Animal Farm Study Guide

Animal Farm

Study Questions

Before Reading

Discussion:

·        Literary terms:  allegory, irony, fable, characterization

·        George Orwell, the Russian Revolution, communism and socialism

Short writing exercises:

·        What makes a good leader?

·        When should a government be overthrown?

Chapter I & II

Discussion:

·        Give the reasons for the animals’ rebellion.

·        What was the last straw for the animals?

·        Describe the “Beasts of England” song – imagery, message, emotions, dreams/hopes.

·        How is Moses, the raven, and his story of Sugar Candy Mountain significant?

·        Describe the reaction by the animals to the house.

Short Writing Exercises:

·        List the commandments and the vices/faults they reveal.

·        Who will be the leaders of the animals?  Why?  Will they be good leaders?

Chapter III & IV

Before reading

·        What do you speculate the future of the animals and farm will be?

Discussion:

·        What is Squealer’s role and communication style?

·        Describe the difference between the pigs and the other animals.

Short Writing Exercises:

·        Describe the Battle of the Cowshed and the roles that Snowball and Napoleon

Chapter V & VI

Discussion:

·        How would Snowball run the farm differently?

·        List the changes that have occurred at the farm.

·        What are Molly’s reasons for running away?

·        Describe the windmill controversy from Snowball’s point of view; from Napoleon’s point of view.

·        Explain the issue of trading with other farms.

Short Writing Exercises:

·        Describe the animals’ work situation.

Chapter VII & VIII

Discussion:

·        How does the destruction and rebuilding of the windmill occur?

·        Describe the lies told about Snowball.

·        Explain the reasons for the animals not singing the hymn.

·        Describe the situation with the traitors.

Short Writing Exercises:

·        Describe Napoleon as a leader.  Is he a dictator?

Chapter  IX & X

Discussion:

·        Explain the return of Moses.

·        Describe the whiskey incident.  Why is it humorous?  Compare the animals to humans.

·        What is happening to Boxer?  Why?

·        Explain the social order for the animals.

·        How does Orwell make fun of bureaucracy?

Short Writing Exercises:

·        List the changes to the farm.

·        Describe the changes to the commandments.

·        Describe the changes in the appearance of the pigs.

Conclusion

Discussion & Activities

·        Explain how Animal Farm is a “fairy story.”

·        Describe the roles and activities of the sheep.

·        Give examples of peer pressure.

·        Compare your initial list of leadership skills with the animals at the end of the book.

·        Discuss the importance of education in the story.  Compare education with indoctrination.

·        Brainstorm a sequel.

·        Trace the defamation of Snowball’s character.

·        Why did Orwell chose the names?  How do they fit?

·        Develop a news story interview.

·        Set up a puppet show illustrating a dialogue between 2 characters.

·        Write a timeline of events in the book.

Introduction to Animal Farm

Introduction to Animal Farm

George Orwell intentionally wrote this novel with Russia, Stalin, Trotsky, and socialism in mind.  Below are some definitions and explanations that will give some historical background to this insightful novel.

Socialism - Stalinism - Trotskyism
Socialism is usually defined as "common ownership of the means of production". Broadly speaking the State, representing the entire nation, owns all the means of production, and everybody is "employed" by the State. This does not mean that you have no private possessions such as clothes and furniture, but it means that land, mines, ships, etc. are collective. In the end the State is the only producer. Contrary to capitalism, it is claimed that socialism can solve the production and consumption problems. Normally a capitalist economy cannot consume all it produces. There is always a surplus production going to waste and there is always unemployment. In a socialist economy these problems allegedly do not exist. The State simply "calculates" which products are needed and then does its best to produce them.
Stalinism is based on, among other things, a number of writings by Josef Stalin, but any real stalinist theory does not exist. The closest we get is the doctrine of "socialism in one country", with which Stalin in the late 1920s claimed that it was possible to implement socialism in one isolated country alone - as opposed to the teachings of the original marxism.
During Stalin’s reign a bureaucracy developed along with a small clique of leaders and a terror regime with persecutions and purgings of all critical elements. This is what is normally meant by stalinism - for Orwell, as well.
Trotskyism refers to Leon Trotsky’s contribution to the marxist theory. Trotsky did not believe that socialism could be implemented in one country alone. Neither did he believe that the revolution came in different phases - e.g. first a bourgeois revolution, then a proletarian one. The proletarian revolution had to be on the political agenda everywhere, also in less developed countries - hence the concept of the permanent revolution. After Trotsky had been driven from the USSR in 1929, trotskyism was founded as a political movement, which among other things was characterised by a sharp criticism of the USSR.
Animal Farm
In 1943 Orwell felt that the people in England, because of their admiration for the Russian war effort, consciously or unconsciously overlooked the faults of the communist regime in the USSR. He also felt that the English communists used their position as unofficial representatives of the USSR to prevent the truth from coming out - just as they had done in connection with the Spanish Civil War.

