Lesson 5

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

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

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

• • “Joseph Stalin Explained in 25 Minutes — Best Stalin Documentary,” The Life Guide, YouTube, 2021
  • “Joseph Stalin — Dictator,” Biography, YouTube, 2012
  • “The Revolution That Shaped Russia — National Geographic,” National Geographic, YouTube, 2017

Materials

Tools

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Animal Farm: Historical Timeline Worksheet

• Animal Farm: Storyboard Tool

• Animal Farm: Woodhouse Plot and History Chart

Editable Google Docs

• Character Note-Taking Tool

• Animal Farm: Storyboard Tool

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will reconsider a passage from the 1954 introduction to Animal Farm, in which the author, C. M. Woodhouse, summarizes the plot of the story and its connection to history. We will analyze its content and grammatical structure.

Step 1

As directed by your teacher, access C. M. Woodhouse’s 1954 introduction to Animal Farm. (Note: you previously discussed a quotation from this essay in the first lesson of this unit.)

Read paragraph 5 of the essay that begins:

“In what sense can Animal Farm properly be called a fairy-story?”

As you read, note that the second sentence of the paragraph is almost 140 words long. Note also that it presents Woodhouse’s summary of the storyline in Animal Farm.

Step 2

Follow along as your teacher points out and explains the grammatical structure of the long second sentence: it is constructed of nine parallel dependent clauses divided by semicolons, each of which begins with “how.”

Discuss why Woodhouse might have written the sentence this way and how its use of parallel structure helps connect the clauses that summarize the story’s plot.

Rewrite the sentence as a series of bulleted statements so that you can more easily see the nine clauses that present phases of the storyline.

Step 3

Review the plot of Animal Farm using Woodhouse’s summary. Examine the list of bulleted statements you have extracted from his long sentence. Note how each of the statements focuses on a key plot development as the story progresses. Discuss any major plot developments that you see as missing from Woodhouse’s summary and add them to the class list.

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will use Woodhouse’s summary to draw parallels between Animal Farm’s plot and historical events.

Step 1

Access a handout that is based on the clauses in Woodhouse’s plot summary sentence, the Woodhouse Plot and History Chart.

Notice that the chart is organized by Woodhouse’s nine plot summary statements now written as full sentences without the opening word “how.”

Note also that the second column of the chart is titled “Historical Parallel.” This column provides a space for you to note what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin that is similar to the plot events in Animal Farm.

Step 2

Using the Animal Farm Historical Timeline that you worked with in Lesson 3 and any notes you have from watching the two videos about the Bolshevik Revolution and Joseph Stalin, think about what the historical parallel might be for each of the plot developments outlined by Woodhouse.

For example, the first entry in the chart, about the animals capturing the farm, might be associated with this historical parallel:

Czar Nicholas II was overthrown by the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.

Step 3

As a class, discuss and complete the second column of the chart, noting how closely the nine plot developments summarized by Woodhouse parallel the history of the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent rise to totalitarian power by Joseph Stalin.

Activity 3: Discuss – Write

We will consider how the character we focused on in section 1 might have viewed the events listed in C. M. Woodhouse’s plot synopsis and record first-person descriptions from that character’s point of view in the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool.

Step 1

Access another tool that has been built from Woodhouse’s plot synopsis sentence, the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool.

Review the organization of this worksheet and its relationship to Woodhouse’s summary of plot developments and the Woodhouse Plot and History Chart that you used in the previous activity.

You will complete and use the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool to build a plan and working draft for the narrative retelling of the novel’s storyline from your character’s point of view as part of your presentation for the Culminating Task.

You will also submit your storyboard and working draft as part of your portfolio for the Section 2 Diagnostic.

Step 2

Join with a discussion partner from your previous character study team who has focused on the same character as you.

Each of you will set up a storyboard for your character, with the character’s name at the top of the chart.

Add descriptive words you found while reading the novel in Section 1, indicating the pages on which you found them (from your previous Character Note-Taking Tool).

For example, for the character Benjamin, you might have noted the characteristics Orwell describes in Chapters 1 and 3:

• oldest, ill-tempered, cynical, never laughs (p. 5);

• unchanged, slow, obstinate, opinion less, cryptic (p. 30)

Also record the claim you wrote in Lesson 3 about your character’s symbolic role in the historical allegory. This claim will help direct the storyboard you develop and the lead sentences you write from your character’s point of view.

