Workshop Narrative with Animal Farm

Mattie Talbert

Dr. Styslinger

EDSE 786

7 December 2015

Workshopping George Orwell’s Animal Farm

            When I think of Animal Farm I think of my ninth grade English classroom and my teacher introducing this foreign, old book to a class full of fourteen year olds who would rather have been socializing than talking about some “dead, old white guy”.  However, due to my fascination with the Russian Revolution I became quickly immersed in this book.  My teacher did the normal introductions by telling us about George Orwell and the historical background which of course helped put the plot and its characters into perspective, but I was in the small minority in my classroom that actually enjoyed reading Animal Farm.  My teacher had good intentions but her introductions fell flat and set the tone for the remainder of the unit for my classmates who were not so interested in Communism and Stalin.  What she failed to do was garner interest and enthusiasm which would have made the entire unit much less painful and actually pretty enjoyable for not only her but for her class of freshman students.  My workshop narrative will draw from my resource collection along with Dr. Styslinger’s book and the readings that have been done over the course of this semester.

            When I chose Animal Farm for my resource collection assignment, I did so for two reasons: I love this book and it is something almost all high schoolers are exposed to at one point or another during their academic careers.  The rise of dystopian young adult literature has also risen tremendously in the past five years or so which puts Animal Farm in an entirely new spotlight for English teachers.  It seems as though we have an unprecedented advantage due to the fact that our students are reading outside of the classroom more and more due to the fact that young adult authors are catering to our students with more diverse subject matter and turning their books into trilogies.  Students are gobbling up these works which helps teachers tremendously when attempting to shape units on something our students would otherwise be completely uninterested in.  Our challenge as teachers is to find new and creative ways for our students to find personal connections to these otherwise stale, over-taught books which has almost completely turned our students off to these classics that we cherish.

            When I started looking into possible works I could include in my resource collection, I thought creating the essential questions first would really help me in deciding what I wanted my students to get out of this unit and how I could connect the themes in Animal Farm to their daily lives.  I decided to focus on the quote by Lord Acton: “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  I then thought about popular young adult novels that I could include in class-wide book clubs which led me to The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and The Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.  All of these books are different in their own right but they all revolve around totalitarian-type governments and its effects on adolescents and the society in which they live.  Also, these books have a variety of female and male heroines which will cater to many different students and their interests.  All but one of these books, The Uglies, have been turned into movies as well which students will more than likely either have seen or will be familiar with.  While I do not condone seeing the movie over reading the book, sometimes seeing the movie is what draws students in to reading the book because their interest has been piqued.  By using popular and mostly current young adult novels that our students are most likely going to be familiar with, they understand that books such as Animal Farm are still important in today’s society and that they can actually relate to the “dead, old white guy” who wrote it.  I am a big proponent of reader response and incorporating young adult novels into an otherwise uninteresting book to high school students is the perfect way to engage them and have them make personal connections.

            Teachers need to understand, despite how difficult it may be, that not all of our students are readers and we will not be able to turn all of these students into readers, either.  Because of this, we must find other ways to reach out to them by catering to their learning style or their interests which sometimes interweave.  In my experience with high school students, I have become pleasantly surprised at how many appreciate and love classic rock ‘n roll such as Pink Floyd and Rush.  While these bands may seem outdated to current high school students, music is one of the best ways to reach out to those who feel disenfranchised by their teachers because of the content that is taught.  Students with their ear buds in during class is an unfortunate common sight to see; why not use this to our advantage and read out to these students through music?  Both Pink Floyd and Rush created dystopian concept albums which focus on two entirely different things, but provide ample content for our students to explore and digest in order to personally connect to Animal Farm.  By showing our students the various ways in which to connect to a text, they understand that these books are not pointless and are still relevant today which will drive their interests further and maybe, hopefully, turn them into readers.  While it would be impossible to teach an entire album to a class as part of a unit, it could easily be discussed and partially explored in class and even turned into a type of a culminating project which would provide for a wonderful summative assessment. 

            News articles would be great to teach with music lyrics, especially older ones from Pink Floyd, because it will show how music from the 1970s or 1980s can still apply today.  Not all of our students are going to be interested in class rock ‘n roll but by incorporating the current with the old, they will begin to draw the same connection between Animal Farm and how its relevance to today’s society.  A current news article would be a great way to introduce Animal Farm and a bell ringer journal response could be used for this.  I would pick the news articles from my resource collection, put a different article on each students’ desk, and have them respond to the same question which would connect back to our main focus: how does power corrupt?  After students had a chance to respond in their writer’s notebooks, they would receive something similar to an anticipation guide which would further their thinking on the subject.  This would lead into a great Socratic seminar discussion in which students would express their thoughts on power and corruption in today’s society which would ultimately connect back to Animal Farm.  By introducing a canonical text this way, students will understand how a current issue has been discussed for far longer than their lifetimes which will help them see the relevance that books such as Animal Farm still have today.

            Another way to help students digest Animal Farm is to draw some focus on the historical context.  While I would not spend too much time on this, I think it is important for a book such as this because students need to understand why it was written and how it connects to history, which in turn shapes today’s geopolitical climate.  Propaganda from the Russian Revolution would be a great resource to use and while I did not include in my resource collection, it will help students understand the thinking of the time in Russia.  I chose not to include propaganda simply because I wanted to focus more on corruption and power instead of the Russian Revolution.  However, I think they would prove to a wonderful asset in the classroom when putting the book into context. 

            For a final assessment I think that giving students a choice as to what their assignment is would be a great idea.  Of course, I would have the assignments chosen for them to pick from but they would offer a chance for students to showcase their learning styles and their individual strengths.  I would not highlight this but the main focus of these assignments would be writing since I want students to understand how writing can influence people’s opinions.  I would have them look back at the news articles we looked at along with some of the artwork that I chose for them to study.  One option would be to create a storyboard in which they would write their own comic that would include power, corruption, and how they reciprocate.  Another option would be to write a song or come up with a concept album such as the ones by Rush and Pink Floyd and the last option would be to write an argumentative essay that would respond to absolute power corrupting absolutely and where this has been seen in the novel, history, and in current times.  All of these options cater to different learning styles while helping students draw connections to the core text: Animal Farm.  By allowing choices among our students and their assessments, they actually enjoy what they are doing and will most likely not see it so much as work but as a way to express themselves.

            Animal Farm is not a text that is normally read for enjoyment by today’s high school students.  Our students are reading Divergent and The Hunger Games, devouring the movies, and exploring totalitarian governments in new ways.  Unfortunately, they are also being exposed to corruption on the world stage and sometimes even in their social circles.  Animal Farm is a classic that I personally believe all students need to be exposed to at one point or another but teachers face an uphill battle when trying to get their students to connect to it along with other canonical texts that are included in high school curricula.  We need to use the current resources available along with our students’ interests so that we can help them see the relevance of these books which often leave students wondering, “why am I having to read this?”