“The Lottery” Lesson

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is such a great, memorable tale. I’m sure there aren’t many teachers who must be persuaded to teach this one. Nevertheless, the relevance to pandemic living is so strong, I just had to add this story to our classics to keep. 

If this is a story we already love and one that probably won’t disappear from the curriculum, what more of an argument does it need? Well, we said the same thing about To Kill a Mockingbird once, and now there’s a lot of talk about replacing it with Just Mercy. (Don’t worry. We’ll discuss that idea in another post.)

“The Lottery” is a great story to remind us of a couple of points when studying classic lit. First, we must make sure we give equal weight to both the relevance and the writing. Second, we should embrace the idea of second studies. 

Let’s start with the second point first. If your school district is anything like every single district I’ve worked in, someone somewhere has compiled a list of which works are read at which grade level. The idea behind the list is to ensure against repeats. It makes sense. So many books, so little time, right? I’ve  seen many an incensed teacher rant about how the middle school stole the books the high school wanted to teach, as if there is a finite number of texts suitable for student consumption. 

While I completely understand and, for the most part, support the idea of not repeating texts, I also feel that it’s not the end of the world if we do. In fact, studying a work a second time can be quite eye-opening for students. They suddenly see their own growth as informed and skilled readers. Similar to the experience of watching Iron Man for the umpteenth time, they’ll notice things they didn’t the first time around. It’s the reason I truly do not care if students have seen Baz Luhrman’s Great Gatsby movie before we read it. In fact, sometimes I like it when they have seen it. We have the plot out of the way and can concentrate on the million other ways to study the Great American Novel. The same is especially true for the genius of foreshadow and irony that is “The Lottery”. Yes, it’s deliciously fun to experience students reading works like “The Lottery”, “The Most Dangerous Game”, “The Necklace”, and “Gift of the Magi” for the first time.  Ideally, however, you should read a text three times to even begin a proper analysis. 

Okay, that last claim came from one of my graduate professors. There is merit to it, but there’s not the time for it. The closest we might come is revisiting in high school a piece students still remember from middle school. They absolutely remember “The Lottery”. They’ll remember it into adulthood. Will they know why they remember it, though? That’s where the deep dive into analysis comes in. Let’s find out why we remember. Again, with the plot out of the way, we can study the million other glories of Shirley Jackson’s creepy tale. I can’t say it enough. Never shy away from a second study. If you do, you will miss an excellent opportunity to create even stronger connections to literature. 

Side note: And for crying out loud, stop whining about the middle school teachers stealing your stuff. Rejoice that you have the opportunity to add something new and different to your curriculum. There are more stories, you know. 

Back to point one and the reminder to balance the study of relevance and writing. Most classic literature lends itself to this necessity. Some stories, however, contain so much juicy goodness that it’s too easy to get lost in the reader reaction and the discussion and the can-you-imangines. We forget to study the writing, too. For “The Lottery”, I suggest focusing on the writing first. Jackson does such a splendid job of drawing on the reader’s prior knowledge, we don’t even recognize that she’s been stringing us along the whole time.

The story is like a mesmerizing magic trick, and the lesson is like giving students a peek behind the curtain. Think about it. What’s the first thing we say when we experience a really good magic trick. Our jaws drop open. We gasp in delight and say, “How did you do that?” This is exactly the reaction your students will have, and you job is to ride the momentum of curiosity. So you go back and allow students to pick apart Jackson’s word choice, foreshadowing, and beautiful sprinkles of irony and characterization. You guide them through how Jackson uses the reader’s prior knowledge to lead them down the path she wants them to take.

Once the students are enjoying the denouement of “knowing” the trick, you pull out your relevancy lesson. If you’ve taught this text before, you know there are countless cultural lessons to pull from this story. 

• Freedom vs. Safety
• Permission vs. Consent
• Luck vs. Fate
• Traditions vs. Culture
• Patriarchal Societies
• Gender Roles
• Generational Views

I’m sure you can think of more. With the state of the world right now, the relevancy is renewed. Every single one of these issues are so in the forefront right now, students have most likely heard the real life implications of at least one. Most have probably already discussed them with families, friends, or on social media. Can you imagine pairing “The Lottery” with recent real life stories highlighting the divisiveness of generational viewpoints or the question of what society will give up to feel safe even with a lack of concrete evidence that those measures actually create safety. Make sure to remind students that this piece was written over seventy years ago in 1948. What if you could research the very same issues we’ve been screaming about in 2020 but from a 1948 newspaper?

This article from AmericanLiterature.com offers interesting insight into how Jackson’s story was received when it was first published in New Yorker magazine. In short, people didn’t like it. Readers cancelled their subscriptions. They said it was insulting, interpreting it in a way she might not have even meant for it to be interpreted. Her own parents were disappointed that she’d written it. Imagine that. How is that situation much different from the misinterpretation and misunderstanding leading to anger and causing rifts between family members that we have going on in the world today?

One of the most important reasons to keep kids reading classics is to offer hope. Yes, even in Jackson’s seemingly hopeless story, you can find hope if you look for it. After all, “some places have already quit lotteries”. But the real hope comes from the idea that society has weathered storms before. Yes, it seems we have to keep relearning the same lessons, but remembering our history teaches us that we can, indeed, relearn them. We must. 

This pandemic and subsequent distance learning has forced educators to rethink the way we teach. One exciting part of that is the chance to rethink new real life connections to texts. “The Lottery” already has it’s place in our classrooms. How can it now have an even more relevant place in our understanding of society? 

I challenge you to study “The Lottery” in your classroom this year, whether it’s for the first time or a repeat. Students have a different view of the world than they did even six months ago. They will bring a new reader’s brain to the text and will learn new lessons from it. It’s worth a look or two or three. I promise. (I’m not just trying to win points with my former professor.)

I know many of you read “The Lottery” in your classrooms. We’d love for you to share your best ideas for creating connections with this story. Please, leave your ideas in the comments section below. 

Be well. Read well. Live well.