Animal Farm, a famous
book by George Orwell, is about animals who dream about
revolting against Mr. Jones, the owner of Manor Farm.
This novel has many twists and turns and to iincrease our
understanding, we kept a journal where we wrote our
opnion and impressions of the events in the story from
one of the animal's point of view.
You might ask how
could ordinary seventh graders perform such a complicated
plot to an audience of younger children? It took a few
weeks to prepare but we were able to do it! We wanted to
explain the story a little differently than the book did.
We figured out that if we split into farm animal groups
we could write scritps from that animal's perspective. A
reunion of the animals in the year 2000 seemed a good way
to retell the story. The dogs, the cats, the hens, the
pigs, the cows, the horses, and Mr. Jones, as well as
George Orwell the narrator, were the characters of our
production. It was a class project so everyone had a
speaking part. Each animal group wrote funny, serious and
understandable poems about the events of the revolution
on Animal Farm. Later we discussed what to wear for the
play to portray our animal personality to the
audience.
It took longer than we
thought to get ready. We had to practice, practice,
practice! You know the saying, "Practice makes perfect."
We made signs and pictures representing Animal Farm. We
were eager to perform this spectacular show for an
audience but also nervous about public performance! Our
teacher, Miss Cusack, invited the first grade through the
sixth grade to see our Reunion, and we were excited that
everyone said yes to our invitation.
To perform inthe
auditorium for an audience of 125 students mean t that we
needed to speak louder andhave more dramatic movements
and gestures so in a large space a big crows could see
and hear what was happening on the stage. Everyone had
their lines and gestures memorized but performing in an
auditorium is a totlaly different experience fromthe
classroom or th emusic room. We practiced even more to
improve our voluem and ramatic quality.
Showtime arrived and
the audience assembled. I know the students liked us
because they llaughed at the right places and paid
attention to us when we were speaking. They applauded for
us and I think they would have liked it to be
longer.
The seventh grade
class proved to ourselves and everyone else that we could
learn so much more about Animal Farm by adding drama to
our study of the book and by creating our own play. At
the same time, we gave the younger students a preview of
coming attractions in the Core Knowledge Literature for
the upper grades.
