Grade: Middle
Subject: Literature

#2064. animal farm

Literature, level: Middle
Posted Tue Dec 5 10:43:51 PST 2000 by Mustafa Günözü (gunozu@yahoo.com).
BU, IST/turkey
Materials Required: Worksheets,Pictures of some animalsThe novel: Animal Farm,Tape recorder
Activity Time: 35 mins

Level: Upper-Intermediate
Age:15-16
ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE
¨Ss haven't read the novel yet.
¨They are able to describe pictures, their feelings and attitudes etc...
¨They are able analyse the characters in a novel.
¨They can make inferences using textual clues.
¨They can identift importnat aspects and theme in a novel.
¨They can write paragraphs and short articles on a given topic using their background
knowledge and imagination.
¨They are able to comprehend and interpret short listening passages.
¨They are used to working in groups and pairs cooperatively.

PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

¨Students will be able to use their pre-existing knowledge and schemata to guess the topic of a novel by looking at the title, cover page and pictures.
¨Students will be able to make up an imaginary story in relation to the title and pictures or given keywords or sentences.
¨Students will be able to work cooperatively as agroup and explain their thoughts coherently.
¨Students will be able to discuss possible events and draw conclusions.
¨Students will be able to develop positive attitudes towards reading longer literary texts like novels and plays.

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS

¨Students may not be motivated enough to participate in the activities.
¨Students amy have some difficulty in understanding what to do in a specific activity.
¨Some students misbehave and get off-task.
¨Students may exceed the allotted time for each activity.
¨Some students may not be interested in the content of the reading text.

SOLUTIONS TO ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS

¨By starting with a warm-up using pictures and cover page, t tries to catch students'
attention. He tries to make the lesson and reading novels as enjoyable as watching a film.
¨T gives very clear and comprehensible instructions and checks comprehension by getting
feedback from students
¨T walks among the students and tries to keep them involved in the lesson by making them
engaged in meaningful and purposeful activities.
¨T states the allotted time for each activity so that students will be timi,ng
themselvesaccordingly and he reminds them of the time left during the activities.

¨T tries to arouse students' curiosity through all these warm-up activities to make sure that
they leave the classroom being eager and enthusiastic enough to read the novel at home.

REFERENCES

Collie,J. And Slater, S.(1987) Literature in the class: A resource book of ideas and activities.Cambridge: CUP
http://www.search.corbis.com


T greets the students and asks them whether they know the title of the new novel they are going to read.T asks: "Which animals can be heroes? Try to guess!" Then he puts the pictures of the animals that the students tell on the board."Which characteristic of that animal makes you think so?" he asks.Then he asks them to discuss in pairs (in 2 minutes) and speculate about the book, its story and mood and describe the roles of the animals in the novel.He asks: Is it related to politics, psychology or something else? Does it include violence? Are there too many action in it or is it static story? Do you think it is dramatic?
T takes a song from the novel which gives an idea about the whole text and uses this song as keysentences. Then he asks them to create their own story using their imagination and creativity and utilize the the animals on the board and the concepts in the song in their story.T says: " Now you are going to listen to a short summary of the first chapter in the novel. While the first time you are listening, try to get a genearal idea of what happens in the first cahapter.After the first listening, T gives them a worksheet and asks them to try to fill in the blanks using their memories.Then T lets Ss listen to the summary for the second time. This time Ss fill in all the missing information. Then the T elicits the correct anwers.

Ater the listening activity, T asks Ss to predict waht will happen next. He wants them to write a paragraph which summarizes the second cahapter.(As they know the first chapter roughly.)T gives a T/F questions worksheet to the Ss to do at home while they are reading the 2nd, 3rd and 4th chapters.T says: "Now you know that animals are almost ready to rebel against the owner of the farm. Certainly they have to make some plans to implement this idea. Imagine yourself in the novel and try to prepare some plans and guidelines. Take every thing into consideration so that the rebellion becomes successful. (How would you behave if you were in the shoes of the animals.)