Hi there.

Thank you for joining me today.

My name is Mr Barnsley.

It's great to see you.

We're looking at Animal Farm today, and in particular, we're going to be thinking about how we can weave context into one of our essays.

It's a tricky topic, but it's one I really, really love doing because I think it really enhances our writing, our analytical writing.

OK, it's time to get started.

So let's have a look at today's outcome then.

I can understand what context is and how to weave it into my responses.

And that second part is going to be key.

My favourite essay is I love reading work by pupils where they have confidently woven their context into their responses.

So we're going to really look at this as to what that looks like and what that means.

So there are five key words in today's lesson.

They are liberalism, ideology, socialism, satire and weave.

The definitions of each of these words are about to appear on screen.

Take your time to read through them carefully, pausing the video if you need to.

And if you wish, you may even wish to jot these down somewhere.

But it's really important that we recognise all these words, feel confident with these words, so we're not confused by them when they appear later in the lesson.

OK, here come those definitions.

OK, let's look at the outline of today's lesson then.

There are going to be two learning cycles.

First, we're going to think about what is context and what context is relevant to Animal Farm.

And then we're going to think about how we make that meaningful.

And that's going to kind of meet the second part of our outcome about weaving it in, making sure it's meaningful, making sure it's not just said because we know, oh, I should include some context.

But it actually helps us develop our arguments.

But let's start by thinking about what context is.

So we can think about context in four different ways.

So first of all, we can think about historical context.

So what was happening when the text was written? OK, what was happening in the world? What was happening in the country where the writer lived? What were they being inspired by? And yes, so really think about how might that influence the text? How might that influence their writing, their thinking? There's also literary.

This is, well, what influenced the text style or genre? What other things were being written at the time? And do we know anything about its production or publication? Was there anything about the publication of a certain text that was more challenging for different reasons? And those things might be linked, historical and literary might be linked.

You may see different types of writing flourishing because a certain thing was happening in history.

Our next type of context is social context.

So this is all about what were the shared ideas of value at the time? What did society value at the time? And how are these explored in the text? Where do we see these these ideas shared and explored in different texts? And finally, there's biographical context.

So this is thinking about the life experience of that very specific writer or author, and how that might have influenced the text.

So have a discussion then.

How could you answer these questions in relation to Animal Farm? OK, so thinking about what we know about Orwell, think about what we know when it was written.

Let's try and pull out some ideas.

What do we know about the historical, literary, social or biographical context? OK, pause the video.

If you've got a partner, this would be a great activity for you to kind of bounce some ideas, talk through this together.

But don't worry if you're working by yourself.

You may wish to do this as a maybe as a spider diagram on a bit of paper.

OK, so pause the video, give this a go and press play when you are ready to continue.

OK, fantastic.

I heard some wonderful discussions there.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you might have said.

So for historical, you may have said, well, we know this was post World War Two.

This was written just after the end of World War Two.

And we know that in Russia, it was in the middle of Stalin's totalitarian regime.

They were in power.

It was interesting because Russia had been an ally of Britain and the United States during World War Two.

But we could see there was this kind of worrying totalitarian regime, or many would have viewed it as a very worrying regime occurring in Stalin's Russia.

Literary wise, well, we know that originally the title of the book was called Animal Farm, a Fairy Story.

And we know there are lots of traditions and conventions of fable and fairy tale.

OK, these have existed for many, like years and years, hundreds of years before the writing of Animal Farm.

But that is a literary context that we have to understand.

We have to understand what what do we expect of fables, what are the traditions of fables and fairy tales.

So that's something we need to consider.

For the social context, you might have talked about political systems. We know this is a very political novella and we've had you should have had discussions about different political ideologies.

This is very much looking at a far left ideology, but it does, of course, critique different political ideologies as well.

And you might think about like director, directors.

Dictators even, and methods of power.

So we might think of totalitarian regimes and we can make comparisons to totalitarian regimes that we might have seen across history.

And biographically, you might have previously learned some things about George Orwell, and you might have known that actually at times in his life he chose to live in the slums of London and Paris, because for him it was very important that he witnessed how different people lived their lives and particularly people who were not as fortunate as him.

