your claim by identifying details from the text that support your conclusions about the character’s reactions.

If your character is not directly depicted, explain your claim by referring to what you have learned and think about the character from other sections of the book.

Step 2

With a discussion partner from your character study team, compare and discuss the claims you have developed and the evidence you have used to support them.

Activity 5: Write

Based on the claims we have developed about a character’s reaction to a key event or development in chapters 8 and 9, we will think about how the character would describe the event and prepare to draft a short, first-person narrative vignette.

Step 1

Follow along as your teacher models how to take a claim about a character’s reaction to a key scene and use it to generate a first-person narrative vignette from that character’s point of view.

Discuss how the narrative that develops is connected to and illustrates the interpretive claim about the character’s reactions and how it presents the character’s point of view and voice.

Step 2

Review the claim you developed about your character’s reaction to a key event or development in Chapters 8 and 9. Based on that claim, think about how the character would describe or narrate the event.

Plan a short, first-person narrative vignette in which your character tells the story of the event from their point of view or comments on the development as they see it.

Activity 6: Write

For homework, we will think about how the character would describe the event and draft a short, first-person narrative vignette based on the claims we have developed.

For homework, review the claim you developed about your character’s reaction to a key event or development in Chapters 8 and 9. Based on that claim, think about how the character would describe or narrate the event.

Draft a short first-person narrative vignette in which your character tells the story of the event from their point of view or comments on the development as they see it.

Be prepared to share your first-person narrative vignette in the next class session.