Candidate Name: Melissa Gallegos Date: April 12-15, 2005

School: Inman Middle School Cooperating Teacher: Hurt

Grade Level: 8 Subject: Language Arts

College Supervisor: Dr. Bartley

Title: Animal Farm: Propaganda

Overview: Introduces the concept of propaganda and its major techniques to a 8^th grade LA class; applies techniques to AF; and has students create their own propaganda.

Goals: To define propaganda; to analyze use of techniques in AF; to create own propaganda using common techniques on a current topic.

Objectives: SWBA to define propaganda and give examples from history or the novel; SWBA apply propaganda techniques to the novel and to their own writing; SWBA to cooperatively create propaganda of their own on a certain topic; SWBA to present their propaganda in an engaging fashion.

Curricular connections: QCCs: 1, 14, 15, 19, 22, 29, 43, 69, 70.

Materials: technique cards, transparency of propaganda, Dilemma! prompt, peer review sheet, and presentation rubric

Time: 2 hours instructional time over 4 days

Day One

Engage: The journal for the day (“Write everything you know about propaganda”) serves as both test for previous knowledge, access to previous knowledge, and a hook. Students can discuss their answers, particularly highlighting any examples they remember from other classes.

Explain/Explore: Guide the students into listing a possible definition, examples from history, and methods of producing effective propaganda.

*Propaganda: “ideas, fact, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” (Websters College)

*Examples: McCarthyism, WWII (Hitler, the US), American Revolution (Common Sense)

*Methods: threats, logic, lies, stereotyping, feeling, justice, promises, guilt, blame, fear, etc.

Closure: Summarize the definition of propaganda, going over a few historical examples and methods or one’s from the book. “Jones will come back” is a good example to use. Explain that the class will apply the concept the next day.

Day Two

Engage: The journal again acts as an engaging technique. The journal requires a transparency of a piece of visual propaganda that the students are likely to understand. This plan uses an Elements of Literature Second Course Fine Arts transparency entitled “The Jewish Children in the Ghettos and Camps” by Israel Bernbaum. The students are asked to analyze the picture. What cause is the artist trying to convey? What message overall? How is the message conveyed? Through what images? To what does the artist appeal to in you? What methods of propaganda are used. Next to the projected image is the list the class created the day before for reference.

Explore: The students read their journals or otherwise share their answers. Make sure that students explain how they reached a conclusion about the main message of the work. What details in the picture led them to that conclusion. With this piece of work, there is a lot of detail to work with, including the intentional use of children and the defensive position of the children in the foreground. (Which almost makes it look like we are the enemy, which could be a message of the work.)

Explain: Bring together the interpretations, if possible. Explain that any piece of communication, visual or aural, has the potential to be propaganda. Paintings are not usual, but they are possible. Most especially, though, this piece shows that propaganda is not inherently bad or untruthful. It’s just a cause proffered by someone.

Closure: Having reiterated the definition of propaganda, close by saying the class has just analyzed a piece of propaganda. There will be more the next day, from Animal Farm, which, we know, is ridden with it. Being able to question the motives of communication is an incredibly useful skill. The other animals on the farm, after all, lacked this particular skill.

Day Three – Four (or Five)

Engage: The journal asks the students to look at the poem by Minimus about Napoleon in the book (page 100 of the Signet Classic 1996 edition) as a piece of propaganda. What is the cause? How is it conveyed? What methods (of propaganda) are used? The students then discuss their answers in small groups of three or four.

Explain: The students then receive a few technique cards, from http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm, which collectively detail eleven of the most common propaganda techniques. The students are asked to read the cards as a group. The teacher is able, during this time, to answer any comprehension questions or otherwise monitor the situation.

Explore: They are then asked find an example of the techniques in Animal Farm. This is a very good opportunity to check understanding of the techniques. Emphasize that students are to remain focused on these techniques for the rest of the period.

Once they have provided good examples from AF, they are given a Dilemma! Prompt and instructed to create propaganda for a certain cause (encouraging fellow students to behave so that 8^th grade activities are not cancelled – a real life issue at the moment). They must employ their technique cards. They are told that their evaluation will depend on how well they persuade the peers in their class. They are also told to consider the presentation as a less than five minute TV commercial spot. The students present over the course of the next day or days. They first introduce and summarize their techniques and then give the presentation. Their peers review the presentation in writing.

Extensions: If time or inclination, the class can debate which techniques are most effective in this situation, and which are most effective in Animal Farm.

Closure: Once all the groups have presented, the teacher should point out once more that, now that all the students have a passing knowledge, they are better equipped to encounter propaganda critically. This is the key to why the pigs managed so well, and the other animals were unable to defend themselves.

Assessment: informal oral assessments occur throughout the time the students are in groups as the teacher listens in and speaks with each group. Formal assessment occurs at the point of presentation. Peer input on the persuasiveness of the campaign and a general presentation rubric (plus a specific focus on the appropriate propaganda techniques) contribute to the presentation grade. Added to it is the AF example work from the group and any other materials.