Teaching the Novel "Animal Farm"

Submitted by Virginia9 on Sat, 2009-02-07 21:55
Teaching Level: 
High School

A poster for Animal FarmHere is a lesson plan which makes use of technology to help students understand what goes beyond the text and to motivate them to do intensive and extensive reading. [A very good lesson plan for a teacher to follow - this one asks a lot of great questions and has students go far beyond the obvious answers.  For example, at one point Virginia states that ;"the essential question of Animal Farm is NOT "Could it happen again?" The essential question is "Do I realize that it IS happening everyday all around me?" And beyond that question is, perhaps the more important question, "What are MY responsibilities to do something about it?" -

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Comments

 Great lesson. My district

Submitted by senae on Mon, 2010-08-09 14:01.

 Great lesson. My district blocks youtube. Is there any way for me to get around that block to use the links given or is there a way for me to save the links and then use them in class?

Russian's Revolt

Submitted by bcmaineiac on Wed, 2009-08-05 18:15.

Not sure how much Russian Revolution background info you give. I find it foreign to my students, and way over their heads trying to see the connections.

I recently saw Daniel Silva read and talk about his latest novel, The Defector. His last two novels deal with Russian thugs. He paints a picture of modern-day Russia not too different from Stalin's/Napoleon's Russia.

This is a great connection to

Submitted by renkins44 on Mon, 2009-02-23 09:13.

This is a great connection to social studies. Ideally, try to allign your lesson with the same time the history department is teaching the Russian Revolution. I did that this year and student engagment was higher than ever before.

Animal Farm is deep and meaningful

Submitted by mfrench on Tue, 2009-02-17 08:42.

Teaching Animal Farm is an excellent time to teach students about communism and other topics typically discussed in a Social Studies setting. For some students, especially freshmen, it is the first time they have ever made a connection between school subjects or disciplines to see that all of these high school subjects do fit together into one puzzle of learning.  Animal Farm is a great example of teaching across curriculums, team teaching, or any other means of describing how literature chronicles history and inspires ideas for lifelong learning. 

Teaching the novel this year, I saw that familiar spark of understanding that students were making about the world around them.  It was the proverbial light bulb effect.  It was as if they finally took off the I-Pod ear buds of individuality and joined the group in understanding the world around them and how they fit into it.

ceyo's picture

Well Put

Submitted by ceyo on Fri, 2009-02-13 18:50.

I like your contrast of questions.  My American students have a more difficult time considering the American Revolution in this context.  Of course, Orwell wrote the book after WWII and in regard to the USSR/Russian Revolution and the timing is more analogous to the novel; but it is a book for all revolutions/cultural movements/political evolutions.  U.S. students, too, have been brought up to malign Communism, so it's easier for them to make the simplistic arguments you suggest than to look the mote in their own eye.

ADahlin's picture

 Thank you for emphasizing

Submitted by ADahlin on Sun, 2009-02-08 18:59.

 Thank you for emphasizing the ridiculous and simplistic journal questions that too many teachers rely on.  Animal Farm worked very well as an analogy for what is going on in Somalia and in Ukraine.  The point is not to get students to make this connection, the point is for them to stop seeing this as a story about "The Other".

Animal Farm

Submitted by Virginia Woolf (not verified) on Mon, 2010-01-04 12:55.

When I teach my students " Animal Farm"  they are really interested in. It's amazing to find out how impressed they are and the meaning they give to the story. It hardly ever happens with other writers. So I find very interesting the suggestions you give . Thanks a lot.