So there are some of the things that you might have picked out from your initial understanding of Animal Farm and from your initial discussions that you might have had in previous lessons.

Let's do a check then.

Check we are understanding which of my four types of context is missing and bonus points if you can remember what that means, what questions we should be asking ourselves.

So pause the video, have a think and press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Well done if you said literary and literary refers to what influenced the text style or genre, or is there anything we need to know about production or publication, any issues around that.

So it's all about what was popular at the time or what were the literary influences were when a text was being written.

Well done if you remembered that.

OK, so let's just carry on checking our understanding then about different types of context.

Lucas and Jun have both made some comments and I want you to think about which of the four types of context each pupil is exploring.

Let's start with Lucas.

Lucas said, it was at Eton that Orwell discovered liberalism and socialist ideologies.

These are reflected in the political ideals that underpin Animal Farm.

Which of our four types of context do you think this is? Historical, literary, social or biographical? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Tricky one.

Well done if you said biographical.

I could see why you might have talked about social as well, because it talks around political ideologies, but this was very much focused on Orwell himself and where his political ideologies came from.

They came from his time at university.

Well done if you said biographical.

Let's look at Jun.

Jun said Orwell's interesting choice of animals as lead protagonists of a political satire, reveal the influence of the fable tradition on the novella.

Pause, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Yes, well done if you said literary.

So Jun is leaning into the literary context, thinking about what satire looks like, thinking about what fables look like and how they have influenced Orwell and his writing.

Well done if you got both of those answers correct.

That's brilliant.

OK, over to you now.

You're going to do a practise activity.

I've got some contextual notes on Orwell for you and some further contextual information.

These can all be found in the additional materials.

So you're going to need to make sure you've got this in front of you to be able to do this activity.

As you read, I want you to complete the table below, making notes about the contextual details that you learn and that helps us support our understanding in the novella.

So we're going to take our initial ideas that we discussed earlier in the lesson, and now we're going to try and dig a little bit deeper.

We're trying to come up with some more complex ideas around context using that extra additional materials that have been provided for you.

Okay, pause the video.

Read very carefully.

Make sure you look at the questions on the screen.

They'll really help you decide if this is a historical, literary, social or biographical context.

All right.

Over to you now.

Pause the video.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

I saw some fantastic work there.

I really was impressed by those of you who were looking carefully at the questions on the screen and comparing that to the additional materials, like flicking between the two to make sure you weren't missing anything.

That was great.

Really, really pleased to see that.

OK, let's have a look at some of the things you may have said then.

So for historical context, you may have mentioned that Orwell uses his characters to represent historical figures from the Russian Revolution.

Squealer, for example, represents Pravda, which is the Soviet newspaper.

From a literary contextual perspective, you may have talked about how he struggled to get the novella published.

Its allegorical features made it far too controversial and risky.

So lots of people didn't want to publish this, particularly because Russia at the time had been an ally and it feels very controversial, very risky.

So it's interesting or something we may wish to talk about that this was not a straightforward publication of this novella.

For social context, you may have flagged the rise of fascism and extreme political ideologies.

So Animal Farm is a timeless exploration of these issues.

Yes, Animal Farm is a critique of communism in Russia at the time, but it can equally be argued or interpreted.

You know, readers might equally argue and interpret this as a criticism of fascism or other extreme political ideologies.

That's why this is a timeless classic.

And finally, biographically, you may have talked about Orwell's work for the BBC.

This inspired him to write that all propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.

We know Orwell is extremely critical of political language, of propaganda, and we see this throughout.

But we've got this added bit of information that he actually worked for the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, you know, the state corporate broadcasting body.

And working for them made him even more critical than he already was about propaganda, political language and jargon.

So some really interesting ideas that we can take forward into our second learning cycle.

So we are going to now work on our second learning cycle, which is all about meaningful context, about using this context well to enhance our writing and not just bolting on and using it for the sake of it.

