The Outsiders section Summary Assignment Sheet
Your job is to write up and print out a summary of one section of the novel. This will
help the class review the action so that we can begin discussing the story (you will read it
aloud in class). Your summary needs to cover the following things:
1. one paragraph about the action in this section:
2. one paragraph about the characters involved and what we learn about them.
Work must be typed and double-spaced
Your section is: Chapter ______, pages _________
Below is a sample of the a summary of Chapter 1, pages 1-18
The first chapter in the book introduces the main characters and gives an idea of
the world they live in. It does this through the narrator, Ponyboy, recounting his evening
after he has watched a movie in town. As he walks home alone, he is harassed by a group
of rich kids, or Socs, who like to prey on the less fortunate. They rough him up, and then
they hold him down and threaten to cut his hair off. Just before the knife sets into his hair,
they are scared off. Ponyboy realizes his buddies, known as Greasers, have come to his
rescue. Most of the rest of the chapter is devoted to Ponyboy telling about his life and the
people that inhabit it. At the very end, he lies in bed next to his second oldest brother and
they talk about their family a little.
In this chapter, we learn a lot about the 14 year-old Ponyboy and the other
Greasers as he narrates. He has long black hair and is big for his age. He lives alone with
his two brothers, Soda and Darry, because their parents died in a car wreck a year or so
ago. Ponyboy likes movies, is pretty independent-minded, and makes many observations
of the people around him. He tells us that Darry, his oldest brother, has had to put off
going to college and works very hard to support the family. He can be pretty hard on
Ponyboy. Soda is handsome and always seems to say the right thing to make Ponyboy
feel good. Other Greasers are also introduced: Steve, who is Soda’s best friend; Two-Bit,
who loves to fight and does lousy in school; Dally, the toughest of all the Greasers, and
the one that Pony likes least (but still respects); and finally, Johnny, the baby-faced and
meek second-youngest of the gang, who is Pony’s best friend and the one most in need of
the care and acceptance that the gang can provide. In sum, the gang is like an extended
family to Ponyboy, each offering him different examples of how people can be.