EDSITEment! - Animal Farm: Allegory and the Art of Persuasion

Example Web Site and/or Technical Equipment Required

Website: http://edsitement.neh.gov/

Website Example: http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/animal-farm-allegory-and-art-persuasion#sect-activities

Tech Product Equipment

Computer(s), Internet access

Activity Description

In this activity, students are introduced to the concept of allegory by using George Orwell’s widely read novella, Animal Farm. This lesson consists of following four activities: Animal Farm and Allegory, The Collective Farm and the Communist State, What’s in a Name, and Tyranny by any other Name…

Preparation

1. Make sure that the site is not blocked at your school and that the resources can be viewed.
2. Review the site and the available resources.
3. Review the detailed online lesson plans
4. Choose which of the activities you want to use in class and how you want to present them.

How-To

View Detailed Lesson Plans  online.

Activity 1. Animal Farm and Allegory

1. Have students read Animal Farm by George Orwell.
2. Discuss how this story is allegorical and the meaning or allegory.

Activity 2 The Collective Farm and the Communist State

1. Review some of the main events of Russian history from the turn of the twentieth century to the end of World War II.
2. Ask students to answer the following questions about the events that take place on the Manor Farm, and how they are an allegorical retelling of the events from the Russian Revolution to the end of World War II in Russia.

Activity 3 What’s in a Name

1. Ask students to work in pairs to fill in the chart on the characters of Animal Farm. This chart can also be completed as an online activity.
2. Ask students what importance and symbolism is contained in Orwell’s choice of names?

Activity 4 Tyranny by any other Name…

1. Ask students to contemplate the use of rhetoric in Animal Farm. Have them answer the questions, either as part of a class discussion, or by completing the PDF worksheet.

Teacher Tips

Assessment: Ask students to gather together their answers to the questions posed throughout this lesson, which they should then use as the basis for writing a short essay.

More Ways

This lesson plan can be adapted to expand on history and social studies lessons which focus on this time period.

Select subjects and subcategories

English Language Arts

• American Literature

Social Studies

• World History