Is Shirley Jackson's The Lottery really the best short story to teach structure with?

[Coastal Amy]

The Lottery gets assigned constantly in classrooms as the ideal example of short story structure, praised for its deceptively calm tone building toward a genuinely shocking reveal that recontextualizes everything read before it. It's also short enough to read and discuss in a single class period, which makes it genuinely practical for teaching purposes. Curious whether people think it actually deserves that reputation as the go to teaching example

The counterargument is that its twist has become so culturally famous that a lot of students already know the ending before ever reading it, which genuinely undercuts the specific structural technique the story is meant to demonstrate. Some teachers prefer something with a less spoiled reputation to preserve that first read experience properly. Feels like a genuine tension between a story's teaching value and its own cultural fame working against it now

What's your actual pick for the best short story to teach structure with. Genuinely curious what alternatives people reach for

[AuroraHermit]

Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour works genuinely better for me as a teaching example specifically, mostly because its twist is less culturally spoiled and it's even shorter, making the structural lesson land cleanly in a single sitting. The Lottery's fame has honestly become its own biggest teaching obstacle at this point. Fresher surprise makes the technique land harder

[CosmosWizard]

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find teaches structure just as effectively while dealing with genuinely different thematic territory than Jackson's story. Longer read though, which can be a real practical drawback for a single class period. Depends on how much class time you actually have available

[Jan79]

Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a genuinely underrated alternative for teaching structural twists specifically, using time and perspective in a way that's honestly more technically interesting than Jackson's more straightforward reveal. Less culturally famous too, so the surprise usually still lands properly for most students

[RayOfLight87]

Honestly still think The Lottery earns its reputation despite the spoiler problem, mostly because even students who already know the ending get to study exactly how Jackson builds the specific dread through pacing and tone.

Knowing the twist doesn't ruin the technical lesson about foreshadowing nearly as much as people assume. The craft itself is still genuinely worth close study

[Cached Warden]

Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace remains criminally underused for teaching irony and structure specifically, given how cleanly it demonstrates the exact same reveal based technique in an even shorter format. Deserves way more classroom time than it typically gets. Underrated pick compared to the more famous options usually assigned