Understanding the Themes of “The Lottery” in
Relation to the Past and Present
Grade 10 English Language Arts
(1 Class Period)
Essential Questions and Hook
Shirley Jackson would not explain what the story was about. Is her story really just a story? If so,
why should we care? What does Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” have to do with today?
Curriculum Frameworks
General Strand 9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work by
relating it to its contemporary context or historical background.
9.6 Relate a literary work to primary source documents of its literary period or historical setting.
General Strand 11: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in a literary
work and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
11.5 Apply knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view
or comment on life, and provide support from the text for the identified themes.
Performance Objectives
Students will:
 Understand how the author crafted the story to make it a timeless piece, which
allows them to understand the story’s relevance to the world today and to the past.
 Recognize how timeless literary pieces bridge the past with the present
 Analyze and interpret the themes of “The Lottery” by looking at the symbols and
language of the story
Materials and resources
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LCD Projector
Speakers
Activator- “The Public Reception of the Lottery”
“The Lottery” in the Past and the Present video montage
Guided Viewing Handout- “The Lottery” in the Past and the Present
For More Information Video Handout
Summarizer- When Do We Say Enough?
Instructional Procedures
1) At the beginning of class, I will have the agenda for the class displayed, using the LCD
projector. I will briefly go over it with the class. This helps to manage the class and gives
students with IEP’s a visual and written reinforcement of the objectives and activities for
the lesson.
2) Hand out the Activator and pose the essential question and hook to the students. The
essential question and hook are: Shirley Jackson would not explain what the story was
about. Is her story really just a story? If so, why should we care? What does Shirley
Jackson’s “The Lottery” have to do with today? Students will then complete the
Activator. This should take five minutes. We will go over the Activator, and I will collect
them. Then the Guided Viewing Handout should be distributed.
3) I will review the questions on Guided Viewing Handout and tell them to only jot down
notes as they watch the movie. I will give them a few minutes after the movie is done to
complete the sheet. I will go through the questions with them and ask them about what
they thought of the movie. As we finish our discussion, I will distribute the For More
Information Video Handout. This will take about 20-25 minutes.
4) I will hand out the Summarizer, and will read the prompt to them and clarify the prompt
for them. They will first write about it individually and then discuss their answers with a
partner. If time permits, we will discuss these for the rest of class. Otherwise we will go
over their responses at the beginning of the next class.
Differentiated Instruction
This lesson addresses the needs of both my Special Education and At Risk students. There are
guided viewing questions to help students follow along with the movie and provide guided
reinforcement of the objectives of the class. Also, I give both visual and auditory instructions for
students. Students write their responses to the activators and summarizers, but then we discuss
them orally, which helps students who benefit from oral discussion.
Student assessment activities
The activators, summarizers, and guided viewing questions will all be collected. While students
are working on completing the activities I will be walking around the room to provide formative
assessment and help students who may be struggling. As we have class discussion, I will be able
to assess further how students are handling the material and go over more in depth certain areas
that students may be having problems understanding.
Summary
We will be doing a summarizer handout which should help students reflect and synthesize the
material that they just learned about in class.
Name ______________________________________
English 10
Activator- “The Lottery”
Date_____________
“The Public Reception of the Lottery”
Shirley Jackson once wrote that “there was a call from one of the magazine editors; they had
had a couple of people phone in about my story, he said, and was there anything I particularly
wanted him to say if there were any more calls? No, I said, nothing particular; anything he chose
to say was perfectly all right with me; it was just a story.”
Why do you think Jackson wouldn’t tell what the story was about? Is it just a story about a
small town? What do you think Shirley Jackson’s story is about? Explain your answers.
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Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” in the Past and the Present
Vietnam Lottery Draft
1. How was this draft lottery different than the one in 1940 for WWII?
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2. Do you spot the black box being used? What was it used for?
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3. Did you notice how the news correspondent, Robert Mud, said that Henry Tipsen
had been invited to choose the first number? Do you think this was something you’d
want to be invited to do?
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4. Can you find some similarities between the draft lottery and the story’s lottery?
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Rodney King
5. Is there any time when a police officer tries to stop the beating? Did it look like they
cared?
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The Lottery
6. What is the lottery in this video?
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7. What do the winners receive?
