Creating an

animal story –
group work

L/O: working as a group to formulate

imaginative ideas
 WALT and WILF
What Are we Learning Today
 Working in groups to create imaginative ideas for characters
and events in an animal story
 Relating your own ideas to events and characters from the
novel ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell

What I’m Looking For

 Grade C: understanding of the novel’s characters and
events
 Grade B: engagement with the novel’s characters and
events
 Grade A: sustained and sophisticated engagement with the
novel’s characters and events
Starter – group work – 10 minutes
As a group, choose one of the front covers, place it in
the centre of your paper and brainstorm some ideas
for an animal story set on a farm. Think of:

characters
plot
events
setting
theme (a central idea or topic that
continues through the text: power, greed etc)
 events

plot setting

theme
characters
Group 1 – story
(ideas from chapter 1) 30 minutes
An old animal on your
farm calls a meeting to talk
about the difficulties of living
with man and proposes a
rebellion against man so that
animals can be free…
Allocate the following jobs to
people in your group:
 Setting: where is the meeting
held on the farm – design/draw
the setting
 Characters: who is present at
the meeting and how do they
react to the animal’s proposal of
a rebellion? – draw the other
characters and attach a brief
description
 Design a song that describes
the life of an animal without man
and how animals will rule over
man
Group 2 – story
(ideas from chapter 2) 30 minutes

The animals on your Allocate the following jobs to

farm drive away the human farm people in your group:
owner and decide to create their
own rules…
 Setting: where is the meeting
held to decide the new rules –
design/draw the setting

 Characters: develop two

characters who take charge of
the other animals – one should
be innovative and the other a
tyrant – draw the characters and
attach a brief description of their
roles as leaders

 Design a list of seven

commandments that the other
animals must follow and design
a simple maxim (motto) such as:
four legs good, two legs bad
Group 3 – story
(ideas from chapters 4 and 5) 30 minutes
One of the animals in
charge on your farm is
extremely brave and leads the
others into battle against the
humans.
However, the other
leader, a tyrant who feels
intimidated by him, manages to
get the other animals to attack
him and drive him away from
the farm. He then steals his idea
to build a windmill that will
provide electricity, heat and hot
water.
Allocate the following jobs to
people in your group:
 Setting: where will the windmill
be built and what will it look like
– design/draw the setting and
windmill and label the windmill
with its different functions
 Characters: who is present at
the battle and what do they do to
the humans? – draw the
characters present at the battle
and attach a description of their
role in the battle
 Describe the thoughts behind
attacking the other leader and
design a set of commandments
that would be written by your
tyrannical leader once he has
complete control of the farm
Group 4 – story
(ideas from chapters 6, 7 and 10) 30 minutes
Some of the animals
on your farm decide to move
into the farmhouse. The rest
of the animals are left
outside and are told, and
believe, that this is a good
thing.
Due to being
overworked and always
hungry, some of the animals
start to rebel and are killed
by order of the tyrannical
leader on your farm.
Eventually, the
animals living in the
farmhouse become so
human that all the animals
left outside can’t tell the
difference.
Allocate the following jobs to
people in your group:
 Setting: what does the farmhouse
look like inside now that the animals
live in it? – design/draw the
different rooms of the farmhouse
and label them with their different
functions
 Characters: what animals are left
outside and why have they been left
outside? – draw all the characters
left outside and design your own
ideas of what their living quarters
would look like
 Design a simple slogan, like ‘four
legs good, two legs better’ and one
commandment, like ‘all animals are
equal but some animals are more
equal than others’ and place them
beneath your interpretation of the
human-like animals
Plenary – class feedback
(you have 5 minutes to formulate an answer)
 Group 1: what is the purpose of the rebellion against
man?

 Group 2: why would the commandments be important

to the animals?

 Group 3: what are the reasons behind the tyrannical

leader taking complete control and building the
windmill?

 Group 4: what is the significance of some animals

being left outside to work?