Lesson video

Hello again, and welcome to Lesson Seven of Animal Farm.

So far, we have looked at George Orwell, a Writer, as well as the background of Animal Farm and its connection to the Russian Revolution.

Last lesson, we started to look at Old Major speech and how you use his rhetoric to persuade the animals to be on his side and to see man as the enemy.

In this lesson, we're going to continue reading the speech, but this time we're focusing on how Old Major really does you use language very cleverly to show that man is an enemy to all animals.

So when you're ready, make sure you've got a quiet space to work, as well as a pen and a piece of paper.

There is also the option to print off or download a resource to go along with this lesson.

That means that you can annotate the extract at the same time as looking at what's on the screen and that would be really helpful.

If not, no worries you can still access the lesson with just a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper.

So when you're ready, let's get started.

Here is another opportunity for you to pause the video and get yourself set up with something to write on and something to write with and then as soon as you're ready, let's get started.

So as always, we'll begin with a recap before moving on to a new piece of vocabulary and then reading the extract together.

And finally, we complete the lesson by reflecting on Old Major speech.

And then you'll get your exit quiz, which gives you the opportunity to think about everything that you've learned in today's lesson.

So for our recap, we need to think about what rhetoric is.

So is it A, the art of speaking or writing for maximum impact or to persuade? Is it B, writing or delivering speeches? Or is it C, using emotive language to make people feel strong emotions? Think very carefully about your answer.

What is the definition of rhetoric? Which includes all of the different aspects of rhetoric.

Press pause to select your answer and then press play when you're ready to find out how you did.

So hopefully you all chose A, rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing for maximum impact or to persuade.

Now, B and C definitely come under rhetoric because rhetoric can be used to write and deliver speeches and within rhetoric, you often use emotive language, but the definition of rhetoric in its entirety is speaking or writing for maximum impact or to persuade.

So if you chose option A, massive well done, you should be really pleased at yourself.

New vocabulary alert.

So the new word for today is tyranny.

Tyranny, repeat that after me, tyranny.

Excellent.

And tyranny is the cruel and unfair treatment by people with power over others.

So tyranny happens when someone with lots of power treats other people cruelly and unfairly.

And within that, we need to think about the noun tyrant because a tyrant is the person in power who treats people cruelly.

So tyranny is what happens when there is cruel and unfair treatment and a tyrant is the person in power who is doing that treatment.

They are the tyrant who is treating people cruelly.

So here are some examples for you.

A country under tyranny will have a scared society because they're being treated cruelly by someone with lots of power.

Refugees have to escape the tyranny in their country.

So often refugees will be escaping the country where there is someone in power who is treating all of society really, really badly.

So they are escaping the tyranny in their country.

And the leader of the country was a tyrant.

So as I said, the noun tyrant is the person doing the cruel treatment, the person responsible for all of the cruelty and unfairness.

So over to you, which of the following is a correct definition of tyranny? Is it option one, cruel leadership with too much control? Option two, a person with too much power? Option three, a controlling government? Or option four, a government where everyone is treated equally? Pause the video and take your time to select the answer and press play when you're ready to discover if you're right.

Option one is the correct answer.

Tyranny is cruel leadership with too much control.

If you opted for option two, you would be referring to a tyrant because they tyrant is the person with too much power whereas tyranny is the general idea of cruel leadership with too much control.

Option four is definitely incorrect because that would be the opposite of tyranny if everyone is treated equally.

And then option three, a controlling government yes, I understand if you've chosen that but the key thing is that it's cruel.

Tyranny is cruel and unfair.

It is a cruel leadership.

So now we've learned a new word, tyranny and tyrant so you've learned two new words.

We are going to read another extract from Old Major speech.

At this point of the story, the animals have all gathered in the barn to hear Old Major speak.

We have already looked at the first part of his speech using rhetoric in our previous lesson together.

So before we move on to it, I just want you to remind yourselves of what a rebellion is.

Is it breaking the rules on purpose? Is it a war between two sides in the same country? Or is it the act of resisting authority or control? Pause the video, select the correct option.

We have discussed rebellion in earlier lessons.

So if you're working in the same exercise book, you could have a look through your notes, or if you've got an amazing memory, you can probably figure out which one it will be.