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Hazing
8. Do you think that hazing is considered a tradition? Do the people in the video see it
as a tradition?
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9. Are sports the only place we see hazing occur? Where else have you seen hazing?
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Source: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/lapdaccount.html
Visit for more information
The Trials of Los Angeles Police Officers' in Connection
with the Beating of Rodney King
By Doug Linder (2001)
It seemed like an open-and-shut case. The George Holliday video, played on television
so often that an executive at CNN called it "wallpaper," showed three Los Angeles police
officers--as their supervisor watched-- kicking, stomping on, and beating with metal
batons a seemingly defenseless African-American named Rodney King. Polls taken
shortly after the incident showed that over 90% of Los Angeles residents who saw the
videotape believed that the police used excessive force in arresting King. Despite the
videotape, a jury in Simi Valley concluded a year later that the evidence was not
sufficient to convict the officers. Within hours of the jury's verdict, Los Angeles erupted
in riots. When it was over, fifty-four people had lost their lives, over 7,000 people had
been arrested, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property had been destroyed.
Why did the twelve members of the jury fail to convict any of the officers? Was the jury
racist, as some charged? Or did the jury see something in the evidence that justified the
brutality witnessed on the Holliday videotape?
March 3, 1991
On the night of March 2, 1991, Rodney Glen King watched a basketball game and drank
forty-ounce bottles of Olde English 800 at a friend's home in suburban Los Angeles.
After the game, King proposed a trip--possibly to pick up some girls. King and two
friends, "Pooh" Allen and Freddie Helms, took off driving west down the 210 freeway.
At 12:30 A.M., a husband-and-wife team of the California Highway Patrol, Tim and
Melanie Singer, spotted King's Hyundai behind them driving at a very high speed. The
Singers exited at the Sunland Boulevard off ramp and returned to the freeway to chase
the speeding car at speeds of up to 117 miles per hour. King ignored the flashing lights
and sped off an exit ramp. He ran a red light, nearly causing an accident, before finally
coming to a stop near the entrance to Hansen Dam Park, at the intersection of Osborne
Street and Foothill Boulevard. Within seconds, three Los Angeles police cars and a
police helicopter arrived at the scene. Officers Laurence Powell and Timothy Wind were
in one car. Theodore Briseno and Rolando Solano were in the second car, and Sergeant
Stacey Koon in the third.
Tim Singer ordered the occupants of the Hyundai to leave the vehicle and lie face down
on the ground. Allen and Helms complied, but King remained in the car. Melanie
Singer again shouted at King to get out, which he did. Singer described King as
"smiling" as he stood by his car and waved at the police helicopter overhead. As Singer
ordered King to get his hands where she could see them, King--according to Singer's
testimony--"grabbed his right buttock with his right hand and he shook it at me." King
finally complied with Singer's order to lie on the ground. As she drew close to King with
her gun drawn to make the arrest, Sergeant Koon shouted, "Stand back. Stand back.
We'll handle this." Koon would later say he intervened because he thought the use of
guns was "a lousy tactic" that would probably result either in the death of King or the
CHP officers.
King's bizarre behavior and his "spaced-out" look led Koon to suspect that King was
"dusted"--a user of the drug most feared by police departments, PCP. Police believed
that the drug made individuals impervious to pain and gave them almost superhuman
strength. King's "buffed out" look added to his apprehensions. He concluded that King
was probably an ex-con who developed his muscles working out on prison weights.
(Although Koon's suspicions about the PCP would later prove unfounded, he was right
about King being an ex-con. Earlier that winter, King had been paroled after serving
time for robbing a convenience store and assaulting the clerk.) Koon grew even more
concerned after King successfully repelled a swarming maneuver by his officers and-more remarkably--managed to rise to his feet after being hit twice by an electric stun gun
called a Taser.
The lights and noise awakened George Holliday, the manager of a plumbing company, in
his apartment. He walked to his bedroom terrace and pointed his new video camera at
the action unfolding ninety feet away. He began recording as King rose to his feet and
made a charge in the direction of Powell, but the scene came into focus only as Officers
Powell and Wind began striking King with their metal batons. Before King is finally
handcuffed about a minute-and-a-half later, Holliday's camera records Powell and Wind
inflicting over fifty baton blows and several kicks. It also records Officer Briseno
stomping on King's shoulder, causing his head to hit hard against the asphalt. One or
more of the baton blows seem to land, contrary to LAPD policy, on King's head. The
violence is too far from Holliday's bedroom to pick up the sound of King as he finally
says, "Please stop."
After King was handcuffed, Koon asked all officers who participated in the use of force
to raise their hands. Officers Powell and Wind both raised their hands, but--remarkably-each learned for the first time that the other officer had participated in the use of force.
Powell and Wind had, in the jargon of law enforcement, "tunneled in" on King.
Shortly before 1 A.M., Koon typed a message into his in-car computer: "U just had a big
time use of force. Tased and beat the suspect of CHP pursuit." Powell also reported the
incident on his computer--in a seemingly boastful way that would come to haunt the
defense. Powell typed, "I haven't beaten anyone this bad in a long time." It wasn't
Powell's only controversial message that night. Later, investigators would discover
another message sent shortly before the King arrest in which he described the scene of a
domestic disturbance involving African-Americans as right out of "Gorillas in the Mist."
King, taken in an ambulance to Pacifica Hospital, recalled little of what happened after
Powell's first blow. A grand jury would later hear him testify: "I felt beat up and like a
crushed can. That's what I felt like, like a crushed can all over, and my spirits were
down real low."
THE VIETNAM LOTTERIES
Source: http://www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm
A lottery drawing - the first since 1942 - was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service National
Headquarters in Washington, D.C. This event determined the order of call for induction during calendar
year 1970; that is, for registrants born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. Reinstitution of
the lottery was a change from the "draft the oldest man first" method, which had been the determining
method for deciding order of call.
There were 366 blue plastic capsules containing birth dates placed in a large glass container and drawn
by hand to assign order-of-call numbers to all men within the 18-26 age range specified in Selective
Service law.
With radio, film, and TV coverage, the capsules were drawn from the container, opened, and the dates
inside posted in order. The first capsule - drawn by Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) of the House
Armed Services Committee - contained the date September 14, so all men born on September 14 in any
year between 1944 and 1950 were assigned lottery number 1. The drawing continued until all days of the
year had been paired with sequence numbers.
The Lottery
Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242123324855474.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_emailed
For more information: www.thelotteryfilm.com
By BARI W EI SS
'What's funny," says Madeleine Sackler, "is that I'm not really a political person." Yet the petite 27-yearold is the force behind "The Lottery"—an explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of
public education opening nationwide this Tuesday.
In the spring of 2008, Ms. Sackler, then a freelance film editor, caught a segment on the local news about
New York's biggest lottery. It wasn't the Powerball. It was a chance for 475 lucky kids to get into one of
the city's best charter schools (publicly funded schools that aren't subject to union rules).
"I was blown away by the number of parents that were there," Ms. Sackler tells me over coffee on
Manhattan's Upper West Side, recalling the thousands of people packed into the Harlem Armory that day
for the drawing. "I wanted to know why so many parents were entering their kids into the lottery and what
it would mean for them." And so Ms. Sackler did what any aspiring filmmaker would do: She grabbed her
camera.
Her initial aim was simple. "Going into the film I was excited just to tell a story," she says. "A vérité film, a
really beautiful, independent story about four families that you wouldn't know otherwise" in the months
leading up to the lottery for the Harlem Success Academy.
But on the way to making the film she imagined, she "stumbled on this political mayhem—really like a turf
war about the future of public education." Or more accurately, she happened upon a raucous protest
outside of a failing public school in which Harlem Success, already filled to capacity, had requested
space.
Name____________________________________
Summarizer II
Date________________
When Do We Say Enough?
You just watched video clips that showed the continuing tradition of human brutality and human
injustice. Think about how this relates to Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.”
One of the themes of the story is human beings inability to initiate change or to question
traditions or injustices. The attitude of the characters, and many people, is “We’ve always done it
this way. Why change now?” or “What does that have to do with me?”
Now, can you think of some traditions that we have which you don’t understand or can you think
of some situations in history which were unfair that people fought to change? Explain your
answer and then share it with your partner.
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