Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to hone their close reading and literary analysis skills. After annotating their copy of the story, writer's craft an essay in which they analyze how Jackson's word choices impact the tone of the tale.

Concepts

elements of a short story, traditions, short stories, conformity, tone, literary analysis, setting, characterization, symbols

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Conduct a class lottery in which the winner can eliminate their lowest homework grade, and then asks the pupils to evaluate the mood of the class as they wait to find the results

Classroom Considerations

• Instructors must provide copies of or links to the short story
• Requires a free account to access/download some of the instructional materials

Pros

• The mini-tasks scaffold for the writing assignment
• Includes an extension exercise

Cons

• None

Common Core

RL.6.1 RL.6.4 W.6.2.a SL.6.1.a