Lesson 5: Animal Farm, Chapter II

Turn-and-Talk

Directions: Take out Animal Farm and your annotations. Turn and talk with your partner about the following question:

• What moments in the text suggest that the pigs are starting to take charge?

Introduce New Words Using Morphology Target Words: pre-eminent, disciples

Directions: Read the text from p. 18 of Animal Farm. Then, discuss the questions with a partner.

• “Their most faithful disciples were the two carthorses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments. They were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meetings in the barn, and led the singing of Beasts of England, with which the meetings always ended.”

Turn and discuss these questions with a partner:

• How is the word faithful a context clue to the meaning of the word disciples?

• How are Boxer’s and Clover’s actions context clues to what the word disciples means?

Part A: Analyze Dialogue and Incidents in a Story

Think-Pair-Share

Directions: Incidents and dialogue can be instrumental in revealing character and moving action forward in a story. Choose one of the prompts below, closely read that paragraph and then discuss the prompt with a partner.

• Prompt 1: “The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called them together again.” (p. 23) What does this incident show about the characters? How does it move the plot forward?

• Prompt 2: “The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had taught themselves to read and write . . .” (p. 23). Why is it important that the pigs have learned to read and write? How do they use their new skills?

• Prompt 3: Read the dialogue that ends Chapter 2. What decision does Napoleon make? What does it reveal about Napoleon’s character?

Part B: Analyze the Impact of Specific Word Choices

Turn-and-Talk

Directions: Review pp. 23-25. Turn and talk to discuss the following questions:

• What connotation does the word studies have? How does it characterize the pigs?

• Why do you think the pigs called their directives commandments instead of rules or laws? How does the sentence that follows underscore the reason for this word choice?

• Who establishes these commandments? What does the description “unalterable law” reveal about the power structure on the new Animal Farm?

• Why might the pigs control the reading and writing tasks?

• If literacy is a form of power, who benefits—and who is left out?

Quick Write

Directions: Choose one of the Seven Commandments on pp. 24–25. In a Quick Write of one to two sentences, describe an example of an animal breaking that commandment. Use at least one piece of text evidence from pp. 15–26.