Lesson 10: Animal Farm, Chapter V, Part 2

Students discuss what changes occur in the second half of Chapter V.

Turn-and-Talk

Have students take out their copies of Animal Farm and their homework from the previous lesson.

• Lesson 9 Homework: Students read pp. 52–58 of Chapter V of Animal Farm and responded to the prompt:

  • What changes happen in this part of the text, and what is the impact on Animal Farm?

Say these Directions: Turn and talk to a peer to discuss the prompt:

• What changes happen in the second half of Chapter V, and what is the impact on Animal Farm?

  • Napoleon attacks Snowball with his trained dogs, and Snowball is forced to leave the farm. Napoleon then takes over as the leader and explains that all decisions would be “settled by a special committee of pigs” (p. 54). Squealer then tells the animals that Snowball is a “criminal” (p. 55), and the animals accept this information. One impact on the animals is that they are silenced by fear and believe Squealer’s propaganda, as they accept “his explanation without further questions” (p. 58).

Circulate and listen to the discussions to make sure students understand that Napoleon staged a coup.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Yesterday, you analyzed how Snowball and Napoleon try to persuade the animals through argument. In this lesson, you’ll see what happens when persuasion turns into manipulation using fear. You will examine what happens when leaders start rewriting the truth to influence belief.

Introduce New Words Using Morphology

Target Words: articulate, disinterred

Say these Directions: In this lesson, we are learning about the words articulate and disinterred. Let’s explore them using morphemes.

Introduce the Word: Present the word articulate and pronounce it.

• Ask: Have you seen the word articulate before? Where?

Teach the word articulate:

• Say: The word articulate is interesting because it can be used as an adjective or as a verb. When used as an adjective, it can mean“well-spoken” and easy to understand, especially because all the pieces of what is being said come together as a clear whole. It can also be used as an adjective that means ‘made up of linked parts that work together,’ like a robot can have an articulated arm. When used as a verb, it can mean ‘to pronounce clearly’ as in “voice to text performs better if you articulate all your syllables,” or it can mean to form a joint, as in “you have to articulate the gas pipes carefully if you don’t want leaks that lead to explosions.”

Connect to the Root: Underline the root articul in articulate. Explain that even though speaking and joints are different things, the word comes from the Latin articulus, which means “distinctly, in clear sequence” and “separated in parts.”

• Ask: Do you know any other words with the root articul? Language Connection: Connect to the article (as in part of a whole magazine) and articulated (both are relating to parts of a whole).

Teach the word disinterred:

Introduce the Word: Present the word disinterred on the board and pronounce it.

• Ask: Have you seen the word disinterred before? Where?

Identify the Root: Underline the base word inter in disinterred. Explain that inter is from the Latin interrare, which means “to put in the earth.” The word in- or en- meant “in,” and ter came from the Latin word terra for “earth.”

• Ask: What are some words you know that connect to inter or ter?

  • subterranean, terraform

Language Connection: Connect to cognates in other Latin-based languages (Spanish: disenterrada; French: déterrée; Italian: dissotterrata).

Identify Affixes: Circle dis- and -ed in disinterred. Explain that dis- means “not, or lack of,” while -ed indicates the past tense verb.

• Ask: What do you think the prefix dis- might mean based on words you know, like disinterested?

  • not

Language Connection: Connect to other words with the prefix dis-, showing how the prefix often means “not,” like in dishonest (not honest), disallow (to not allow), and disability (not having an ability).

Determine Meaning:

• Ask: Using what we know about dis-, inter, and ed, what do you think disinterred means?

  • to dig something up out of the ground

Build Word Relationships: Write disinterred next to unearthed.

• Ask: What is the relationship between disinterred and unearthed?

  • They are synonyms—they both mean “to dig something up.”

Tell students that this vocabulary will be further analyzed in this lesson's text analysis work. Allow students to share their work.

• Say: Explain to a partner how understanding the word root and affixes helped you to understand the word.

Connection to Today’s Learning

• Say: Understanding these words will help us analyze what happened after the debate between Snowball and Napoleon.

Part A: Analyzing Napoleon’s Coup (RL.8.3) (15 minutes)

Students work in small groups to close read a section of Chapter V and analyze Napoleon’s coup.

Turn and Talk

• Say: Today, you will reread the second half of Chapter V, the scene with Napoleon’s takeover. As you read, pay close attention to the order of events and the descriptions that Orwell includes. You might highlight words or phrases that reveal aspects of character, force a decision, or move the action forward.

Explain what a coup is to the students.

• Say: In this scene, Napoleon commits a coup. A coup is the often violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group or an individual. Napoleon has committed a coup by taking over the farm and expelling Snowball so that he can be the leader.

Place students in small groups to read and discuss why the coup described is important to advancing the plot of the novel.

Say these Directions: With your group, close read pp. 52–58 of Chapter V of Animal Farm, beginning with the sentence “But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball . . .” After reading, discuss the following questions. Make sure when you contribute ideas, you use specific text evidence to support your thinking:

• What is revealed about Napoleon’s character through the coup in this excerpt? What evidence in the text supports your interpretation?

