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Tuesday 20th May
Lesson 1:
 * IN TEST CONDITIONS**: Do the sourcework exercise which I gave to you on Friday = NO NOTES ALLOWED. A printed copy of the exercise, along with paper to write your answers, will be found in the drawer marked "Year 12: Out" in my chest of drawers by the teacher desk. Hand your completed work to the cover teacher at the end of the lesson and ask them to return it to the same drawer: I will collect it at the end of the day and have it marked before Thursday's lesson.

Lesson 2 (after break): Get yourself a pair of headphones and copy the film version of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" onto your own computer (it can be found in P>RJT>Yr12; if for some reason it has been deleted, ask the cover teacher to copy it back across from J>GCSE_IB>USSR>STALIN). Headphones should be in the top cupboard directly behind the teacher's desk.

Orwell wrote this novel after his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, which convinced him that Stalin had betrayed socialism. His other great work from this period, of course, was Homage to Catalonia. The film was the first full-length British feature film cartoon, condemned by Orwell's widow (right) as a misrepresentation of his message, and was allegedly funded by the CIA... (the more curious amongst you might wish to research these issues and add your findings into your homework described below!)

Your job is to watch the first 37 minutes or so (which covers the rise of Stalin). As you watch it, make a note of all of the characters, events, places and themes which are covered in the story, and in brackets make a note of what you think they actually represent (e.g. Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, the 1905 Revolution, the Comintern, the Civil War....). To get you started, here are some features you may wish to analyse (by all means copy and paste them into a Word Document!) Manor Farm = Russia / The Soviet Union Mr. Jones = Tsar Nicholas II He turns to drink = ??? A "Meeting" is called = ??? The Pigs = ??? Boxer the Horse = ??? Benjamin the Donkey = ??? Snowball = ??? Napoleon = ??? The other animals = ??? The Red Lion Pub = ??? The pub drinkers who carry red pitchforks = ??? The Puppies of Napoleon = ??? The "Commandments" of Old Major = ??? Squealer = ??? New Meeting in the Big Barn = ??? White Doves spreading the good news = ??? Snowball's speech to the animals = ??? The Sheep = ???**
 * Old Major = Represents probably either Marx or Lenin (your choice on this could affect what you read into the remaining features!)

Once you have made notes on what you think Orwell was probably referring to with each of these features in the film, produce a write-up in continuous prose entitled "Fact and Fiction in Animal Farm". Provide an overview of the story, explaining as you go along what you think Orwell was referring to. Alternatively, you could summarise the plot of the film in a left hand column, and provide the historically accurate version on the right (if you do it this way, it makes sense to divide the story into "chapters" so that the reader can easily match the fiction and the fact by comparing them alongside each other).

This should be completed for homework, and emailed to me at the beginning of Thursday's lesson. Once you have finished (but not before) you may wish to do some Google searches to see what the most popular interpretations have been (you might even have a crack at changing the Wikipedia entry on it, as I have, or adding an Amazon.com to the 1137 reviews already online!!!).

Thursday 22nd May / Friday 23rd May
Due to their being no primary school on Wednesday, I was not in school as planned to pick up your sourcework. I will be collecting it today after dropping my daughter off and hopefully I'll be able to get it back to you for tomorrow's lesson: apologies for the delay.

With regard to your tasks for today... a. Email me your completed analysis of Animal Farm as an attachment to russeltarr@hotmail.com. I'll get these marked over the weekend, without fail. I'm really interested to see the sorts of ideas you've come up with!

b. Make serious progress on your Internal Assessment Wiki page: Section B (Summary of Evidence). I have provided full "Tips" about what this should look like and I discussed it with you last week (ie an overview NARRATIVE of the main events / people / themes relating to your study). I'm available by email if you can't log on to your wiki account; you can always start work on it in Word at first while you wait for your login details.

c. If you DO get your Summary of Evidence finished, by all means move on to your Section D: Analysis. By all means drop me an email if you have any initial queries about how to structure it (but to be honest, Section D is just your standard essay - structure it like one to get started and we can always develop it further later on).


 * HEALTH WARNING: I will be reading through these over the weekend. If the Summary of Evidence is looking rubbish in terms of footnotes, and you clearly don't have a good grip of the topic you have set yourself, I will unilaterally change your title to something I know a lot about myself so that you have less chance of making a complete mess of the IA. Be warned: you WILL lose marks if I have to set a question for you, and the stuff I tend to find utterly fascinating is generally the sort of stuff IB students find monumentally dull - so it's in your interests to have a bloody good Summary of Evidence ready for me to look at over the weekend. Any blank pages on the wiki, or any suggestion that you have churned out a load of rubbish, means you're already slipping down that markscheme. I might even be tempted to leave dirty nappies in the locker of anyone who uses my paternity leave as an excuse to waste time on FaceSpace or Greebo or whatever.**

Thursday 29th May
Last lesson we looked at the CAUSES of Stalin's policies for agriculture and industry. Today you will investigate the COURSE and CONSEQUENCES of his policies for agriculture. Save this file and complete the tasks within it. A factual task based on the work from this lesson and Tuesday's will follow in the Tuesday lesson next week.

[Friday's lessons details to follow - probably this will be based on the research projects you did on "Stalin's Henchmen" but watch this space...].