Thank You, M'am

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What do you know about Langston Hughes? Can you name one or two works by him?

Teaching Suggestion: Langston Hughes is probably the most famous figure associated with the Harlem Renaissance—a flowering of African American art and literature in the 1920s and 30s. At the time, Hughes was primarily a poet and often incorporated elements of traditional African American storytelling, dialect, and music (as well as the newer genre of jazz) into his writing. Some of his more famous pieces include “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary Blues,” “I, Too,” and “Let America Be America Again.” Students are less likely to know that Hughes also penned novels, plays, and short stories, or that he continued working well into the civil rights era (“Thank You, M’am” was published in 1958).

• “Langston Hughes”: Biography video discussing Hughes’s life and significance to the Harlem Renaissance
• “An Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance” from the Poetry Foundation

2. How would you define the “American Dream”? Are there any ideas, objects, people, etc. you especially associate with it?

Teaching Suggestion: The American Dream is essentially the idea that any American can secure a better life through hard work. Whether this is true for everyone (or even most people) is obviously a contentious issue; implicitly, “Thank You, M’am” calls attention to the fact that African Americans have historically lacked access to this dream but still upholds its core emphasis on personal responsibility. Use students’ responses to begin teasing out some of this complexity.

• "In Search of the American Dream”: 2007 article for The Atlantic considering various ways in which the American dream has been defined
• “The Negro and the American Dream”: excerpt from a 1960 speech by Martin Luther King Jr. discussing how Black Americans should respond to the unfulfilled promise of the American dream

Short Activity

Although “Thank You, M’am” is a short story, hints of Hughes’s poetic voice surface throughout, particularly in his compact but evocative descriptions of characters. Consider two of the phrases Hughes uses in association with characters: “willow-wild” and “a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails” (Paragraphs 16, 1). Jot down the first three to five words, images, or ideas each of these phrases suggests. Alternatively, sketch a portrait of the character you imagine might fit one of these descriptions.

Teaching Suggestion: Use this activity to get students thinking about how characterization works (especially within the constraints of a short story), and how Hughes’s expertise as a poet might help him communicate a lot of information with very few words. For example, Hughes’s description of the purse and its contents immediately evokes its owner’s strength (due to its size), practicality, and preparedness (due to the number and kind of things the purse contains—if not a “hammer and nails,” then other similarly utilitarian objects).

• an image of a weeping willow
• cover illustration by Carlo Molinari featuring Mrs. Jones and Roger