In-Class Essay Prep: the Lottery Dr. Seth Hurwitz

English 9-12: Experience & Innocence May 16, 2016 In-Class Essay Prep: The Lottery Dr. Seth Hurwitz

This Wednesday (the 18th), you’ll be asked to write an in-class essay. You may choose either to write in a blue-book (black or blue pen, please) or to use your own laptop.

The essay will be worth 20 points, and it will be open book. (In other words, bring your book. Active reading marks and notes will help you.)

You will choose one of three essay prompts. Each prompt will ask you to use as evidence examples from “The Lottery” and one or two other stories from the collection, as indicated below.

1) Explore Jackson’s attitudes towards small towns, as articulated in “The Lottery” and “Flower Garden.”

2) Explore Jackson’s attitudes towards children, as articulated in “The Lottery” and any two of the following: “The Witch,” “After You, My Dear Alphonse,” “Charles,” “Afternoon in Linen.”

3) Analyze how Jackson builds suspense, as articulated in “The Lottery” and “The Daemon Lover.”

As I am giving you the general outline of the prompts beforehand (though I may add a bit more detail on Wednesday), you are on your honor not to consult any secondary sources. This is not an exercise in finding out what somebody else has to say about these stories; rather, it’s an exercise in developing your own close-reading and analytical writing skills. To prepare, choose a prompt topic and go into the stories, reviewing with that topic in mind. Read actively, so you may find passages to quote and analyze on the morning you write the essay; take notes in the margins, so you may work with ideas you’ve already begun to consider.