Thank You, Ma’am Digital Close Read (Digital and Traditional Print)

Engage your students in digital close reading and literary analysis! This digital close reading assignment for “Thank You, Ma’am” is aligned with the common core state standards (reading literature and writing) and requires students to go back to selected passages from the text to read and closely analyze literary elements in the story.

With an emphasis placed on close reading, students will gain a better understanding of Langston Hughes’ short story, as well as increase their understanding of the conflict. Students will then be able to write a one-paragraph literary response that includes quotations and analysis for each literary element: conflict, characterization, and theme.

In this assignment, students will complete these tasks:

• Read the short story
• Go back and closely read selected passages
• Annotate the short story and/or the selected passages
• Find and cite evidence of a specified literary element
• Write a literary analysis paragraph

This assignment includes:

• Teacher instructions for assigning this file via Google Classroom
• A link to the short story
• A 16-slide Google Slides presentation for student work
• A suggested answer key
• A secured, PDF file for in-person teaching

SMARTePlans™ is a registered trademark of The Daring English Teacher, Inc. All SMARTePlans units are Google-based teaching units that run on either the Google Slides, Google Docs, or Google Forms platforms. Each SMARTePlans teaching unit is good for a single teacher license. Resources may only be posted online in a secure platform such as Google Classroom™, Canvas, Schoolology, or a similar learning management system.