Lesson 7

Lesson Goals

Texts

Materials

Tools

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist

• Animal Farm: 20th Century Europe K-W-L Chart

• Animal Farm: Storyboard Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Diagnostic Checklist

• Animal Farm: Section 2 Question Set

• Animal Farm: Storyboard Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will review the expectations for the section 2 diagnostic portfolio.

Step 1

Access and review the overall expectations for the Section 2 Diagnostic, for which you will compile a second portfolio of evidence reflecting your learning in Section 2.

Begin by considering and discussing the guiding questions for the section:

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?

Your portfolio should include evidence that reflects your responses to these questions.

Step 2

Next, consult the Section Diagnostic 2 Guiding Questions in the Section 2 Question Set to help you understand, evaluate and prepare your portfolio of evidence.

Step 3

Now review and discuss the work you have done in Section 2 that should be included in your portfolio:

• Your K-W-L Charts (one for totalitarianism and one for 20th-century history) that you developed in Lessons 1 and 2.

• Your explanation of an evidence-based claim about your character’s allegorical significance and symbolic representation of a historical counterpart, which you formed in Lesson 3, Activity 4, in response to the following question:

  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?

• Your storyboard plan for a first-person retelling of the Animal Farm storyline (the Animal Farm Storyboard Tool) with lead sentences you have written from your character’s point of view (Lesson 5).

• Your working draft of a first-person narrative that retells key scenes in Animal Farm from your character’s point of view (Lesson 6).

Step 4

Review the feedback you received from your teacher after reviewing and evaluating your portfolio of evidence for the Section 1 Diagnostic.

Determine what you need to do to be successful on this second portfolio assessment, considering these questions:

1. How has my understanding of Animal Farm and my character changed or expanded since I submitted my Section 1 portfolio?

2. What will I need to do to reflect these changes in the Section 2 portfolio?

3. What were the strengths of my first portfolio that I can build from?

4. What are the things I need to improve on in my second portfolio?

Activity 2: Read – Discuss

We will review our working draft narratives with our editing partners, in preparation for submitting them for the Section Diagnostic.

Step 1

Meet with your editing partner from the previous lesson to review the working draft of your first-person narrative.

Introduce your draft by telling your partner what you have focused on in selecting key scenes from the storyline and your Animal Farm Storyboard Tool, narrating them from your character’s first-person point of view, and communicating your interpretation of the allegory and your character’s role, personality, and symbolic importance.

Read your draft aloud, noting places where the story may or may not flow or be well-connected.

Step 2

After listening to the draft read aloud, as an editing partner, provide constructive feedback in response to these review questions:

1. How well does the current draft meet the expectations of the task:

   1. Clearly identify, introduce, and represent the personality, voice, and symbolic role of your character

   2. Describe major plot developments of the story from your character’s point of view

   3. Reflect your understanding of Orwell’s allegory and the characteristics of totalitarian societies he satirized

2. How easy is it to follow the story? How well have the various vignettes and lead sentences been combined into a unified narrative?

3. What is most interesting in the current working draft? How might the writer build a final draft from these strengths?

4. What is most confusing or uncertain in the current working draft? How might the writer improve these issues?

Step 3

Based on your own review of your working draft and your editing partner’s feedback, continue drafting and revising a retelling of Animal Farm’s storyline from your character’s first-person point of view.

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

Activity 3: Read – Discuss

We will learn about the reflective narrative we will write during the next class for the section 2 diagnostic.

Step 1

Review and discuss the expectations for the reflective narrative you will write in class for the Section 2 Diagnostic:

• 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

• Discuss what you have learned about the use of claims, language, and rhetoric to influence an audience’s thinking (Lesson 4)

• 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 working draft of your first-person narrative (Lesson 6) reflect your analysis

Step 2

Note that the first two expectations of the task ask you to “tell the story of your developing understanding” and explain your interpretations in Section 1 and how they changed in Section 2.

These expectations suggest that you will organize your reflection chronologically, as a narrative that identifies and explains the following:

1. Your initial questions and predictions about the book

2. What you discovered and thought as you read Animal Farm

3. Why and how you focused on your character’s role in the allegory

4. How you interpreted your character’s point of view and represented it in your first-person narratives

5. How your understanding developed as you learned about totalitarianism and the historical context in response to which the novel was written

6. What you learned about language and rhetoric and their use to influence an audience’s thinking

7. Your current claims about the meaning of the allegory and your character’s symbolic role

Note that this list of expectations can serve as an outline for the first part of the reflective narrative you will write in class for the Section Diagnostic. Think about how you will tell the story using this outline.

Step 3

Review and discuss the final two expectations for the reflective narrative, which are similar to what you did in the reflection you wrote for the Section 1 Diagnostic:

• 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 working draft of your first-person narrative (Lesson 6) reflect your analysis

Note that to meet the final expectation, you will need to review and note connections among the pieces of evidence you included in your portfolio:

• The claim you formed and explained in Lesson 3 in response to the following question:

  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?

• The first-person narrative that retells the story from your character’s point of view that you planned and began to draft in Lessons 5 and 6.

Activity 4: Discuss

We will discuss the expectations of the reflective narrative we will write in class for the Section Diagnostic and consider what vocabulary from section 2 we might use in our narratives. We will develop a plan to guide our writing.

Step 1

With a discussion partner, review the expectations for the portfolio of evidence you will compile and the reflective narrative you will write as an introduction/overview for your portfolio.

Explain how you plan to approach the task of completing and compiling your portfolio and planning to write your reflective narrative.

Step 2

Review your Vocabulary Journal. Identify a significant word or words that you would like to use in your reflective narrative.

Step 3

Develop a plan for how you will compile your portfolio and a plan for your reflective narrative, including what you will need to review from your notes and work that you have done in both Sections 1 and 2 of the unit.