In a new way to begin the course, I asked my first-semester students to write two or three sentences about Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948). The sentences did not have to be connected; they just had to be about the story. When I read through what they handed in, I noted a distinction that I had never before articulated. Some of the sentences were facts about the story: "The villagers, especially the older ones, value this tradition and believe that getting rid of it is crazy." Others were interpretations of the story: "The lottery makes participants both potential victims and perpetrators." Both types of sentences are necessary to discuss the story. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 September 2026)