Animal Farm Lesson Plan | Introduction
This unit has been designed to develop students' reading, writing, thinking, and language skills through exercises and activities related to Animal Farm by George Orwell. It includes twenty lessons, supported by extra resource materials.
The introductory lesson introduces students to the element of persuasion through a media presentation and discussion. Following the introductory activity, students are given a transition to explain how the activity relates to the book they are about to read. Following the transition, students are given the materials they will be using during the unit.
The reading assignments are approximately twenty-five pages each; some are a little shorter while others are a little longer. Students have approximately 15 minutes of pre-reading work to do prior to each reading assignment. This pre-reading work involves reviewing the study questions for the assignment and doing some vocabulary work for 8 to 10 vocabulary words they will encounter in their reading.
The study guide questions are fact-based questions; students can find the answers to these questions right in the text. These questions come in two formats: short answer or multiple choice. The best use of these materials is probably to use the short answer version of the questions as study guides for students (since answers will be more complete), and to use the multiple choice version for occasional quizzes. If your school has the appropriate machinery, it might be a good idea to make transparencies of your answer keys for the overhead projector.
The vocabulary work is intended to enrich students' vocabularies as well as to aid in the students' understanding of the book. Prior to each reading assignment, students will complete a twopart worksheet for approximately 8 to 10 vocabulary words in the upcoming reading assignment. Part I focuses on students' use of general knowledge and contextual clues by giving the sentence in which the word appears in the text. Students are then to write down what they think the words mean based on the words' usage. Part II nails down the definitions of the words by giving students dictionary definitions of the words and having students match the words to the correct definitions based on the words' contextual usage. Students should then have a thorough understanding of the words when they meet them in the text.
After each reading assignment, students will go back and formulate answers for the study guide questions. Discussion of these questions serves as a review of the most important events and ideas presented in the reading assignments. The group activity which follows the reading of the novel has students working in small groups to discuss some of the main elements of the novel. Using the information they have acquired so far through individual work and class discussions, students get together to further examine the text and to brainstorm ideas about their topics relating to the novel.
The group activity is followed by a reports and discussion session in which the groups share their ideas about the themes with the entire class; thus, the entire class is exposed to information about all of the themes and the entire class can discuss each theme based on the nucleus of information brought forth by each of the groups.
Following the reporting session, two lessons are devoted to the extra discussion questions/writing assignments. These questions focus on interpretation, critical analysis and personal response, employing a variety of thinking skills and adding to the students' understanding of the novel.
After students complete the discussion questions, there is a vocabulary review lesson which pulls together all of the fragmented vocabulary lists for the reading assignments and gives students a review of all of the words they have studied.
There are three writing assignments in this unit, each with the purpose of informing, persuading, or having students express personal opinions. The first assignment is to give students the opportunity to express their personal opinions: students write a composition in which they set forth the seven commandments they think are appropriate for our society. The second assignment is to inform: students write compositions in which they answer one of the Extra Discussion Questions/Writing Assignments. They begin this assignment in the library because answering some of the questions may require a bit of research. The third assignment is to give students a chance to persuade: students pretend they are Snowball and create a complete plan for replacing Napoleon.
There is a large group activity in which students pretend they, as a whole class, are stranded in the mountains for one year. Their assignment is to devise a plan for their own survival for the year. At the end of the time allotted for this assignment by the teacher, students must hand in a document detailing their plans.
In addition, there is a nonfiction reading assignment. Students are required to read a piece of nonfiction related in some way to Animal Farm. After reading their nonfiction pieces, students will fill out a worksheet on which they answer questions regarding facts, interpretation, criticism, and personal opinions. During one class period, students make oral presentations about the nonfiction pieces they have read. This not only exposes all students to a wealth of information, it also gives students the opportunity to practice public speaking.
The review lesson pulls together all of the aspects of the unit. The teacher is given four or five choices of activities or games to use which all serve the same basic function of reviewing all of the information presented in the unit.
The unit test comes in two formats: short answer and multiple choice. As a convenience, two different tests for each format have been included. There is also an advanced short answer unit test which is even more challenging.
There are additional support materials included with this unit. The extra activities packet includes suggestions for an in-class library, crossword and word search puzzles related to the novel, and extra vocabulary worksheets. There is a list of bulletin board ideas which gives the teacher suggestions for bulletin boards to go along with this unit. In addition, there is a list of extra class activities the teacher could choose from to enhance the unit or as a substitution for an exercise the teacher might feel is inappropriate for his/her class. Answer keys immediately follow the reproducible student materials. The student materials may be reproduced for use in the teacher's classroom without infringement of copyrights. No other portion of this unit may be reproduced without the written consent of Teacher's Pet Publications, Inc.
