The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - Short Story Slides, Assignments, and Activities

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The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - Short Story Slides, Assignments, and Activities: Engage your middle and high school students with Shirley Jackson's compelling short story, The Lottery, using this comprehensive resource designed to engage your students. Included are presentation slides to guide the lesson, reading analysis questions to deepen understanding, a symbolism assignment to enhance critical thinking and a video comparison assignment for added context. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to explore a tradition in their own lives through one project and create a newspaper based on the short story with another. This ready-to-use resource provides teachers with everything necessary to immerse students in the thought-provoking themes and narrative of The Lottery.


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Included in This The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Short Story Resource:

➡️ The Lottery Presentation: Use this presentation to guide you through all elements of the lesson. Some information included in the presentation: 

  • Biographical information about Shirley Jackson
  • Background information on The Lottery
  • Pre and post-reading discussion
  • Overview of strange traditions
  • Answers to analysis questions
  • Literary devices notes (symbolism, setting, theme)
  • Video interpretation of the short story

➡️ The Lottery Reading Analysis Questions: Help students examine the short story more deeply with this ready-to-print assignment that has them answer questions on foreshadowing, symbolism, tension, suspense, irony, and more! A detailed answer key is provided.

➡️ The Lottery Symbolism Assignment: Allow your students to explore various symbols in this short story and explain their meaning. Students will consider the symbolic meaning behind names of characters (Mr. Summers, Mr. Graves, etc.) as well as the lottery box, stones, and pieces of paper. A detailed answer key is provided

➡️ The Lottery Video Short Story Comparison: After students watch the short film adaptation of The Lottery, have them compare the two by finding 5 differences between the video and short story version!

➡️ Exploring Traditions Project: The Lottery focuses on strange traditions, so have your students explore traditions in their own family, community, or country with this multimedia project. Students will examine a tradition of their choice and do some research to discover its origins and significance. Then, they will decide if this is a tradition that you believe should be continued or not and justify their response. They will share their findings in blog, podcast, or presentation format.

➡️ The Lottery Final Newspaper Project: Encourage your students' creativity with this creative project where they must imagine they are a journalist living in the town where the lottery takes place. They will publish a newspaper with a headline article, obituary, special interview, and a letter to the editor by integrating as much information from the text as possible. The project includes:

  • A handout with all the information students need about the project
  • Pre-writing graphic organizers for each section
  • Templates to create a good copy of the newspaper

Short Story Skills and Standards Addressed in This The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Short Story Resource:

This short story lesson for The Lottery allows students to use a variety of ELA and short story-specific skills and standards. Below you will find a list of some of the skills this resource addresses:

  • Examining short story literary devices like characterization, foreshadowing, symbolism, suspense, irony, and more.
  • Comparing a text in two mediums (video and short story format)
  • Providing text evidence to support a claim
  • Speaking and listening skills in group discussion

What Teachers Are Saying About This The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Short Story Resource:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ For the past several years, I have had some trouble getting my students excited about reading "The Lottery." I found that this presentation helped them make some meaningful connections prior to reading and generated more excitement than usual.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was so helpful for my class! It was a great way to get students interested in the story. I really liked the part where the slides mention "weird" traditions. The class had a good discussion and we named some local "weird" traditions we had. Also, the analysis of symbols was excellent! So in-depth!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I am always impressed with the quality of your products. They are engaging and both teacher and student-friendly. Thank you for continuing to provide resources that are exceptional.


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Help your students annotate their short story with this resource:

>>> Annotating Fiction Lesson and Student Guide



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