Resources
Short Stories, Benny Andrews, and Langston Hughes
Students will write short stories inspired by Benny Andrew’s paintings.
6.W.TTP.3 Write narratives (fiction and nonfiction) to develop real or imagined experiences or
events using effective techniques, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event
sequences.
Students will be better able to:
• Identify a short story
• Develop a narrative with a distinct beginning, middle, and end.
• Recognize and describe the elements of story
About
Biography
Born on November 13, 1930 in Plainview Georgia, Benny Andrews spent his earliest years helping his
parents harvest cotton in the small sharecropping community they dwelt. His parent’s emphasis on
education helped drive Andrews to be the first member of his family to graduate high school and attend
college. After attending Fort Valley College for a few semesters, Andrews left school in 1950 to enlist in
the U.S. Air Force. He’d serve for the entirety of the Korean War, gaining the rank of staff Sergeant
before receiving an honorable discharge in 1954. With help from the G.I. Bill, Andrews was able to
attend the Art Institue of Chicago, graduating in 1958 with his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. Andrews would
later go on to teach at the New School for Social Research in NYC, the Jewish Community Center in
Bayonne, New York, and Queens College before helping form the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition
(BECC). Working alongside his fellow BECC members, Andrews would help start an arts program at
Manhattan Detention Complex that would serve as a national model for prison arts intiatives. Andrews
would spend the last few decades of his life illustration children’s book about John Lewis, Langston
Hughes, and Joseph Carol Smith. In 2006, Andrews passed away at the age of 75 from cancer.
Vocabulary
Short Story – a brief work of fiction
• Fiction – any story about imaginary events and people
• Characters – any person or animal in a story
• Setting – the place a story happens
• Plot – the events of a story
• Dialogue – any exchange of words between characters in a story
• Illustration – an image thats help explain or clarify a text
Describe the person in this painting. What are they doing? How do you think they feel? What
might they be doing?
• Describe the setting of the painting. How does this place make you feel? How would you
describe this place? Does it remind you of any place you’ve seen?
• How would you describe the colors of this painting? How do the colors make you feel?
• What might the person in this painting say in this moment?
Read and discuss Langston Hughes short story “Thank You, Ma’am, before having students write a short
story based on Benny Andrews’ From the Mountain Top.
Materials
• Print out of Langston Hughes “Thank You, Ma’am”
• Print out of After Reading Worksheet
• Pencils
• Notebook Paper
Procedure
1. Have students read “Short story facts for kids” from https://kids.kiddle.co/Short_story and
Langston Hughes “Thank you, Ma’am."
2. Students should take notes as they read the text. Encourage them to underline or highlight
important information from the text, such the names of characters and dialogue that stood out
to them.
3. Then, have the students complete the After Reading Worksheet, before discussing their answers
as a group.
4. Introduce students to Benny Andrew’s From the Mountain Top. Use the discussion questions to
encourage close looking. Inform the students, that Benny Andrews spent the last few years of
his life illustrating children’s books, including one about Langston Hughes, the author of “Thank
You, Ma’am.” If possible, show the students illustrations Andrews completed for Langston
Hughes’s Poetry for Young People.
5. Have students write a short story about the figure in From the Mountain Top. Tell them to
imagine that they are writing a story that will go alongside the Benny Andrew’s artwork.
6. If time permits, let students read each others’ short stories and offer suggestions on how they
can improve it.
