Outsiders

PreReading:

• Look at all the covers of The Outsiders using a Google Search.  

• Look at the pictures, What Symbols do you see?

• What predictions can you make about the book based on the covers?

Lesson Plans

• Don't judge a book by it's cover:  A lesson on first  impressions and stereotypes

• From Santa Ana Unified School District

• https://education.library.ubc.ca/files/2011/06/08Sabrina-Block-Outsiders.pdf

Banned Books Week:

Challenged in 2016 as reported by ALA

Hinton, S. E.

The Outsiders.

Dell; Viking.

Retained on the Williamsburg, Iowa, seventh-grade reading list. The book focuses on the life of a fourteen-year-old boy who struggles with concepts of wrong and right in a society in which he feels he is an outsider. The complainant said the book contained subjects that are socially, emotionally, and developmentally difficult for seventh-graders to deal with, including conflict, crime, death of a character, and gang fighting. The following reasons were cited for retaining the book in the seventh-grade curriculum: lower reading level allows the focus to be placed on the understanding and recognition of the themes that are developed in the book; favored by boys, who tend to be more averse to reading in general; and student members of the reconsideration committee both felt that the book was something they enjoyed reading and that it dealt with topics that come up in movies, television, and video games, and a classroom discussion about those things is helpful.

Source: Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy, Winter 2017, p. 72.

Resources:

• Outsiders turns 50 from Timeline

• Allusion:  Gone With the Wind p. 75

• Elements of the Story Prezi