Lesson 3

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

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

Materials

Tools

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist

• Animal Farm: Culminating Task Checklist

• Animal Farm: Cover Art

• Animal Farm: Historical Counterparts Worksheet

• Animal Farm: Reading Schedule

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist

• Animal Farm: Culminating Task Checklist

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Question Set

Activity 1: View – Discuss

We will view graphic representations of Napoleon and discuss the ways in which his character has parallels with the historical figure of Joseph Stalin.

As directed by your teacher, view one or more graphic representations of the character Napoleon.

Note key details of the image(s) and what they suggest about Napoleon’s character in the novel.

Note details that directly or indirectly relate Napoleon to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Discuss this question:

1. How does thinking about Napoleon as a symbolic character representing Joseph Stalin change or expand your understanding of the allegory of Animal Farm?

Activity 2: Discuss – View

We will work together in character study teams to identify possible historical counterpart(s) for the Animal Farm character we have been studying.

Step 1

Return to your character study team from Section 1. Think about the character you have been following and that character’s role in the allegory of Animal Farm.

Review what you previously wrote in the claim you included in the Section 1 Diagnostic about your character’s role in the allegory.

Discuss how what you have learned about totalitarianism and Soviet history may have changed or expanded your understanding of your character.

Take notes in your Learning Log about how your thinking about your character has expanded or changed. You will use these notes later in this activity and when you write a first-person retelling of the story from your character’s point of view (in Lesson 5) and a reflective narrative about what you have learned in Section 2 of the unit for the Section Diagnostic in Lesson 8.

Step 2

Access the Historical Counterparts Worksheet.

Consider the list of historical figures or groups of people who played a role in the Bolshevik Revolution, the subsequent establishment of a totalitarian regime under Stalin in the Soviet Union, and European history around World War II.

For each of the figures or groups of people, think about the possible counterpart in Animal Farm:

• Tsar Nicholas II

• The peasant farmers of Russia

• Karl Marx, who wrote the Communist Manifesto that inspired revolution

• Members of the Bolshevik Party

• Vladimir Lenin

• Workers who took control of the factories

• Leon Trotsky

• Joseph Stalin

• Adolph Hitler

• Stalin’s military police

• Stalin’s Propagandists

• People accused as traitors and executed or imprisoned

• People who accepted the new regime without questioning it

• People who were forced to sacrifice for the “good of the state”

• People who saw what was happening but feared or refused to speak out

• Western nations that went along with Stalin because of Soviet contributions that led to the end of World War II

Step 3

In your character study team, discuss what the counterpart(s) for your character might be in terms of Soviet or European history.

Make a list of character details from the novel that support your historical interpretation.

Using those details, as well as what you now know about history, form a claim in response to this question:

1. How does recognizing a historical counterpart for your character change or expand your understanding of your character’s role in Orwell’s allegory Animal Farm?

Activity 3: View – Discuss

We will search for information and graphic images for our chosen character that reflect the character’s symbolic representation of people from european history.

Step 1

As directed by your teacher, conduct an Internet search for images that represent your Animal Farm character. Pay particular attention to images that represent your character in ways that suggest the character’s connection to historical events, figures, or groups of people.

Examine closely one or more of the images you find, noting key details that suggest how the character corresponds to a historical figure or group of people.

Add the image(s) you find (or new ones you create) to the image bank for your character that you developed in Section 1. You may use these images when you design a new book cover or poster for Animal Farm in Section 3.

Step 2

Present the image(s) you have selected to the class, noting key details that connect the image to history. Use the image(s) to explain and support the claim you have developed about how understanding Soviet history under Stalin’s totalitarian rule has expanded your interpretation of Animal Farm’s allegory and your character’s role in it.

Activity 4: Write – Discuss

We will form and explain an evidence-based claim about our character and how that character symbolically represents a figure or group from Stalin’s totalitarian soviet history.

Step 1

Based on your renewed discussions with your character study team and your expanded understanding of Animal Farm as a historical and political allegory, review key details and scenes related to your character from your reading of the book in Section 1.

Using these details, form an evidence-based claim in response to this question:

1. 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?

Compare the claim you formed with a claim from another member of your character study team.

Step 2

In a class discussion, share and compare claims about the historically symbolic nature of the characters in Animal Farm.

Step 3

Write 1-2 paragraphs in which you present, explain, and support your claim about the symbolic nature of your character as a representation of figures, people, or events in Soviet history under Stalin.

Refer to evidence both from what you have learned about totalitarianism and Soviet history and from the book itself.

Compare your new claim to the one you wrote about in your Section 1 portfolio, discussing how your thinking has (or has not) changed through learning about the historical parallels to the novel and possible counterparts for your character.

You will include this explanation of your new claim as evidence in your Section 2 portfolio, which you will submit for the Section Diagnostic.

Activity 5: Read – Discuss

We will review the expectations of the Culminating Task and review and discuss what we will do in the section 2 diagnostic as preparation for the Culminating Task.

Step 1

Access the Culminating Task Checklist to review the description and expectations for the Culminating Task in the unit.

Note that for the Culminating Task, you will do the following:

• Develop a final claim about the “lasting” meaning of Orwell’s allegory.

• Finalize your first-person narration of key scenes in the story from your character’s point of view.

• Create a graphic design for a book cover that represents your interpretation of the allegory and your character.

• Develop a poster board presentation that presents:

  • Your final claim

  • Your final cover design

  • A one-page excerpt from your final first-person narrative.

Note that you have been working on parts of the task throughout Sections 1 and 2, specifically your draft first-person narrative from your character’s point of view. You will submit your draft for the Section 2 Diagnostic and then finalize the narrative in Section 4. You will later create your graphic design for a book cover in Section 3.

Step 2

Now access the task description for the Section 2 Diagnostic, for which you will compile and submit a second portfolio and write another reflection about what you have learned in Section 2.

Review the list of what you will include in your portfolio:

• Your K-W-L Charts: one for totalitarianism and one for Soviet history

• Your claim about your character's representation of a historical counterpart

• Your storyboard plan for a first-person retelling of the Animal Farm storyline

• A working draft of your character’s first-person narrative

Note that in Lesson 8 you will also be writing another reflection for the Section Diagnostic,

in which you will tell the story of your developing understanding of Animal Farm, its historical allegory, and your character’s symbolic role in the novel.