Initially discuss how you see that character connected to Woodhouse’s plot summary and to the historical events that parallel Animal Farm’s storyline (which you recorded on the Woodhouse Plot and History Chart in the previous activity).

Step 3

With your partner, add additional descriptive words that you think represent your character’s personality, voice, and point of view now that you have finished the novel and studied its historical context. Write these in the “Descriptions from Section 2, Lesson 5” location on the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool.

For example, for the character Benjamin, you might add words such as:

weary, cynical, tight-lipped, loyal (to Boxer), perceptive, enduring

Step 4

With these character descriptions and your claim in mind, draft one or two first-person lead sentences for each line of the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool, trying to represent how you think your character would view the events of the story outlined by Woodhouse and retell them in the character’s voice.

Record your lead sentences in the third column of the Animal FarmStoryboard Tool, under the heading “Character’s View - Lead Sentences.” You will use some of these sentences to begin narrative paragraphs that retell the plot developments as outlined by Woodhouse.

For example, Benjamin might retell the first two events about capturing and renaming the farm by saying:

We got rid of Jones and supposedly now owned the farm ourselves.

So, we changed the name to Animal Farm and said we were all “equal.” But why would that make any difference? We would never escape the drudgery of our “long” and brutal lives.

Activity 4: Write

We will individually think about how the first-person narrative vignettes we previously drafted might fit into our character’s retelling of the story. We will then begin to draft a unified narrative that uses those vignettes, along with the sentences we wrote in the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool, to retell the story of Animal Farm from our character’s point of view.

Step 1

Individually, find and review the three first-person narrative vignettes you wrote in Section 1 (Lessons 6, 10, and 11) and included in your Section Diagnostic portfolio.

Think about how what you have learned about the overall storyline of Animal Farm and its historical parallels may have expanded or changed your previous interpretation of your character.

Reread the self-introduction you drafted in Lesson 6 and note revisions you may want to make based on your expanded understanding of your character and the allegory of Animal Farm.

Step 2

Using the Woodhouse plot summary statements, identify where the plot events you described from your character’s point of view (in Lessons 10 and 11) might fit into the sequence.

Note that the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool includes blank spaces for chapters not covered by the Woodhouse summaries (Chapters 1, 7, and 9) and also has a blank beneath each of the Woodhouse statements for recording additional key plot details.

Think about key plot developments that are not represented by Woodhouse, and record entries for them in the Woodhouse sequence. For example, for the first row (Exposition: Chapter 1), you might record:

Major gives a speech to the animals that later inspires the Rebellion.

If your vignettes correspond to other plot developments, indicate where they would go. For example, a vignette about first learning the song “Beasts of England” might be linked to the plot developments in Chapter 1 (the first row of the chart).

Think also about where a speech (from Major, Squealer, or Napoleon) that you examined in the previous lesson (Lesson 4) fits in the plot summary and how you might include your character’s reaction to it in your retelling.

Step 3

For the Section 2 Diagnostic and the Culminating Task of the unit, you will write a first-person retelling of the story from your character’s point of view. You will focus on the events and plot developments that are most important to your character, including the ones for which you have already written narrative vignettes in Sections 1 and 2.

On your Animal Farm Storyboard Tool, indicate which of the plot developments and/or scenes from chapters you will address in your first-person narrative.

Step 4

Using material you find in the chart, draft introductory lead sentences for paragraphs about the key plot developments you will include in your character’s retelling of the story and record them in the third column.

For example, after a revised character self-introduction, Benjamin’s retelling of the story might begin this way:

Woodhouse: “The animals captured the Manor Farm from its…incompetent farmer.”

Benjamin: We got rid of that fool Jones and supposedly now owned the farm ourselves.

Activity 5: Write

We will continue drafting a retelling of the Animal Farm storyline from our character’s first-person point of view.

Using your previous first-person narrative vignettes and the thinking you recorded in the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool, begin drafting a unified first-person retelling of key events in the Animal Farm story from your character’s point of view.

Work on expanding the lead sentences you wrote in the chart into narrative paragraphs

You will continue to work on this draft in the next lesson as you complete Section 2 and in Section 4, Lessons 2 and 3, then submit your completed first-person narrative for the Culminating Task.