Animal Farm

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Animal Farm Speaks to the World”

In this activity, students will choose different characters and personas for themselves from within and outside the Animal Farm universe to create written and audiovisual reportage about the farm. Then, they will present their report and hold a panel discussion.

The pigs on Animal Farm create a propaganda machine powered by Squealer’s persuasive speech, Minimus’s patriotic writing, and the sheer terror of Napoleon’s attack dogs. They use this propaganda, along with other tactics, to present a carefully curated view of the farm to the world and hide the reality of the farm animals’ misery from all—even the animals themselves. 

• Adopt a character or persona from among the following: representative of or spokesperson for the pigs; an animal on the farm who supports the pigs; an animal on the farm who secretly harbors questions or rebellious ideas; a human who trades with Animal Farm; a writer, journalist, or documentarian who sympathizes with the pigs; a writer, journalist, or documentarian who is skeptical about Animal Farm; a neutral party who simply knows of the farm from secondhand sources
• Create reportage about the farm in line with your persona. This could include articles, short films or documentaries, posters or photographs, interviews of people on or related to the farm, and more.
• Display your reportage, along with a short bio about yourself, for the rest of the group to see.
• Follow up the display with a panel discussion on the structure, governance, and success of Animal Farm, moderated by an unbiased party. The panel ought to consist of one representative for the pigs, one human who trades with the farm, and one writer/journalist/documentarian each who sympathizes and questions the regime.
• The rest of the group will form an audience that asks the panel questions following their discussion. Pose questions to panel members in keeping with your chosen characters/personas, and the panel members, too, will respond similarly. Consider using a rubric such as this one as a model to hold audience members accountable for their attention.

Following the display of the reportage and the panel discussion, come together as a class to discuss how you created your content to fit in with your chosen character/persona’s worldview, and how both similar and different ideas presented in other reportage affected your thinking.

Teaching Suggestion: The pigs use media, propaganda, and revisionist history so that others do not fully register the deteriorating conditions on the farm. Totalitarian regimes rely on these tactics to maintain power over their citizenry and protect their stature in the rest of the world. Having the students think about the purpose of certain kinds of reportage and documentation in current culture may help them critically evaluate their own media consumption. In the whole-group discussion that follows the reportage and panel discussion, it may help to bring up questions about a source’s credibility, objectivity, and reliability.

Differentiation Suggestion: The activity provides scope for a variety of different skills to be utilized across the group, based on each student’s strengths. The teacher could help different students pick a persona/character and reportage style suited to their level: Those who are comfortable with written expression could put together interviews, articles, or profiles; those who prefer a visual medium could create posters or comics; those who are comfortable with a digital medium could create the documentary films or photographs; those comfortable performing on stage could comprise the panel, or pose as journalists and audience members asking the panelists questions. Students can also work in pairs or small teams to create the reportage, to complement different skill sets.