"Indeed, in my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country. [...] And so for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the Socialist movement." [CEJL vol. 3 p. 458]

That was why Orwell wrote Animal Farm which is the story of the revolution betrayed. The tale is based on Orwell’s experiences in Spain that had subsequently led him to study power structures during revolutions, especially the Russian.
Although Orwell was an anti-communist he was not on the side of traditional ruling class, neither so in Animal Farm. Throughout the book he is on the side of the animals. But from Day One of the revolution it is clear that a new elite is about to replace the old rulers. The new elite are the pigs. It was the pig called Major  who had come up with his revolutionary theories and who had died before the revolution. After the breakout of the revolution, which happened spontaneously, the pigs assume leadership with Napoleon and Snowball in front. The pigs assume privileges and end up telling the other animals what to do and eating the best food.
As in Spain during the Civil War objective truth or history is disappearing from Animal Farm. Historical facts change according to what suits the pigs as in the case of the windmill. Originally it was Snowball's idea and Napoleon had of course been opposed to the windmill. But after Snowball has been driven away the mill is to be built after all. Those animals that vaguely remember how things were are told that actually it had been Napoleon's idea and that he had opposed Snowball for tactical reasons. Another example is the seven commandments that change concurrently with the pigs resembling human beings more and more. Eventually the seventh commandment, "All animals are equal" has had the following added: "but some animals are more equal than others.
In Animal Farm Orwell is not on the side of the humans. The pigs are the villains in the tale and they become more and more like humans. In the end of the book, pigs and humans are playing cards. When someone cheats, at row starts.

"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." [AF p. 119]

In other words, old and new tyrannies are the same. Authoritarian forms of government, whether based on social or political castes, are basically alike and they are all a danger to freedom - as has always been claimed by anarchists. Orwell argues against the Russian revolution that was betrayed in the same way that anarchists did as early as the 1920s. The anarchist traits in Orwell were to become more pronounced and form an essential part of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Week 1 Grammar

WEEK 1 – The Sentence

A sentence is

–  a unit of words

–  simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex

–  made of a subject and a verb, and a complete thought

Subject

–  The simple subject is the singular noun or plural nouns that do the action of the verb.

–  The complete subject is the simple subject with any modifiers.

Verb

–  The simple verb may consist of one word or a group of words.  These are the action words of the sentence.

–  The complete subject is also called the predicate.  It contains modifiers, direct objects, and indirect objects.

Fragment

–  A fragment often looks like a sentence with a capital letter and an end punctuation.  However, it is missing either a subject, a verb, or a complete thought.

            Examples:

The Run-on

–  A Run-on sentence is two or more sentences improperly joined by wrong puncutaion, no punctuation, or a conjunction that needs help from some kind of punctuation. 