So pause the video and then press play to find out the answer.

And the correct answer was C, rebellion is the act of resisting authority or control.

So it's all about someone being organised enough to not do as they're told.

So they are stopping themselves from being controlled.

And it's usually a group of people who are rebelling.

They start a rebellion.

Now onto the extract.

I will read the extract out for you and then I will give you a question for you to think about.

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

"He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, "He is too weak to pull the plough, "he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits.

"Yet he is Lord of all the animals.

"He sets them to work, he gives back to them "the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving "and the rest he keeps for himself.

"Our labour tills the soil, our dung fertilises it "and yet there is not one of us "that owns more than his bare skin.

"You cows that I see before me, "how many thousands of gallons of milk "have you given during this last year? "And what has happened to that milk "which should have been breeding up sturdy calves? "Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies." Very powerful words from Old Major there.

The question I would like you to think about is where Old Major is showing man to be a tyrant? So in this extract, where can you see Old Major showing man as a tyrant, as a cruel leader, someone who is treating everyone cruelly? So pause the video and have a look at your extract and highlight or underline anywhere where Old Major is showing man to be a tyrant.

Pause the video here, and then press play when you would like to check your answers against some of the things that I've highlighted.

Good luck.

Okay, so here we have some highlighted parts of the extract.

I have chosen parts that I think Old Major has really emphasised that man is cruel.

So the first thing I highlighted is that man does not give milk, he does not lay eggs and he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits.

So here Old Major is showing that man doesn't do anything that animals do.

So he's a cruel leader, but he's also unfair because man does not do any of the things that animals do.

The second part of highlighted is the rest he keeps for himself showing that the tyrant, the man is selfish.

He's very cruel because he does not share enough with the animals.

He only gives the animals just enough to keep them from not starving and then everything else he keeps for himself.

And then finally, every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies.

By calling man, our enemies Old Major is getting the animals to think about man as someone who is opposite to the animal, someone who is cruel and unfair, every drop of milk has gone to man, the animals haven't had any of it.

Man is a tyrant, he has taken all of the hard work of animals and it has gone straight to man.

None of it has been shared with the animals.

If you highlighted anything different to that, as long as you can explain why the bit that you've highlighted shows man to be a tyrant, that's absolutely fine.

So add on the highlight in the I have done, if you would like to, if you've got exactly the same as me, that's incredible, really good and well done.

Let's move on to the next part.

"Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades "that all the evils of this life of ours "spring from the tyranny of human beings? "I only get rid of man and the produce of our labour "would be our own.

"Almost overnight we could become rich and free.

"What then must we do? "Why work night and day, body and soul "for the overthrow of the human race? "That is my message to you comrades, rebellion." So here we find out exactly what Old Major is trying to achieve with his speech.

What I'd like you to do is again, highlighted this extract, but I want you to highlight the parts of the speech, which tell us what Old Major is asking the animals to do.

So pick out the key parts of this extract that tell us as readers, what Old Major is asking the animals to do.

Pause the video, highlight or underline the parts that you think show Old Major telling the animals what to do, and then press play when you're ready for feedback.

Okay, let's have a look at what everyone has highlighted.

So I've chosen three key parts.

The first part is only get rid of man, and the produce of our labour would be our own.

So Old Major is specifically telling the animals, get rid of man, get rid of him.

That's what he wants them to do.

And then later on, towards the end of the speech, he's being very specific he says, "Work night and day, body and soul "for the overthrow of the human race." Old Major wants the animals to work very, very, very hard to overthrow the human race, to beat them, to make animals better than them.

And then finally that single word which sums up everything Old Major would like, rebellion.

That is the key message of his speech.

He would like the animals to start a rebellion.

Now one more extract for us to look at together.

"Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

"Whatever goes upon four legs or has wings is a friend.

"And remember also that in fighting against man, "we must not come to resemble him.

"Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices.

"No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, "or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, "or touch money, or engage in trade.

"All the habits of man are evil.

"And above all, no animal must ever "tyrannise over his own kind.

"Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers.

"No animal must ever kill any other animal.

"All animals are equal." So in this extract, we find out that although Old Major would like a rebellion and he'd like power over man he is also very passionate the animals do not become like men themselves.

