"Thank You Ma'am" Lesson Plan

This is one of my favorites out of the lesson plans I have created thus far, produced with my dear friend Jessica Dawes.

Jessica Dawes and Jacqueline Lehmann

Teaching English in the Secondary School

Lesson Plan

1. Heading: Strategies for Interacting with Langston Hughes’ “Thank You Ma’am”

March 8, 2007

Hughes, Langston. "Thank You Ma'Am." Geocites. 4 Mar. 2007 .

2. Context/Rationale: Students will read “Thank You Ma’am” and create a plus/minus

timeline. They will participate in a “show, don’t tell” writing exercise.

3. Note to Observer: Were our activities well coordinated with the main ideas of Chapter 6 in the Olson text? Were our directions for the activities clear and well-stated?

4. Objectives for lesson: Students will make predictions based on the title and opening sentences of the text. Students will gain a broader sense of understanding of the text through the creation of the timeline. Students will use the text to scaffold their own writing and comprehension.

5. Teacher Materials: Chalkboard and chalk, copies of the text

6. Student Materials: a writing utensil

7. Process & Timing:

· anticipatory set: (5 minutes) The students will make predictions based first on the title, then on the first two sentences (“Beat the Author”, Olson).

· input: (5 minutes) The students will read the story, noting important phrases and ideas.

· checking for understanding: (10 minutes) Students will choose timeline events on their own, then come together to discuss it as a class.

· modeling: Teachers will offer examples of positive/negative events.

· checking for understanding: (20 minutes) Students will have time to write a “show, don’t tell” piece using a piece of the story that they select. They will be able to volunteer to share with the class.

· modeling: Teachers will offer examples of “show, don’t tell” writing.

· closure: selected quote from Olsen (1 minute) –“Provided in the following section is a range of pedagogical strategies teachers can purposefully implement in the classroom to help students interact with a text and with each other in order to make meaning. These reading/writing strategies are expressive in nature. That is, they are designed to serve as “a tool for learning rather than as a means to display acquired knowledge” (120).

· independent practice: Students will hand in writing activity.,