So we're going to imagine if people wanted to answer this question, how does Orwell use the character of Squealer to explore ideas around lies and propaganda? OK, if you might have looked at the character of Squealer in a lot of detail, you'll know lots of things about him and you'll know that he is a construct Orwell uses to criticise lies and propaganda.

Why do you think then context might be helpful here? What context might be helpful here and why might it be helpful? Have a think, pause the video, press play when you are ready to continue.

I heard some fantastic ideas there, people going back and forth, really thinking about what you were talking about in the first discussion, what you looked at on the additional materials.

Some things that people were highlighting were that Squealer is an allegory for Pravda, which is the communist newspaper, but he could also represent Molotov.

We also know Orwell struggled to get the novella published due to its controversial exploration of Soviet propaganda and its role in exploitation and a reminder that, you know, Russia had recently been allies to the UK and the US.

We know that Squealer demonstrates the pivotal role of propaganda in establishing.

So that Squealer is a construct and he shows how important propaganda is in establishing totalitarian regimes reflecting post World War Two anxieties.

You know, we've just seen this totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany defeated in World War Two, but there's real anxieties that this could happen again.

And Squealer is a construct used to explore just how important propaganda is in establishing those totalitarian regimes.

And we know that Orwell believes that all propaganda is lies, so we can, right from the very beginning, knowing that contextual fact allows us to really start to think about, well, what's Orwell's purpose going to be here? How is he going to be using Squealer? What message is he going to want to portray through his novel, through the character, the construct of Squealer? Well done if you said any of those things, they are fantastic ideas.

So Laura writes a response and she includes some context.

Let's have a look what she says.

She says, Orwell establishes Squealer as a master of language and manipulation.

He embodies a much broader concept of deceit and his key purpose for Orwell is to illustrate how powerful language can be a means of political control.

Contextually, we know that Orwell developed Squealer to represent the newspaper Pravda and Molotov, Stalin's deeply loyal minister for foreign affairs.

Now this first draught doesn't weave context into the paragraph.

It kind of sticks it on the end.

It's there, she's included it in her response, and these are useful things to talk about, but it doesn't really form part of her argument.

It means it's slightly less skillful.

To me, it shows me that Laura understands, but it doesn't show me that Laura has used this knowledge to build her own arguments.

It doesn't show me that she used it.

It shows me she understands what was happening at the time or what Orwell was trying to do.

But it doesn't show me that she understands why Orwell was doing that.

OK, so what we want to do is we want to weave our context into the paragraph.

We want to make that context part of our argument.

We want to build it into our sentences.

We want to use it as justification for our inferences.

We want to use it to develop our ideas.

Let's have a look at how Laura does it a second time round.

Orwell establishes Squealer as a master of language and manipulation.

Indeed, Orwell uses Squealer to satirise the communist newspaper Pravda and its ironic translation of truth.

Likewise, some allegorical readings also suggest that Squealer represents Molotov, Stalin's deeply loyal minister for Russian affairs.

For foreign affairs, sorry.

Ultimately, Squealer embodies a much broader concept of deceit and his key purpose for Orwell is to illustrate how powerful language can be a means of political control.

OK, we are getting there.

This is much better.

This is part of the argument.

We're linking with what Orwell's purpose is to do.

He's satirising the newspaper Pravda.

He's also making links to the Russian political party and Stalin's loyal ministers.

But all of this is to prove this point.

What is Orwell trying to say through Squealer? That actually, deceit is key in.

Deceitful language, powerful language is all key in gaining political control.

Much stronger answer from Laura there.

Well done to her.

Right, over to you now.

You're going to have a look at Sam's paragraph and we're going to see how they have weaved context into their response.

So Orwell reveals Squealer's ruthless character who, like Molotov, his allegorical counterpart, uses a combination of force and propaganda to crush any political opposition.

Squealer's instrumental role in the show Trials and his lack of remorse in twisting loyal boxers debt to his advantage speaks directly to Orwell's view that all propaganda is lies.

Pause the video.

Have a discussion if you've got a partner or just make some notes if you're working by yourself.

How has Sam used context in their paragraph successfully? Pause the video.