–  Correcting a Run-on sentence

1.      Make two sentences.

2.      Join the two clauses by using a comma and a coordinating conjunction.

3.      Join the two clauses with a semicolon.

4.      Join the two clauses with a semicolon and a connector with a comma (but not a coordinating conjunction.

5.      Subordinate one of the clauses.

Grammar Plan

WRITING 1 GRAMMAR PLANS

Week #	Topic
Semester 1
1	THE SENTENCE
	The Sentence
	Fragment & Run-on
2	PARTS OF SPEECH
	Verb
3	Noun
	Pronoun
4	Adjective
	Adverb
	Preposition
5	Conjunction
	Interjection
6	VERBS
	Tense
	4 Principle parts
7	Voice
	Mood
8	State of Being & Linking Verbs
	Conjugation
	Sequence of Tenses
9	AGREEMENT:  SUBJECT-VERB, PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT
	Subject-verb agreement
	Pronoun-antecedent agreement
10	REFERENCE OF PRONOUS
	Ambiguous reference
	General reference
	Weak reference
	Indefinite reference
11	TYPES OF SENTENCES
	Simple
	Compound
	Complex
	Compound – Complex
12	PHRASES
	Prepositional phrases
	Appositive phrases
13	Participial phrases
	Gerund phrases
	Restrictive phrases
	Infinitive phrases
14-15	No grammar
Week #	Topic
Semester 2
1	CLAUSES
	Dependent clauses
	Noun clauses
	Adjective clauses
	Adverb clauses
2	COORDINATION & SUBORDINATION (CLAUSES)
	Coordinating conjunctions
	Correlative conjunctions
	Connectives
	Relationships in compound sentences
	Relationships in complex sentences
3	PARALLEL STRUCTURE
	Using coordinating conjunctions in parallel structure
	Words in a series
	Phrases in a series
	Prepositional phrases
	Gerund (noun) phrases
	Participial phrases
	Infinitive phrases
	Clauses in a series
	Sentences in a series
4	Using Correlative conjunctions in a parallel structure
	Words with correlative conjunctions
	Phrases with correlative conjunctions
	Clauses with correlative conjunctions
5	MISPLACED AND DANGLING MODIFIERS
6	SENTENCE VARIETY
7	PUNCTUATION
	Period
8 - 9	Comma
10	Semi-colon
	Colon
11	Quotation marks
12	Question mark
	Exclamation mark
13	Dash & Ellipses
	Parentheses
	Apostrophe

Writing 1 Classroom Policies

Writing 1

Classroom Policies

Classroom Conduct

·        As we explore the topics in our literature selections and the various aspects of writing, we’ll engage in whole-class and small group discussions.  Be polite and respectful of each others time and comments.

·        We only meet once a week and need to make the most of our time.  Come to class prepared and with the appropriate materials (books, notebook, pens, etc.).  Avoid unrelated and unnecessary conversations and activities that will distract us from learning.  Turn off ALL electronic devices.  (They may be confiscated until the end of the CHAT school day.)

Communication

·        Weekly updates that include the material covered and upcoming assignments will be sent to the e-mail addresses that parents submitted when registering for the class.  I will also collect e-mail addresses from students.  I prefer to communicate via e-mail, but can be reached on my cell phone if the concern is urgent.  (507/581-0270)

·        I’m using two other on-line resources: a blog and a document storage site, Dropbox.  Here’s how they will work:

–       Writing 1 – www.chatwriting1.blogspot.com.  The blog entries will contain the same information from the e-mail updates.  I’m hoping these entries will serve as a consolidation and reference for our weekly lessons for the semester.  Hopefully we can avoid forgotten assignments or missing e-mails.  If students or parents are unsure about an assignment, they have two places to go to find the information.

–       Dropbox – www.dropbox.com.  Most of the handouts will be available on the Dropbox website.  Parents and students will receive an e-mail and be invited to view the “Writing 1” folder.  These documents can be downloaded and printed from home computers.

Homework Guidelines

·        Short writing assignments should be handed in when due, or e-mailed by midnight on the date on which they were due.  They will also be accepted the next week but with a reduction in score.

·        Keep on schedule with the reading assignments.  Students who have read the assigned portions will engage more actively, learn more effectively and enjoy more fully the class discussions.

·        Rough drafts must be handed in on time, either in class or via e-mail so that they can be corrected and handed back on time.  If a rough draft does not get handed in, the student will miss out on the opportunity to learn from mistakes.  His/her composition will be graded as a final draft.

·        Final copies of assigned essays are due at class time or by midnight of that day.  With special permission, an essay will be given an extension until midnight on the Saturday following the due date.  Papers handed in later will receive a reduction in score.

·        Extra credit activities will be offered from time to time.  The thrust of these will be mostly “fun and interest.”  Even though the scores will be added to the cumulative scores for the class, they are not a substitute for regular assignments.

Grading Policy

·        Accumulating points is the NOT an important aspect of this class.  My goal is that students grow as learners and writers; this is not always reflected in classroom points.  However, points are a helpful indicator of diligence, improvement, and, to some extent, quality.

·        Points will be given in the following areas:

–       Attendance – 1 pt. /day (However, if a student is sick or excused, adjustments will be made.)

–       Participation – 5 pt. /day.  This includes good attitudes, helpful comments in the discussions, respect of others.

–       Quick Writes & Vocabulary Builders – 2 pt. /day.  These exercises at the beginning of each class will not be graded for content, but will receive points for participation.

–       Short writing assignments, including lists, grammar exercises, 1 paragraph answers, etc. – 5 – 10 pt. each, depending on the assignment.

–       Extra Credit – 2 – 10 pt. each, depending on the assignment.

–       Rough Drafts – 10 points for handing it in on time.

–       Final Essays – 15 – 45 pt., depending on the specific assignment.  Essays will be graded in three areas:  Content, Organization, and Mechanics /Grammar.