Lesson 12

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

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

• • Introduction to 1954 edition of Animal Farm, C. M. Woodhouse, Signet Classics, 1954

Materials

Tools

• Character Note-Taking Tool

Reference Guides

• Narratives Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Animal Farm: Section 1 Question Set

Activity 1: Discuss

We will discuss the opening of chapter 10 and how Orwell indicates that the story has moved into its denouement (resolution). we will summarize what has changed for the animals, the farm, and the vision of the commandments.

Step 1

Turn to the opening sentences of Chapter 10 in your copy of Animal Farm.

Read the first two paragraphs aloud, noting what the narrator tells you has happened as years passed.

Review the concept of a story’s resolution – “the final part of a story in which the strands of the plot are drawn together” (Narratives Reference Guide, p. 3).

Discuss the alternate term for this phase of a narrative’s development, denouement—which in French means “unknotting” because in the concluding phase of a story the “complexities of the plot are unraveled.” (Britannica)

Note how the passage of time indicated by the chapter’s first sentence (“Years passed”) gives you a clue that the narrative has moved to a later (and final) phase of the story.

Step 2

As a class, review what happens in Chapter 10 and how the events resolve conflicts, character stories, and themes in Animal Farm.

Use the three close reading suggestions from the Narratives Reference Guide (page 3) to discuss the events and developments of the final chapter:

• Determine what kind of ending the narrative has—expected or unexpected, happy or sad, tragic or ironic.

• Think about how a story’s ending has been foreshadowed by previous events or how it connects back to the exposition, complication, and climax (completes the story’s circle).

• Analyze the ending in light of the entire plot, and identify themes that seem to be communicated through plot structure.

Step 3

Return to the concept of irony, which you previously discussed relative to Animal Farm.

Discuss how each of these developments of Chapter 10 can be seen as ironic:

• The sparse and controlled life of the animals

• The evolution of the pigs into beings who now indicate that “two legs [are] BETTER.”

• The reduction of the Seven Commandments to one:

  “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

  BUT SOME…”

As you discuss these ironic developments, reference and review key passages from the text that suggest the ironies you identify.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will reread the final paragraphs of Animal Farm aloud, considering how the animals might react to what they see through the window of the farmhouse.

Step 1

As a class, turn to the final passage of the book, which begins:

“That evening loud laughter...”

Follow along as passages from this concluding scene are read aloud. As you listen and read, think about how your character might be reacting to what happens.

Step 2

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences in which you react to the final sentence of the novel:

“The creatures outside looked...”

Consider what your character would think about this final depiction of the pigs and the men, what it suggests about the allegorical meaning of Animal Farm, and how the finale of the book is deeply ironic.

Activity 3: Discuss

We will share and discuss our responses to the final scene and sentence of Animal Farm, and develop conclusions about the final allegorical meaning of the novel.

Step 1

With a discussion partner, share, compare, and discuss your responses to the final sentence of Animal Farm. Consider how your character might have reacted, what the sentence suggests about the allegory, and how what the animals see is ironic.

Step 2

As a class, share and discuss what you have written in your Learning Logs and discussed in pairs.

Consider and discuss an additional quotation from the Woodhouse essay about Animal Farm as a “fairy story,” fable, and allegory, which you previously discussed in Lesson 1:

“The fairy-story that succeeds is in fact not a work of fiction at all… It is a transcription of a view of life into terms of highly simplified symbols; and when it succeeds in its literary purpose, it leads us with a deep indefinable feeling of truth; and if it succeeds also, as Orwell set out to do, in a political as well as an artistic purpose, it leaves us also with a feeling of rebelliousness against the truth revealed. It does so not by adjuring us to rebel, but by the barest economy of plain description that language can achieve; and lest it should be thought guilty of a deliberate appeal to the emotions, it uses for characters not rounded, three-dimensional human beings that develop psychologically through time, but fixed stereotypes, puppets, silhouettes – or animals.”

1. What might Woodhouse be suggesting about the meaning of Animal Farm as a fairy tale or fable?

2. In what ways might Woodhouse’s thinking influence your own understanding of the story as an allegory?

Step 3

Consider this final question and individually form a claim in response:

3. Based on what happens in the climactic scenes of Animal Farm and the denouement of the narrative, what thematic commentary do you think Orwell is making through the story’s allegory (symbolism)?

Step 4

Share and compare the claims you have developed, supporting your thinking by making specific references to details of the text that led you to your conclusion.

Discuss the importance of supporting evidence for a claim you make, and determine which of the class’s claims are best supported by the text.

Determine a few of the best, clearest, and most supported claims about the allegorical meaning of Animal Farm. Save these draft claims for further consideration and discussion in Section 2 of the unit, when you will learn more about the context in which Animal Farm was written.

Activity 4: Discuss – Write

We will participate in a class modeling, writing a first-person narrative of the final scene in Animal Farm.

Step 1

As a class, consider how one of the animal characters might have viewed and depicted the final scene through the window of the farmhouse.

Discuss what you know about that character and how they have viewed and participated in previous scenes in the book.

Make a list of important developments that occur in the final scene.

Step 2

If a character study team has focused on the model character, have them lead a class exercise in which each final development of Chapter 10 is discussed, proposing theories as to how the character would react to them. Use evidence from the text to support such theories.

In the character’s voice, draft a few sentences that narrate the final scene from the character’s point of view.

Discuss how the first-person depiction of the scene is connected to and supported by your understanding of the story’s allegorical meaning and the character’s point of view, as suggested by textual evidence.

Activity 5: Write

For homework, we will consider the scenes we have drafted from our character’s first-person point of view and the visualizations we have developed or created to determine what we will finalize and submit for the Section Diagnostic.

Step 1

For homework, review the scenes you drafted (in Lessons 6, 10, and 11) from your character’s point of view. Decide which of these scenes you will incorporate in the draft first-person narrative vignette you will work on in the next lesson and submit as part of your portfolio for the Section Diagnostic.

Alternatively, draft a new first-person narrative vignette for the final scene from Animal Farm, as you think your character would view and narrate it.

Step 2

Review the visual images you identified, collected, or created for your character and think about how they connect to your first-person narrative vignette (Lessons 6, 10, and 11).

Step 3

Prepare a collection of your work, including your Character Note-Taking Tool, a claim about your character’s role in the allegory, visual representation(s), and your first-person narrative vignettes, which you will share and work on in the next lesson.