This complete unit on George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ is a rigorous and practical work program comprising visually engaging power points and documents covering all the literary and historical concepts, culminating in a practice essay writing task. The unit has been created in modular components enabling tailored approaches depending on class time and student skill level, with extension activities for fast finishers, ongoing testing for understanding, together with creative tasks for students to explore the meaning of the novel in individual ways. Historical backgrounding, political and literary terms are explained so that students can do self-directed work at their own pace with necessary knowledge self-contained and cumulative. Ongoing homework tasks in the form of comprehension and vocabulary exercises for each chapter are included in the unit.

1. Introduction to Animal Farm (power point)

• Timeline of Geroge Orwell’s literary career
• George Orwell’s beliefs and influences
• Author’s Purpose in writing ‘Animal Farm’
• Comprehension questions

1. Utopias and Better Worlds (power point)

• Utopian Models in History - from Thomas Moore to animalism
• Creative task : ‘Pupil School’ : Manifesto for Creating a Student Utopia

1. Chapter 1 – 10 Comprehension and activities (documents)

• graphic organizer sequencing
• finding textual evidence
• making conclusions
• cause and effect
• working with language – prefixes
• who / what / where / when / why questions
• comparing and contrasting

1. Characters in Animal Farm (power point)

• Comprehension questions on each character
• characters as symbols
• characterization – characteristics, relationships, changes
• central quotes identified with characters

1. Vocabulary by Chapters (electronic document for entering answers)

• Chapters 1 – 10 vocabulary with explanatory definitions
• Individual test for each chapter
• Answers on separate PPT

1. Themes - Five Key Ideas in ‘Animal Farm’ (power point)

7 Propaganda Techniques in Animal Farm (power point)

• definition of propaganda
• prior knowledge test on persuasive terms (with answers)
• propaganda techniques
• Squealer’s propaganda playbook
• Comprehension test for each section

1. Key Quotes Chart (document)

• quotes
• context
• significance to story

1. Historical Allegory, Analogy, Metaphor and Analogy (document)

• definition, purpose and examples of allegory
• differences between allegory, metaphor and analogy
• The Story Behind the Story - Full history of the Russian Revolution
• ‘Who’s Who and What’s What in Animal Farm’ - allegory quiz chart

1. Essay Writing (document)

• annotated exemplar essay
• scaffolded practice essay task

1. Extension activities

• crossword (with separate answer sheet)
• individual writing tasks