Animal Farm - hexagonal thinking discussion activity

This hexagonal thinking activity will help your students engage in meaningful discussions and think deeply about the events, themes and motifs of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Through this activity, students will make connections between themes such as oppression, language and power, propaganda, revolution and totalitarianism. They will gain a better understanding of the book and analyze the relationships between different aspects of society Orwell portrayed.

Hexagonal thinking is a strategy that helps students understand how different concepts are connected to each other.
It helps students think critically and analyze different aspects of a certain phenomenon or situation.
It can be used in a variety of different subjects to consolidate learning, foster higher level thinking skills and even assess what they have learned.

The resource includes:

• hexagon cut-outs with terms from the book
• instructions
• reflection worksheets
• arrow cut-outs for indicating important relationship between terms
• free templates for other hexagonal thinking activities

This is an open-ended activity. There are no right or wrong answers. The students can come up with any arrangement of hexagons that makes sense to them, as long as they are able to explain their thinking and justify their choices by making logical and meaningful connections.

Instructions

1. Print out as many copies of the hexagonal thinking activity sheets as you need (students can work individually, in pairs or in groups)

2. Cut out the hexagons

3. Explain to the students that they need to arrange the hexagons in a meaningful manner to show the connections between the terms

4. Showcase some examples of finished hexagon networks to demonstrate what the final product should look like; there are no right or wrong answers, but the connections need to be meaningful and logical

5. Explain to the students that they need to choose three or six (as many as you want) connections which they will explain in more detail

6. Hand out the hexagons, arrows and explanation sheets

7. Monitor as your engaged students lead meaningful discussions, make connections and explain their thinking

8. After they’re finished, you can ask members of each group to present one or two of the connections they chose to explain in more detail

9. As an extension activity, you can ask students to engage in a class-wide discussion about the issue