Teaching The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton: A Middle School Novel Study Guide
The Outsiders came out in 1967, and S.E. Hinton started writing it while she was still in high school. Almost sixty years later, middle schoolers still argue about it. It's about belonging, loyalty and the labels we put on each other, and none of that goes out of date.
What it's about (no big spoilers)
Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis is a Greaser, one of the poor kids from the east side of town. The Socs, short for Socials, are the rich kids from the west side, and the two groups can't stand each other. Ponyboy lives with his older brothers, Darry and Sodapop. One night, a run-in between Ponyboy, his friend Johnny and a group of Socs goes terribly wrong, and the boys have to run. Ponyboy tells the whole story himself, looking back.
Big themes to teach
Belonging and labels: how much does being a Greaser or a Soc decide who you are?
Class and money: what the Socs have that the Greasers don't, and what it doesn't buy them.
Family and loyalty: the Curtis brothers, and the gang as a second family.
Staying gold: Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and what it means to hold on to who you are.
Point of view: everything we see is filtered through Ponyboy.
Discussion questions that go past "what happened"
Cherry tells Ponyboy that "things are rough all over." Is she right? Who in the book proves or disproves it?
Ponyboy is the narrator. How would Darry tell this story? How would a Soc?
What matters more in the book: where you come from, or what you choose to do? Pick a character to prove your answer.
Is Dally a villain, a hero, or neither?
What does it mean to "stay gold"? Can anyone really do it?
Would the Greasers and the Socs exist at your school today? What would they be called, and what would they fight about?
Activity ideas
Front page: students write the newspaper coverage of a key event as a 1960s reporter would.
Switch the narrator: rewrite one scene from another character's point of view.
Character analysis: track how Ponyboy's view of the Socs, and of his brothers, changes.
Gold: students create a visual response to "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
Teaching with care
The novel includes gang violence, death and neglectful or abusive parents. Read ahead and know your students before you start.
The complete Outsiders novel study
My Outsiders novel study has more than 90 pages: a glossary of key vocabulary, creative writing and art activities, a scene activity, character analysis, chapter questions with answer keys, a newspaper activity, consolidation activities and a narrative point of view activity.
Comments