Over to you.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Great ideas and well done to those of you who were literally kind of quoting sections of Sam's response while you were talking through your thoughts there.

Let's have a look then.

So we know that Sam has made a very valid point that Squealer is meant to be an allegory for Molotov and that's been embedded into their response.

But they've taken that and gone so much further and not just said, oh, this is a similarity.

They said actually, OK, well, what is Orwell showing through this? He's saying, well, you know, through Molotov and through propaganda, we see this idea that, you know, Orwell believes all propaganda are lies and we can see this through Squealer's behaviour.

Squealer's behaviour is awful.

You know, he leads the death of animals in the show trials.

He lies about Boxer's death.

He uses it to his advantage.

All of this is terrible behaviour.

It's all propaganda.

It's all lies.

So they're linking Orwell's thoughts to Squealer's actions.

Really well done, Sam.

Really well done if you said any of those things.

OK, let's check how we're all getting on then.

Which of my two students, Andy or Sophia, weaves context most successfully into their response? Is it Andy who says Squealer could turn black into white, this shows he represents Pravda and the wider idea of propaganda.

Or is it Sophia who says Squealer could turn black into white, reflecting the powerful role of language and serving Orwell's purpose to satirise the Soviets use of propaganda through publications like Pravda? Pause the video.

Have a think.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

That was, of course, Sophia.

Andy kind of just tags his onto the end.

He does mention Pravda, so he is using context.

But Sophia has clearly used the context to link the quotation to Orwell's purpose.

It's almost like the glue which links quotation to purpose.

It's the context.

She's really used that in her justification.

I think it's a great, great idea from Sophia there.

So well done if you got that correct.

OK, over to our final task in today's lesson then.

You are going to be answering the question, how does Orwell use the character Squealer to explore ideas around lies and propaganda? You're going to be writing your own paragraph, but we're really, really going to be focusing on you weaving context into your response.

So, yes, I want to see other brilliant things like quotations, a really good topic sentence.

I want to see discourse markers.

I want to see you comparing quotes from across the text.

I want you to do some analysis.

But what we are focusing on today is context.

So think about how you use context to develop your ideas, to explain Orwell's purpose.

So here are four little bits of context that you may wish to bring into your response.

You may wish to bring in other ideas that you have as well.

You don't just need to use these, but they are there on the screen to help you if you wish.

Again, you'll want to give yourself plenty of time to do this writing, so give yourself a good 15, 20 minutes.

So I want you to pause the video and press play when you are ready to continue, good luck.

Welcome back.

Fantastic job there.

Really, really pleased to see you all working so diligently, and so hard on that.

And I really like that you were going back to the additional materials and using all of the resources that you had available to make sure that you weren't missing anything that you could have included in that paragraph.

It's now time for you to reread your paragraph and self-assess it using the following questions.

Have you selected context that's relevant to the question? Is your context woven into your response rather than bolted on the end? Can you identify what type of context you've included? Is it historical, literary, social or biographical? All right, time for you to pause the video, reread your work and check it against this checklist, making sure you're annotating what you have done well.

And of course, if there's any of these things you haven't done, that's perfectly fine.

Why don't you set it as a target for yourself to do next time? OK, pause the video over to you and press play when you're ready to continue.

Right.

Great work today.

I always love lessons like this.

Firstly, I find context really, really interesting.

It really helps me get a greater understanding of a writer and their purpose.

But secondly, I think when you've nailed the art of weaving context in, you suddenly see your paragraphs are just elevated.

Your arguments become so much more interesting and developed.

And it's been really great seeing that learning happening today.

On the screen, you can see a summary of everything key learning from today's lesson.

Please read through this very carefully, pausing the video if you need to and making sure that you feel confident with each of these four bullet points.

If there are any that you're like, I'm not sure about that yet, I'm not quite there.

That is OK.

You may wish to rewatch a section of the video before moving on.

It'd be really great that you can move on to the next lesson.

Feeling really confident.

OK, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work.

Wishing you a fantastic day ahead of you.

And I hope to see you all soon.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye.