Lesson 2

Lesson Goals

Texts

Core

• • “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner, Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1930
  • “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948

Optional

• • “Memory and Delusion,” Shirley Jackson, The New Yorker, 2015

Materials

Tools

• Analyzing Relationships Tool

• Attending to Details Tool

• Vocabulary Journal

Reference Guides

• Academic Discussion Reference Guide
• Narratives Reference Guide

Question Sets

• Telling Stories: Section 2 Lesson 2 Question Set

Editable Google Docs

• Analyzing Relationships Tool

• Attending to Details Tool

• Telling Stories: Section 2 Lesson 2 Question Set

• Vocabulary Journal

Activity 1: Discuss

We will continue to discuss the elements of storytelling and narration to help us understand and analyze “The Lottery.”

As a class, review the brainstormed list of elements that make a good story. Relate what you have listed to several new concepts from the Narratives Reference Guide: atmosphere (p. 2) and foreshadowing (p. 4).

Pay particular attention to the following key elements of a good story:

• where a story takes place (setting,atmosphere)

• what happens in a story (events,plot structure,exposition, complication, climax,resolution)

Note and discuss what the Narratives Reference Guide says about the definition and process for thinking about a story’s atmosphere:

2. Atmosphere: The atmosphere is the general, pervasive feeling that an author creates by using literary elements, such as setting, description, and characterization. An author also uses literary devices such as figurative language, mood, and dialogue to establish atmosphere in a narrative.

   1. As you read or write, note language that contributes to the mood and atmosphere of the story. What do these words make you feel or think about? Identify words you might use to characterize the mood or atmosphere (e.g., tense, dreamlike, stormy).

   2. Think about the relationships among the atmosphere of the story, the events of its plot, its characters’ actions and interactions, and the themes that are developed.

Discuss stories you have read, heard, or watched where setting, atmosphere, and plot are important.

Activity 2: Discuss

In a brief class discussion, we will examine “The Lottery” by sharing and comparing our initial impressions of the story.

In a class discussion, share and compare your initial impressions of "The Lottery."

Discuss your reactions to the story’s events (plot) and its unexpected ending (climax). Consider the first two questions from your homework reading:

1. What happens in the story? What events make up the story?

2. How does the story build to its climax? Provide specific examples from the text.

As a class, discuss the literary analysis terms atmosphere and foreshadowing in relationship to the setting and plot of "The Lottery."

Activity 3: Discuss

In pairs, we will briefly compare our responses to “The Lottery” using our completed Attending to Details Tools.

With a partner, discuss and compare your responses to Question 3 on the Attending to Details Tool, which you completed for homework after reading the story.

3. What specific clues in the text does the author provide that something unexpected might happen?

Consider the following two additional questions as you discuss in pairs:

4. What structure do you notice in the text? What are the different sections of the story?

5. How does the author’s use of structure impact the audience’s reading experience?

Activity 4: Read – Discuss – Write

We will annotate “The Lottery,” focusing on evidence related to how Jackson has developed atmosphere and foreshadowing of the story’s ending.

As a class, review the concept of atmosphere, discussing ways that storytellers develop atmosphere through setting, description, and sometimes plot structure. Consider also how storytellers use foreshadowing to suggest events that may occur later in a story.

Note what the Narratives Reference Guide says about the definition and process for studying foreshadowing in a story:

Foreshadowing: Foreshadowing is a device an author uses to give the reader a hint of events or developments that will occur later in the story.

1. Pay attention to words, descriptions, thoughts, or actions that might suggest what will happen later in the story. Sometimes, these clues suggest an expected ending, but often they provide subtle hints that something unexpected will occur.

With a partner, reread "The Lottery."

While rereading, use one of the two questions below to look for and annotate textual evidence related to how Jackson has developed atmosphere andforeshadowed the story’s ending. Discuss your observations about the story, based on what you have noticed and annotated.

6. What details, descriptive phrases, and dialogue from the story does Jackson use to create an atmosphere of routine and normalcy?

7. What details, descriptive phrases, and dialogue from the story does Jackson use to create an atmosphere of foreboding and to foreshadow the horrifying climax?

