One of the stories that my Deaf and hard of hearing students like the most is “Thank You, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes.

I’ve just begun teaching it to a new group of 10th graders so I was very motivated to update my materials for this particular story first. As I explained in my previous post, since vocabulary acquisition often requires significantly more explicit instruction with my weaker students, I want to make sure that I highlight vocabulary that appears on the Ministry of Education’s vocabulary list for high – school students (known here as “Band Three).

I was delighted to see that there is no need to update my pre-reading exercise. I designed it to highlight the higher order thinking skill that we teach with this story  -“Uncovering Motives”. Not only have I been happy with the exercise with previous classes, but the word “motive” is also on the word list!

To download the pre-reading activity click on the title below.

Gift-of-time-pre-reading-Mam-p218o7-1e53wc3

However, changes were made to the next part. Due to my students’ hearing problems, we can’t discuss the story properly in spoken English in class. Everything must have a written component.  A worksheet of “Open Questions” help me ensure that the students have achieved a basic understanding of the story (analysis and interpretation come later).

Here is the updated worksheet. Click on the title below to download it. The words that appear on the official list are in “bold”. I highlighted them with a colored marker after printing – they didn’t show up as “bold” after the photocopying machine was done with them.

Thank You Ma’am Open Questions-2ktog3e

I’ve created a Quizlet list of the words I’m focusing on at the moment while teaching this particular story.  I may be updating it as I teach.  See link below.

https://quizlet.com/352417392/thank-you-maam-updated-version-flash-cards/

I’ll let you know!

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