Another great way to engage your students is through the creation of storyboards that use vocabulary from Animal Farm. Here is a list of a few vocabulary words commonly taught with the story, and an example visual vocabulary board.
In the vocabulary board, students can choose between coming up with their use of the vocabulary word, finding a specific example from the text, or depicting it without words.
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Demonstrate your understanding of the vocabulary words in Animal Farm by creating visualizations.
Introduce the concept of word nuances to the students in an engaging way. Explain to them just how colors have different shades, similarly, words have different extents of meanings. For instance, clean and sparkling have almost the same meaning but sparkling means extra clean.
To demonstrate the usage of synonyms, utilize simple phrases. For instance, "He felt content after a good meal" and "She was joyful when she got a new toy." Assess the prior knowledge of students and ask them if they know of any similar words that have close but not the exact same meaning.
Explain to the students that even though, the words have similar meanings they can be used in different situations and contexts. For instance, when something exciting occurs, the word "joyful" is frequently employed but “happy” is used frequently and more often than joyful depending on the context.
Play activities that require them to sketch or act out various emotions, such as charades or Pictionary. After that, talk about the terms they used and how they are similar but not identical. Encourage the students to take part in such activities for a more hands-on learning experience.
Provide students with some word nuances and ask them to make sentences of words in different contexts. Students can share their sentences with the entire class at the end. This will help them understand the use of similar words in different contexts.
Key keywords from "Animal Farm" include phrases like "tyranny," "propaganda," "allegory," "totalitarianism," "dystopia," "revolution," "corruption," "comrades," and "exploitation," among others. Students can practice these words using different activities such as making sentences, keeping vocabulary journals, and using them in everyday life.
Students can use interesting exercises to improve their vocabulary knowledge and practice such as word clouds or visual organizers (Provide definitions, synonyms, and example sentences for each category of terms), making flashcards with the meaning of the word or example phrase on one side and the word itself on the other, and making crossword or word search puzzles utilizing important phrases from the book. Encourage the students to incorporate vocabulary terms into phrases that are connected to the story's events. Teachers can also test students’ vocabulary knowledge with quizzes, bingo, or word-matching activities.