She talks to wolves...

As we move into prose analysis in my senior class (not that they got poetry analysis or anything), I decided that they needed to read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. My plan was to have them read the story first and answer some basic comprehension questions. After the initial reading, I would lecture on how to begin analyzing prose. Then they'd get to read the story again, answer some more detailed questions, and eventually write an essay.

Sadly, I haven't gotten through phase one of this plan yet. You see, they read the story yesterday. It took them all period to read the six pages (we didn't have books, so I printed them each a copy). Once they'd finished reading it, they didn't really understand what had happened. So I had to take today to discuss it, as well as to go ahead and explain terms like foreshadow and scapegoat. To highschool seniors.

(Note: As I have a terrible cold or sinus infection of INSERT-ILLNESS-HERE at the moment, I didn't mind so much not having to stand up and talk for 40 minutes today. Over them. With lots of yelling.)

Allow me to share with you the first reaction the story got from Queen of the Jungle (one of the first to finish reading):

QotJ: "Why'd we have to read this?! We Christian!"
Me: "... ... Christians used to stone people all the time back in the 'day.'"
QotJ: "I know! ... It's not appropriate for [Crossroads]."

A little later:

QotJ again: "Why'd that lady say it wasn't fair?"
Me: "That's one of the points of the story: illuminating hypocrisy. Violence is all fine and dandy as long as it doesn't happen to you. Then it does and you're all, 'Oh bleep no, this bleep's gotta stop!'"

I didn't actually say that last part so succinctly. However, I do actually say bleep in class because it amuses them and keeps their attention.

Today, SnoopWannabeTupac asked me if these lotteries had ever really happened. Then he and JumpyPuppy and a few others wanted to know the origin and perpetuation of stoning.

Did you know that "The Lottery" is banned in South Africa? Or that a lot of people cancelled their subscription to The New Yorker because they published the short story? Or that one recurrent thread in the countless confused, angry, or curious letters that Shirley Jackson received was the question on where people could go to see one of these lotteries?

From the Wiki article:

"In The Magic of Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote about her reaction to the banning of the story in the Union of South Africa: 'She felt that they at least understood.' In 1984, The Lottery was included among the 30 most-often banned books in American schools and libraries, as listed by Playboy (January, 1984). The books were arranged by frequency of censorship with the most-banned first, the least-banned last. At that time, The Lottery ranked #17, between Black Like Me and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."