#1197. Bring Your Character in a Bag - Animal Farm

Literature, level: Middle
Posted Tue Jul 27 07:42:19 PDT 1999 by Patricia Carter (carterpm99@yahoo.com).
Pennfield Middle School - North Penn School District, Hatfield, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Materials Required: novel (Animal Farm), bag full of items, notecards
Activity Time: 2 class periods after novel is read.
Concepts Taught: allegory, symbolism, oral presentation

Title: Bring your Animal Farm character in a bag

Subject/Grade Level: English 9

Objectives: Students will be able to interpret a chosen character from the novel Animal Farm and represent that character in original symbolic form and present orally to the class.

Materials: novel (Animal Farm), bag of "symbols", notecards with explainations of each symbol.

Procedure: Prior to lesson, be sure each student has a clear historical understanding of the Russian Revolution (taught in conjunction in Social Studies class). Also, each student understands what an allegory is and who or what each character in Animal Farm represents.
- Each student chooses one character from novel. Try to have as many different characters as possible.
- Each student must present his/her character to the class using 7-10 objects in a symbolic bag (which also must be symbolically significant). Symbols may be objects found around the house or they may be hand made. Do not be concrete with the symbols (example - a pig figurine for Napolean).
- Each student must present his/her character to the class by showing each symbol and explaining its importance.

Assessment: Rubric (points may altered) based on
- completeness (7-10 items and note cards)
- creativity / originality
- oral communication