Today, Ryan and I did an in depth analysis of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery." We focused on symbolism, irony, and the author's purpose of shedding light on humanity's tendency to cling to meaningless and sometimes potentially harmful traditions. Ryan received ten more vocabulary words embedded in "The Lottery." We reviewed them and I had Ryan learn them and give examples from his life of using each of the words in context. I then took away the definitions and gave Ryan a matching exercise for the words. He remembered them only with help from me. For homework, he will study them and we will do a practice exercise tomorrow. Then his vocabulary quiz will be next Wednesday. I gave Ryan a choice of one from six different writing prompts relating to the story. He chose, "How does fiction mirror real life? How do you think "The Lottery" mirrors real life? For instance, discuss why, according to the story, the lottery is carried on? Support your opinion with examples from the story. This is an exercise in the writing process. Ryan then started a brainstorm list of ideas and evidence from the story. I will have him write a well-written, organized 8-10 sentence paragraph with two quotes as evidence from the story. We will work on this tomorrow.