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Section 2: Section Diagnostic

For the Section 2 Diagnostic, you will submit a portfolio of work that showcases your understanding of the historical meaning of Orwell’s allegory and its relationship to your character’s retelling of the narrative.

Portfolio Questions

  1. Why and how did Orwell satirize the historical and political context in which Animal Farm was written?

  2. In what ways does learning about that context change or expand your understanding of the allegory and a selected character’s symbolic role in it?

  3. How might that character retell the storyline of Animal Farm in a first-person narrative?

Section 2 Diagnostic Portfolio

Your portfolio should include the following:

  1. Your Totalitarianism and 20th-Century History K-W-L Charts (Lessons 1 and 2)

  2. Your explanation of an evidence-based claim (short response) about your character’s allegorical significance and symbolic representation of a historical counterpart in response to the following question (Lesson 3, Activity 4):

    • If Animal Farm is seen as an allegory about totalitarianism and Stalin’s rigid control of the Soviet Union, what or whom might your character represent symbolically?

  3. Your Animal Farm Storyboard Tool in which you outlined your retelling of the Animal Farm storyline and wrote sentences from your character’s point of view (Lesson 5)

  4. A working draft of your character’s first-person narrative built from your storyboard plan and the narrative vignettes you wrote in Sections 1 and 2 (Lesson 6)

  5. A reflective narrative (Lesson 8) in which you do the following:

    • Tell the story of your developing understanding of Animal Farm, its historical allegory, and your character’s symbolic role in the novel

    • Explain your initial interpretation of the story in Section 1 and how learning about the historical context represented in the novel changed or expanded your understanding

    • Analyze your character’s symbolic role in the allegory and explain how your claim (Lesson 3), your storyboard for a first-person retelling of the novel’s storyline (Lesson 5), and your draft narrative from your character’s point of view (Lesson 6) reflect your analysis

Section 2 Diagnostic Guiding Questions

Use the following questions to help you evaluate and prepare your portfolio of evidence: