Purpose
Students investigate how persuasion, perspective, and credibility shape what people believe by analyzing rhetorical and literary strategies in Animal Farm and applying them to an authentic Studio challenge. Building on their student-led conference experience, teams collaborate with Studio career partners to design a realistic solution, evaluate credible sources, address counterclaims, and tailor an ethical argument to a decision-making audience. Journals, group work, practice pitches, and peer review support reflection and revision as students develop an individual evidence-based essay and a group or individual elevator pitch. During the pre-winter-break exhibition, students present their solutions and pitches, demonstrating how persuasive strategies change across audiences and how trustworthy evidence supports informed decisions.
Learning goals
Students will analyze how Animal Farm uses claims, rhetorical appeals, perspective, and connotative or figurative language to persuade, construct credibility, and shape power. They will evaluate conflicting sources for credibility and use evidence to develop a studio-connected solution with peers and career-community partners. Students will write and peer-revise an MLA-formatted argumentative essay with a clear thesis, logical organization, counterclaim, precise vocabulary, varied complex sentences, parallel structure, and correct conventions. Building on student-led conference experience, they will rehearse, reflect in journals and groups, and deliver an audience-aware final pitch for exhibition before winter break.
Products
Students will create a Studio issue proposal, research-and-evidence board using at least two credible sources, audience profile, and argument map with a claim, reasoning, counterclaim, rebuttal, and call to action. Individuals will maintain reflection journals and draft a final argumentative essay connecting their proposed solution to literary and rhetorical strategies in Animal Farm, using properly cited textual and research evidence. Teams may develop a feasible Studio solution or model and refine a 2–3 minute persuasive pitch with a supporting visual through practice pitches, peer review, and feedback from Studio community career members. During the exhibition before winter break, students will present their revised solutions and pitches to an authentic audience, submit their final essays, and complete individual reflections on credibility, collaboration, and ethical persuasion.
Launch
Studio career partners present authentic problems from their fields and challenge teams to propose how a $10,000 investment could address one. Drawing on their student-led conference experience, teams create 30-second pitches for students, teachers, and decision-makers, then revise after peer critique to show how audience changes strategy. Students compare the pitches with a short excerpt from Old Major’s speech in Animal Farm, identifying claims, evidence, tone, credibility, and the line between persuasion and manipulation. They journal initial responses to the essential questions, then preview the solutions, Animal Farm-based essays, and group pitches they will refine for the winter exhibition.
Exhibition
During the final week before winter break, host a Studio Solutions Showcase organized by the eight career pathways and invite Studio community career members, families, staff, and student leaders. Individuals or groups present their solution through a 2–3 minute pitch with a prototype, poster, infographic, or video, while displaying an excerpt from the final essay that connects their ethical persuasive choices to Animal Farm. Audience panels ask questions and provide feedback on the proposal’s credibility, evidence, reasoning, counterargument, audience awareness, and call to action. Students conclude with a journal reflection comparing their final performance with practice pitches, peer-review feedback, and prior student-led conference experience.
