Lesson 2

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • Animal Farm, Joy Batchelor, John Halas, Halas and Batchelor, 1954

Materials

Tools

• Animal Farm: Reading Schedule

• Video Note-Taking Tool

Question Sets

• Animal Farm: Section 3 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Animal Farm: Section 3 Question Set

• Video Note-Taking Tool

Activity 1: View – Discuss

We will watch the 1954 animated movie of Animal Farm, focusing on key scenes and characters and how they compare to our reading of the book.

Step 1

As directed by your teacher, watch the 70-minute animated movie of Animal Farm, created by British animators/directors John Halas and Joy Batchelor in 1954 (nine years after the book was first published).

Take and make notes about what you observe and think as you watch.

As you watch, pause at key scenes and discuss how those scenes compare to what occurs in the book.

Step 2

As you view and compare scenes and characters, consider these questions:

1. What happens in the scene and which characters does it involve?

2. What chapter of the book does the scene correspond to?

3. In what ways is the movie’s timeline similar to or different from the book’s storyline?

4. How does the movie compare to the book? What is similar and different about how the scene and characters are depicted?

5. How does the movie’s presentation of scenes and characters compare to your own visualization of them?

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will discuss how and why the themes and messages conveyed by the movie are different from those presented by Orwell in the book. We will form a claim about these differences.

Step 1

Discuss the key differences you have noted between the movie and the book, focusing on:

• The narration of the story

• The presentation and role of key characters (e.g., Benjamin)

• The interpretation of key scenes (e.g., Snowball’s banishment, the story’s resolution)

Develop a theory explaining why you think the movie might be intentionally different from the book.

Step 2

Return to the claims you previously made about the meaning of Orwell’s allegory, which you first formed in Section 1 as you read the book and then re-formed in Section 2 after you learned about the historical context in which Orwell wrote Animal Farm.

Review and discuss the conclusions you have reached about the “meaning” of the story—especially in light of what happens in Chapter 10 as the story reaches its resolution.

Step 3

Now consider what happens at the end of the movie and how it presents a very different resolution to the story.

Based on the movie’s ending (and other differences you have noted) discuss how the meaning conveyed by the movie may be very different from the themes of the book.

Step 4

Considering details you have noted as you have compared the movie to the book, form an evidence-based claim about the differing meanings you have noted between the two versions of the story, in response to these questions:

1. In what ways does the 1954 movie reflect or alter the meaning of Animal Farm’s allegory, as written and conveyed by George Orwell?

2. Why might the producers and directors of the movie have chosen to tell and end the story differently from Orwell’s narrative?

Activity 3: Write

For homework, we will write an explanation in which we present and support the claim we have individually formed about the meaning of the 1954 movie and how it compares to the allegory Orwell created.

Using your notes from watching the movie and class discussions, write several paragraphs in which you compare the meanings conveyed by the movie and the book, using specific details to explain and support the evidence-based claim you have formed in response to these questions:

1. In what ways does the 1954 movie reflect or alter the meaning of Animal Farm’s allegory, as written and conveyed by George Orwell?

2. Why might the producers and directors of the movie have chosen to tell and end the story differently from Orwell’s narrative?