  • This excerpt reveals how calculating Napoleon is. He had to be planning his coup for almost a year if the pups he took from their mothers back in Chapter III “were huge dogs” (p. 53). This coup also shows that he is an authoritarian ruler. He announces many changes that exclude the animals and explains that they will “receive their orders . . . but there would be no more debates” (p. 54). He silences the animals by not giving them any decision-making power and uses Squealer to justify his coup.

• What do we learn about the animals from their reactions to Snowball’s expulsion and Napoleon’s takeover?

  • As expected and planned by Napoleon, animals are “too amazed and frightened to speak” and become “silent and terrified” when the dogs return (p. 53). However, Orwell shows readers that the animals are starting to understand that Napoleon planned this coup, as they solve “the problem” of where the dogs came from and they “noticed that they [dogs] wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones” (p. 53).

• What changes are made on the farm as a result of Napoleon's new leadership? How do these changes impact the animals and their agency?

  • Their Sunday morning meetings were the moment in the week when the animals had a say in what was happening on the farm. As soon as Napoleon took the stage, he declared, “They were unnecessary . . . and wasted time” (p. 54). Instead of the Sunday morning debates, the meeting would be about the animals receiving “their orders” (p. 54). Essentially, the animals have been stripped of agency in the workings of the farm and would no longer have a voice in how the farm operates.

Invite student groups to share insights with the whole class about each question.

Part B: Analyze Pathos, Logos, and Ethos (RL.8.3, RL.8.4) (15 minutes)

Teach: Rhetorical Appeals - Logos, Pathos, Ethos

• Say: We have learned about different types of rhetorical techniques, such as scapegoating, bandwagon, fear, and idealism in earlier lessons. Usually, rhetorical techniques are said to use one or more types of rhetorical appeal that they use to convince their audience.

Present the following explanations of logos, pathos, and ethos, and review the rhetorical devices from Lesson 2.

• logos: Logos describes rhetorical techniques that seek to convince and persuade people via logic and reason. Logos is often supported by statistics, cited facts and statements by authorities, and concrete data.

• pathos: Pathos describes rhetorical techniques that base their appeal on emotion. This can mean trying to persuade others through sympathy or pity or making an audience angry in the service of inspiring action or changing minds.

• ethos: Ethos describes rhetorical techniques that try to convince others that the speaker is an ethical and credible source and that their words have weight and must be taken seriously. Speakers who use ethos project the idea that they have the experience and judgment necessary to decide what is right or wrong.

• Ask: How do these appeals relate to what we have previously studied?

  • We have studied rhetorical techniques and propaganda, and these appeals relate to the techniques and propaganda we have previously studied. Logos describes logical appeals such as bandwagon and idealism. Pathos describes emotional and fear appeals. Ethos describes the cult of personality technique.

• Say: You can easily remember the Greek term logos because it is the root word in logical. The same with ethos and ethical. Pathos is the root of the word sympathy, which is an emotion.

Explain that Napoleon and Squealer use logos, ethos, and pathos to advance their causes and establish their authority. Read the paragraph on p. 55 that begins “Bravery is not” and ends with “want Jones back?”

• Say: When I read this paragraph, I see how Squealer combines ethos and pathos. He calls upon such ideals as bravery, loyalty, obedience, and discipline, all concepts that the animals should embrace as part of the revolution. Then he warns that if they don’t embrace these ideals, “our enemies would be upon us,” which sounds like a threat and elicits fear in the animals. Whenever he mentions Jones’s return, he is calling forth fear in the other animals.

• Ask: Why do you think Squealer combines ethos and pathos in this excerpt?

  • Squealer wants to convince the animals to be loyal to Napoleon, be obedient, and practice discipline. He thinks the best way to make them behave is to scare them into it, and by claiming that he is the best one to communicate these ideas to the animals.

Turn-and-Talk

Say these Directions: Review the last part of Chapter V, beginning on p. 52. Focus on examples of Napoleon and Squealer using logos, pathos, or ethos. Then, discuss the following questions with a partner, providing specific examples from the novel:

• How does Napoleon use logos, pathos, and/or ethos during the coup?

  • Napoleon presents his opinions as if they are facts, making his arguments appear to be grounded in logos. For example, he cancels Sunday-morning Meetings because “They were unnecessary . . . and wasted time” (p. 54). He inspires fear, though much of that is through action, not words.

• How does Squealer use logos, pathos, and/or ethos to explain the coup?

  • Squealer appeals to ethos and pathos when he tries to convince the animals about the “sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made” in his takeover (p. 55). He uses words like “sacrifice” and “deep and heavy responsibility” to make Napoleon’s coup seem ethical and gain sympathy from the animals. He establishes Napoleon’s superiority using false logic: “He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where would we be?” (p. 55)

Lead a whole-class discussion once students have had time to discuss the questions.

3-2-1 Summary

Say these Directions: Reflect on the lesson today using a 3–2–1 Summary. Make sure to use specific evidence from the novel in your response and to include the following:

• 3 important words/phrases

• 2 key details or ideas

• 1 sentence explaining what the excerpt is mostly about

Instruct students to review their annotations and notes for Chapters I-V of Animal Farm and respond to the following prompt in their Journal to prepare for the following lesson’s debate.

• By the end of Chapter V, which force has the strongest influence on the animals: ideals, propaganda, or fear? Use text evidence to support your thinking.