Compare your annotations and observations to those of another reading pair who have considered the opposite question.

Activity 5: Write

We will use the Analyzing Relationships Tool to focus on description and atmosphere and thereby deepen our understanding of “The Lottery.”

Use the Analyzing Relationships Tool to focus on the effects of description and atmosphere in "The Lottery."

• Write down the question you previously considered at the top of the tool.

• Select and write down key details you previously annotated in response to your question.

• Explain how the details are related to each other, and to the overall atmosphere of the story.

• Explain how the details taken together create an overall effect—one of routine and normalcy or of foreboding, depending on the question you considered.

• Make an observation or form a claim about how the relationships and effects you have explained contribute to the meaning of the story for you as a reader.

Be sure to include the appropriate citation for wrote down evidence.

Discuss your thoughts and evidence with your partner and compare your responses to the story as you complete the tool together.

Activity 6: Present – Discuss

As a class, we will discuss specific examples of how Jackson has created an atmosphere of normalcy and has also foreshadowed something unexpected.

Present to the class specific examples you have noted in which Jackson has created an atmosphere of normalcy or has foreshadowed that something unexpected will happen, depending on which question and effect you have focused on with your reading partner.

As a class, discuss how these two narrative atmospheres are in contrast and tension, and how this contrasting tension builds through the story’s events and plot.

Activity 7: Listen – Discuss – Write

We will listen to and closely re-examine the story’s final six paragraphs and will discuss Jackson’s decisions regarding the structure, climax, and resolution of the story. We will then write an imagined description of the final scene of “The Lottery,” had Jackson chosen to present a more graphic ending.

Listen as your teacher or one of your peers reads aloud the story’s final six paragraphs and then discuss the following question:

8. Why might Jackson have chosen not to describe in detail what happens to Tessie Hutchinson, choosing instead to leave the story’sclimactic moment and resolution to the reader's imagination?

Individually, think about what the ending of the story might look like if it had been described. In your Learning Log, write a short paragraph describing what happens in the story following its final line: "and then they were upon her."

Activity 8: Read

We will read an essay by Shirley Jackson that reveals her thinking about her writing process, titled “Memory And Delusion.”

Read Shirley Jackson’s personal essay, "Memory and Delusion," considering these guiding questions:

1. What seems to be Jackson’s attitude or point of view about how life experiences have informed her writing?

2. How does Jackson’s choice of words and examples reveal her perspective?

3. What life experiences does Jackson tell us about? How might those experiences have shaped her development as a storyteller?

With a partner, briefly compare and discuss your reactions to the essay and your responses to the guiding questions.

As a class, discuss how Jackson’s essay relates to "The Lottery." Consider the following text-specific questions:

4. What details from the text suggest how Shirley Jackson views her "deluded world" as a writer?

5. What sort of experiences from her life does Jackson say she thinks about when she tells herself stories?

6. What does Jackson mean when she says, "a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing"?

7. How does Jackson’s recollection of the broken bowl (and her friends’ reactions to it) help her "explain how all things are potential paragraphs for the writer"?

8. What are the connections between Jackson’s closing reference to an 18th-century book that "dwelt long and lovingly on the evils of education for women" and her opening claim that she, like most writers, is "delusional"?

9. What connections can you draw between Jackson’s thoughts about writing and "The Lottery"? How do you know? Cite evidence from the text to demonstrate the connection.

10. What connections can you draw between Jackson’s thoughts about writing and your own writing, specifically for the stories you will write in this unit? How do you know? Cite evidence from the text to demonstrate the connection.

In your Learning Log, write a short reflective paragraph in response to Question 10.

Activity 9: Read – Write

For homework, read and annotate “A Rose For Emily.”

For homework, read and annotate "A Rose for Emily," focusing on the following questions:

1. What happens in the story? What is its sequence of events?

2. Who is the story about? What character is its central figure?

3. How is the character revealed to us through description, her thoughts and actions, other characters’ perspectives, interactions with other characters, and dialogue?

4. What motivates and influences the character (experiences, challenges, and conflicts)?

Write new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal.