The Outsiders
By S.E. Hinton
Reading/packet schedule
READING
PACKET
DAY1(Monday)
“Speaking with S.E.
Pre-reading
Hinton” at the end of
the book
DAY 2 (Tuesday)
Chapters 1-3
(same)
DAY 3 (Wednesday)
Chapters 4-6
(same)
DAY 4 (Thursday)
Chapters 7-9
(same)
DAY 5 (Friday)
Chapters 10-12
(same)
WEEKEND!!
Catch up/Get ahead—Be responsible!
DAY 6 (Monday)
Post-reading
DAY 7 (Tuesday)
Last day to finish up!
Email packet by 7 p.m.—NO EXCUSES!!!
Pre-Reading
A. Read “Speaking with S.E. Hinton” at the end of your book. While you read,
note interesting and important facts along the way. Write one paragraph
below that summarizes what you read about the author:
B. Complete the activity below by stating and explaining your opinion:
1. Most kids who join gangs do it because they are bad kids.
2. Most people stand up for what they think is right, whether or not others agree
with them.
3. Physical violence is never appropriate to solve a problem.
4. It is more important to be a part of the “group” than to be an individual.
5. Teasing, humiliation, and harassment are part of teenage life and should be
accepted as just a part of growing up.
6. Peer pressure is a huge influence on the thoughts and actions of a teenager.
7. Once people do something really bad, they are labeled as “bad” and won’t
every do anything good.
8. Many kids feel left out of social groups in school.
9. People are usually judged by their identity, personality, financial status, and
group of friends.
C. Read the definitions below. Under each definition, identify yourself:
Identity: a set of characteristics by which a person is definitively recognizable or
known.
Class: a group arranged according to financial status; high, middle, low.
Race: a group of people united or classified together on the basis of common
history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
Individuality: The qualities and characteristics that distinguish one person or
thing from others.
Clique: a small, exclusive group of friends or associates, with or without a label.
Write one paragraph explaining how and why society often judges people by
the definitions above:
Begin reading The Outsiders. Carefully consider how the “greasers” and
“socials” are judged and how those judgments shape their lives. You will be
asked to respond to this question at the end of the book.
Chapters 1-3
A. Fill out the character chart below in detail as you read:
Physical
Description
Ponyboy
Sodapop
Darry
Johnny
Dally
Two-Bit
Steve
Cherry
Marcia
Socs
Greasers
B. Summarize chapters 1-3 below:
C. “Analysis” is defined as:
Personality Traits
SocioEnvironmental
Influences
1. close examination: the examination of something in detail in order to
understand it better or draw conclusions from it
2. separation into components: the separation of something into its
constituents in order to find out what it contains, to examine individual
parts, or to study the structure of the whole
3. assessment: an assessment, description, or explanation of something,
usually based on careful consideration or investigation
Synonyms: examination, study, investigation, scrutiny, breakdown, inquiry,
exploration, evaluation, consideration, probe
Analyze the characters below with the information you have so far:
Darry:
Sodapop:
Johnny:
Dally:
Cherry:
Chapters 4-6
A. Chapter 5 includes the poem “Nothing gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost.
Interpret the meaning line by line:
Line 1: Nature’s first green is gold,
Interpretation:
Line 2: Her hardest hue to hold.
Interpretation:
Line 3: Her early leaf’s a flower;
Interpretation:
Line 4: But only so an hour.
Interpretation:
Line 5: Then leaf subsides to leaf.
Interpretation:
Line 6: So Eden sank to grief,
Interpretation:
Line 7: So dawn goes down to day.
Interpretation:
Line 8: Nothing gold can stay.
Interpretation:
What kind of mood is the poem expressing? How do you know?
What is the theme of the poem?
Choose one character from the novel and explain how the poem relates to
him/her:
B. Summarize chapters 4-6 below:
C. Analyze the characters further with information you learned from chapters 46. Start from where you left off before and explain any changes of opinion or
new insight:
Darry:
Sodapop:
Johnny:
Dally:
Cherry:
Chapters 7-9
A. Close Reading and Dialectical Journal
1. Complete a close reading of pages 115-118 of chapter 7 in The Outsiders. As
you read, look for quotes or passages that illustrate the characters’ changing
perception of one another. Fill in the first three boxes for each character in the
graphic organizer below.
Character
What do the
characters say? List
the
quotes/passages.
What does the
quotes/passages
mean?
What are your
reactions or
thoughts?
Ponyboy
Randy
B. Constructed Response
1. Reflect on the conversation between Ponyboy and Randy. Write briefly,
analyzing what each character took away from the conversation and how that
will influence their actions in the near future. Use evidence from the text to
support your idea.
C. Summarize chapters 7-9 below:
D. Analyze the characters further with information you learned from chapters 79. Start from where you left off before and explain any changes of opinion or
new insight:
Darry:
Sodapop:
Johnny:
Dally:
Cherry:
Chapters 10-12
A.
Extended Writing Response
Read and annotate the following speech (Your annotations should include
underlining parts of the speech that stand out to you, your thoughts as you read,
new words, summarizing, and asking questions.):
Robert F. Kennedy’s speech “The Mindless Menace of Violence”
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this
one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the
mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every
one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and
white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most
important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed.
No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will
suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on
in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No
martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a
coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice
of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one
man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in
response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another
man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole
nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal
from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose
their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common
humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper
reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and
television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all
shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we
excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of
others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it
here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own
conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear:
violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of
our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the
shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and
inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons
relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow
destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without
heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a
father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single
set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you
teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser
man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you
teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your
family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as
enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated
and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share
a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in
common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire
to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with
force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow
citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The
question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that
leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our
existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find
our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must
admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the
misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be
ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let
this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a
program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are
our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they
seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in
happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to
teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as
fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the
wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen
once again.
1. Although this speech was delivered in 1968, is the message still relevant
today? Has society made progress in terms of violence against their fellow
man? Use evidence from Kennedy’s speech and real world examples from
current events to support your answer.
2. What is a common theme discussed in Kennedy’s speech and The Outsiders?
Use one piece of evidence from each text to support your answer.
3. If Kennedy could speak to Ponyboy and Randy, infer what advice he would
give to them. Use specific evidence from the speech to draw conclusions and
support your answer.
C. Summarize chapters 10-12 below:
D. Analyze the characters further with information you learned from chapters 79. Start from where you left off before and explain any changes of opinion or
new insight:
Darry:
Sodapop:
Johnny:
Dally:
Cherry:
B. Bildungsroman
The Bildungsroman is a genre of literature that comes from the German bildung
meaning “formation/education” and roman meaning “novel.” It describes the
transformation of the main character from child to adult. This type of novel is
often called a “Coming of Age” novel.
Traditionally, The Bildungsroman satisfies these four conditions:
1. Individual development of character and progression towards maturity; a
journey that requires the individual to learn from life and seek purpose in their
environment.
2. The journey is initiated by loss/disappointment that prompts the individual to
leave the safety of home at a young age.
3. The evolution of the individual’s character is long and difficult, and it includes
conflicts with self and society.
4. The journey results in the individual’s tolerance to and adoption of society’s
values.
Think carefully while answering the following questions about Ponyboy. Consider
the entire novel:
1. Although Ponyboy doesn’t actually “leave” his home to go on his journey, his
place of safety is no longer there for him as it used to be. Explain.
2. What is the great loss that Pony is dealing with? Does he realize that this loss is
affecting his behavior? What does he do or say that reveals this?
3. Describe Ponyboy’s social environment. What are the Greasers like? How
are they different from the Socs? What are the adults in his life like?
4. What appear to be the unspoken rules of the greasers? What are the
unspoken rules of his family? How does Pony behave in response to these
societal expectations?
5. How does society judge Ponyboy? Does he have his own moral code by
which he judges society? Describe his belief system and evaluate how well he
measures up to his own rules.
6. Find and describe some instances where Ponyboy is at odds with society or
the behavior of those around him.
7. At the end of the novel, has Ponyboy adapted to society’s norms? Support
you answer with evidence form the text.
Post-reading
A. Which of your opinions, if any, from the pre-reading have changes?
Why/why not?
B. How are the “greasers” and “socials” judged by the identities in the prereading? How those judgments shape their lives?
C. Analyze The Outsiders, in three to five paragraphs, by explaining how the
book reflects the heritage, traditions, attitudes, and beliefs of its author, S.E.
Hinton. Be sure to use examples and situations form the novel to support your
response. (For example: Tell how the book shows what type of family Hinton
may have come from, the things Hinton and her family may have done or not
done together, Hinton’s attitude toward life and living, and what Hinton’s values
and beliefs may have been.)