He says that they cannot take on the same immoral or unsuitable habits that they have.

They shouldn't live in a house.

They shouldn't engage in trade or sleep in a bed.

But most of all, he says, "No animal must tyrannise over other animals." No animal must become a tyrant themselves.

Animals must stay equal, look after one another and never take advantage of one another in the way that man has done with animals.

So I would like you now to think about what Old Major is worried might happen in the future after the rebellion.

So what is he really passionate that animals do not do in the future? What is he concerned about? Highlight the parts of the speech where he shares those concerns.

So as always pause the video here, complete your highlighting and then press play when you're ready.

Okay, so the parts that I have highlighted are as follows, we must not come to resemble him, do not adopt his vices.

So I think the first thing Old Major is really concerned about is that animals will become like man themselves and he's warning them, don't do that.

Don't start doing all of those things that man does.

We must not be similar to him.

And then later on near the end, he says, "No animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind." So no animal must become cruel and unfair.

That must never happen.

And then the very final bit here is very clear that no animal must ever kill any other animal.

So he's very concerned that in the future after the rebellion, some animals may become too powerful and they might end up treating other animals really badly just as man has done.

So that is what Old Major is worried about.

Now we are going to talk about something next, which could be a spoiler if you don't remember the plot or it could be a plot reminder because we have already spoken about it.

It is something that you need to know to really understand though.

So even though it is a spoiler, we still need to talk about it.

So already we know from our previous lessons that after the rebellion, the pigs take control of the farm.

And over time, the pigs become tyrants just as Farmer Jones was before them because they control the other animals and they treat them cruelly.

So when Old Major finishes his speech by warning the animals that no animals must tyrannise over his own kind.

This sees Old Major foreshadowing what is going to happen later on because Old Major is warning them not to be tyrants and not to treat each other badly, but we know that that's exactly what the pigs ended up doing.

So Orwell here has used something called foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing is a technique that a writer uses to warn or hint at something that's going to happen later on.

So in this example, Old Major speeches use to foreshadow the pigs becoming tyrants because Old Major is very concerned that some of the animals will turn into tyrants, just like man.

And that's exactly what happens at the end of the story.

So here are some quick true or false things to get you thinking about what we've just spoken about.

Foreshadowing is predicting that a rebellion is going to happen.

Is that true or false? Shout out at the screen for me.

Okay, excellent.

So that is indeed false.

Foreshadowing is not predicting that a rebellion is going to happen.

Actually foreshadowing predicts something happening in the future.

Doesn't have to be a rebellion, foreshadowing is predicting anything happening in the future.

Now, a final activity for this lesson will consolidate so join together and summarise all of the knowledge that you've learned.

You can include everything that you remember from our previous lesson, Lesson Six as well.

You have three sentences on the screen to complete.

Old Major uses rhetoric to.

Old Major tells the animals to rebel because.

And Orwell uses foreshadowing when.

Pause the video here, try your best to have a go at finishing the sentences and then press play when you're ready.

Okay, here are some possible answers for those sentences.

Old Major uses rhetoric to persuade the animals to fight back and start a rebellion against man.

So as long as you've included something about Old Major wanting to persuade the animals to start a rebellion or to fight back against man, absolutely brilliant well done.

Old Major tells the animals to rebel because they are being treated cruelly and man is a tyrant who needs to be stopped.

So again, anything about the fact that Old Major thinks that animals need to stop man, the animals need to change the situation they're living in.

And then number three, Orwell uses foreshadowing when old major shares his concerns that animals will become tyrants themselves.

This one was probably the most tricky and it's all about Orwell using foreshadowing hinting at something that will happen later and when he does it.

And we know that we see foreshadowing with Old Major's concerns about the future, because all of his concerns unfortunately are proven to be correct.

And that is the end of Lesson Seven.

You have done some incredible work today and you've learned loads of new stuff.

So I would definitely recommend having a go at the exit quiz to just make sure that you are a 100% confident with what we've studied today.

As always, if your parent or carer wants to share any of your work, you can do so on social media but until then relax, look over your notes so you are fully prepared for Lesson Eight, and I will see you soon, well done for all of your hard work today.