Rules in society

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to allow the students to start thinking about how rules and regulations affect their own life worlds. This will then allow them to more easily understand the idea of revolution and the reasons why people may choose to revolt later in the unit.

Teaching Tips

Possible answers in the scenario could include rules related to:

• underage drinking
• road rules
• litter
• walking dogs
• mobile phones in cars

An Effects or Consequence Wheel/Chart is used to think more deeply about a concept, idea or information by considering its impacts and to show complex interrelationships. Students then reflect on the fairness of the rule through discussion. This results in further engagement, and supports them to move from knowledge to understanding.

This activity may also be completed as a placemat activity.

It may be important to discuss with students what fair and impartial mean in order to explain subtle differences.

Purpose

The aim of this activity is to get students thinking about author purpose. This activity introduces what type of man he was and therefore what he felt compelled to write about. Activities that follow will continue to unpack what influenced George Orwell, particularly his historical context.

Using a visual strategy of an “Open Mind Portrait” enables students to summarise key points from the readings as well as gain a deeper understanding of Orwell’s motivations in his writing.

Open Mind Portrait is a visual strategy to explore and discuss an author’s or character’s perspective and develop a deeper understanding of a text. Students read the text, then create an outline of the character/author’s head. In this example, multimodal texts about George Orwell and the Russian Revolution broaden their knowledge and thinking. 

Open Mind Portrait Strategy: See Tompkins, G. (2003). Literacy for the 21st Century (3rd ed) (pp.486-7). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

A member of each group may create their own Update and post a scan of their Open Mind Portrait. Students can then comment on points of agreement and disagreement in their scans.

Example of an Open Mind Portrait on George Orwell by year 10 students

Purpose

Representing the timeline visually will allow students to see where Orwell's life overlaps with key events in Russian history in a way that is more conducive to discerning what influenced Orwell as an author in the following activity.

The Australian Curriculum has a focus upon numeracy across the curriculum. It states that

Students become numerate as they develop the capacity to recognise and understand the role of mathematics in the world around them and the confidence, willingness and ability to apply mathematics to their lives in ways that are constructive and meaningful. Numeracy can be addressed in English learning contexts across all year levels. Students select and apply numerical, measurement, spatial, graphical, statistical and algebraic concepts and skills to real-world situations and problems when they comprehend information from a range of sources and offer their ideas. When responding to or creating texts that present issues or arguments based on data, students identify, analyse and synthesise numerical information and discuss the credibility of sources and methodology.

What influenced Orwell to write 'Animal Farm'

Purpose

Again with an emphasis upon numeracy across the curriculum, asking students to analyse the information they have created allows them to analyse and synthesise numerical information, and justify their opinions about events within Orwell's time that may have influenced the ideas in his writing. 

Purpose

This activity is designed to be an introductory activity to get students to think about what they already know about Russia so that the following activities have a greater connection for them than simply proceeding straight to them.

Teaching tips

Students possible answers might include:

• Anastasia
• Weather - particularly cold
• Communism
• Cold War
• Geographical Size
• Ballet
• Moscow Circus
• Any other information that they have from the previous task or any history courses that they may have done

A good way to record student responses is to create a mindmap on the board.

Teaching Tips

ACT teachers (Canberra, Australia) may be able to access other resources at ClickView.

The Russian Revolution

Life Under Stalin: A Totalitarian Regime 

The Zooming in and Zooming Out strategy (Harmon and Hedrick, 2000) is used to help students identify key information from a visual presentation about the Russian Revolution.  Zooming In and Zooming Out is a before, during, and after comprehension strategy for determining importance. It can be used with written texts, but is used here to further hook students as they view/read informatio about the Russian Revolution. The strategy may be used to focus on key ideas, concepts, information and vocabulary, firstly by close examination through zooming in, and then looking at the broader context by zooming out. There is an open-endedness in how students respond, allowing for student diversity in how they make meaning of the text.

The ideas that really need to be drawn out by the students are about the key ideals of the revolution and how Stalin "betrayed" these ideals in the way in which he sought freedom for the Russian people. The following table gives an idea of what points could be brought up.

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is for students to theorise as to why governments may be overthrown so as to give them an understanding of the motivation of revolutionaries which will help them to make connections as they read Animal Farm.

Teaching Tips

It is worth mentioning during the discussion current affairs issues/incidences that students may have lived through e.g. the effect of twitter and social media on the 2011 Egyptian uprising.

Students create their own Update where they write a blo-like response about an aspect of the Russian Revolution.

Teaching Tips

Examples that students could write about include:

• Communism
• Power
• Corruption
• Uprising
• Revolutionary process of rebelling against inequality

Before students write, introduce them to the idea that Orwell's novel has been described as a "dystopian allegorical novella" and explain what this means. Ask them to consider this term and how Orwell may have been influenced to write the novel and what it might be about.

Dystopian Allegorical Novella

A dystopia is, in literature, an often futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. Dystopian literature has underlying cautionary tones, warning society that if we continue to live how we do, this will be the consequence. An allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation.

The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia destroy any possibility of a Utopia. While this novel portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution (and not the act of revolution itself), it also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if smooth transition to a people's government is not satisfied.

Note: Information complied from multiple Wikipedia pages.

Purpose

This activity is important for students who have done Cooperative Reading before to ensure that they understand each of the roles. It is also important if there are any students in your class who have not done Cooperative Reading before. If you are teaching a class that has not seen this strategy before it is important to familiarise students with it in a more in-depth manner before moving into the modelling tasks.

Resources

See MyRead - Cooperative Reading

Four Resources Model

Teaching Tips

Show students the powerpoint about Cooperative Reading roles as a reminder of what each role entails.

• Code Breaker
• Text Analyst
• Text User
• Text Participant

As students complete their individual record sheets, they can post them to the Community through "Submissions" - in the Community Pull Down menu (on the avatar for the Community). This enables teachers to check them.

Read chapter 1 of the novel to the students. Following the reading, model the questioning reading strategy to the students, paying particular attention to FAT questions.

Ask students to write three FAT questions on chapter 1 in the role of text participant. As a table group they can then share these before chosing one question from each other group member and answering it.

Resources

Questioning Reading Strategy:

Skinny Questions - only require one or two word answers and do not generate much discussion.

FAT Questions - are open questions that require more than a short recall of facts or a single word answer. They require the reader to think about the text and to call on their own experiences.

Teaching Tips

Try not to give the students the questions. Encourage them to come up with their own using the FAT questions strategy. If they struggle, question the students about what happened in the chapter and lead them toward a question. Possible FAT questions could be:

1. What wisdom does Old Major want to pass on and why is it important? (p.3)
2. What is the motto that Old Major gives the animals and why is it important? (p.6)
3. What is going to happen next? (p.8)

This Update focuses on the language and audio modes of Old major's song.

Mode: refers to the mode of communication and includes the linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial features of a text. The audio and linguistic modes are most relevant in this analy

Field/Evidence: Examples from the text.

Tenor/Effects: An evaluation of the mode and how it impacts on an audience, especially how it might position an audience or make them respond with feelings such as empathy, suspense, fear, judgement and humour.

Teaching Tip

If necessary, model more examples to support students. Working in a group can also provide support.





 

Teaching Tips

Explain that Text Analysts are good at inferring - they think about the deeper meaning of the text and what is not directly stated by the author or illustrator.

Read chapter 2 to the students. Stopping at the specific points listed in the "on the surface" column in the table below. Ask the students at these points what is happening. Once they understand this ask them what they can infer from this - i.e. what do we know even though the author is not directly stating it.

In discussing the questions, again emphasise the importance of inferring to help students make meaning of the text. The answers to the questions are not explicitly stated in the text; students need to infer them.

Working in groups will support all students to discuss the questions. Ensure accountability by asking students to record responses. A Think, Pair, Share can also be used to give agency and keep them responding.

Record this information in a table on the board. Once chapter 2 in finished ask the students to look back at their inferences. What questions can they generate from these inferences. Examples can be seen in the table below.

Teaching tips

Model the inferring strategy again but this time in relation to the purpose and message of the author. Explain that text users are good at inferring because they can look at what the author was thinking despite not officially stating it. Read chapter 3 to the students. Stopping at the specific points listed in the "on the surface" column in the table below. Ask the students at these points what is happening.

Once they understand this ask them what they can infer from this - i.e. why did the author choose to include certain aspects of the text.

Record this information in a table on the board. Once chapter 3 is finished ask the students to look back at their inferences. What questions can they generate from these inferences?

Teaching Tips

Students may find it useful to use their mobile phones to look up words/phrases, especially if they are very specific and cannot be found in a traditional dictionary.

To increase agency and accountability ensure students have 3-5 post it notes with Codebreaker words on them.

Purpose

For, at least, chapters 5 and 6 students MUST read the novel silently to themselves. This is to not only to increase agency and accountability but also to encourage students to read on their own as this is an important skill. Remind students of the importance of not reading ahead. If students are fast readers and are able to complete the set reading and the cooperative reading tasks quickly ask them to bring in their own novel which they can then continue to silent read upon completing their task.

Resources

Cooperative reading sheet

Individual_CR_Record.doc

Teaching tips

For the purpose of preparing them sufficiently to complete the essay task at the end of the unit it may be useful to limit the role of Codebreaker to only one of the six chapters.

If students are absent it may be useful to provide them with photocopies of individual chapters or audio copies of the novel. If you have an online learning environment such as a wiki set up for your class this may be a good place to provide this. This will allow students who have missed lessons to catch up and remain with the rest of the class in addition to increasing student accountability.

There is a space at the bottom of the page for the teacher to use a criteria/quality rubric to mark each students work as a form of accountability.

Remind students that they must complete each role at least once for chapters 5-8. For chapters 9 and 10 they may repeat two of the roles.

Make connections

Encourage students to use phones, iPads and computers to research and make the connections.

This activity encourages students to reflect on their reading and draw conclusions. It promotes deeper thinking about the text. 

Teaching Tip

The paired discussion scaffolds thinking, reasoning and finding supporting evidence. Encourage students to come up with different characters and/or evidence in their pairs.

Comparing Old Major's speech to the Communist Manifesto

 Notes on Old Major's Dream from Shmoop

Animal Farm opens with the news that old Major, "the prize Middle White boar" (1.2), has called a meeting to share a dream that he's had. As he explains his dream to the other animals, he points out to them that "Man is the only creature that consumes without producing," and he encourages them to "work night and day, body and soul, for the over-throw of the human race" (1.9, 11). In short, he explains that men have been taking advantage of them for years, and that it is time for the tyranny of man to end. His message, boiled down to a word: "Rebellion" (1.11).

What Orwell actually gives us through old Major’s speech is a simplified version of the basic tenets of communism, which were put down by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. The basic idea of the Manifesto was that the capitalist economic system was seriously flawed. The workers never saw the products of their labor because the capitalists – the people who owned the means of production (factories, land, etc.) – claimed the profit for themselves. Marx suggested that if common workers could overthrow the capitalists and claim the means of production for themselves, then all the workers of the world could live in peace with one another.

The Manifesto famously ends "The proletarians [common workers] have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, Unite!" Old Major essentially ends his speech the same way with his final call to "Rebellion!" Yet both Marx and Old Major are better at criticizing the existing system than at proposing a new one. As we’ll see very soon, after the Rebellion, the big question becomes: now what?

This Update connects the main focus of the Learning Module to the reading in Update 4. If necessary, post the reading to "Shares" so students can access it again easily.

This Update is also a scaffold for the essay in the final Update.

In this Update, by considering an allegory, students gain more practice of the inferring strategy - this time at the whole text level.

It also enables them to make further connections between the novel and its historical context.

Allow the students to use their phones - it's a good way to engage some students!

Also as an alternative to the sheet sharing activity, create a separate Update and ask students to post their ideas to the Comment box. In this way, students can access many more ideas than just the groups they swap notes with.

The comment is a metacognitive activity where students evaluate the effectiveness of the novel at an allegorical level.

The purpose of this activity for the students to think critically and consider different perspectives. They are also able to connect the novel to history and further deepen their understanding of Orwell's purpose in writing the novel.

Again allow students to use their phones to research Socialism.

Teaching Tips

Getting the students to complete the expert groups activity allows them to think about the role of each of the characters in the failure of the revolution before beginning the essay.

Project Rubric