How To Teach The
Outsiders
How To Teach The Outsiders
Text familiarisation
• Understanding social classes
By the time students are studying a book like The Outsiders they will all have some kind
of sense that social hierarchy exists in society - some people are better off and have more
power than others. However, since social class is a fundamental idea in The Outsiders, it’s
important to cover this idea in some detail before or as students read through the text.
Attached is a resource titled ‘Social Class’ which provides students with a basic run down
of different social classes in society. An important question (which is asked in The
Outsiders) to ask students when they look at this social hierarchy is:
*If you belong to the upper class does that mean you’re better than people who belong
to the struggling class?
Get students to read through the quotes on the resource ‘The Outsiders Social Class’.
Where would the Socs and The Greasers go on the social hierarchy pyramid? At this
point, ask students:
*In the book, what group of people might the word ‘outsiders’ refer to? Why?
Students will, of course, answer that the the Greasers are the outsiders which is a good
basic understanding to have at the start of a unit. However, over the course of the unit we
want to challenge students to see that a range of characters in this text - no matter which
group they belong to - are outsiders for different reasons.
• Bookmarking
As students read through this text they can fill out the attached ‘Plot Checklist’ - a tool
which helps them track the narrative stages of the story in The Outsiders, and scaffolds
them to have something to say about each stage. Each narrative section of the ‘Plot
Checklist’ can also be cut into strips which can be used as bookmarks. Students can insert
each narrative stage bookmark with their notes on it into the part of the book where that
stage occurs. This makes a good initial discussion point when starting out a unit on the
text.
A Ticking Mind Resource
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• Picture recount:
In this activity students don’t initially use words to recount the plot of The Outsiders, but
pictures. Attached is a resource labelled ‘The Outsiders Plot Pictures’. Organise students
into groups and give them a copy of the resource along with these instructions:
1. Cut out the pictures in the resource.
2. Identify an event from the text that each picture represents. There is no right or wrong just talk it through and pick an event.
3. Arrange pictures into a sequence which represents the sequence of events in the story.
3. Using post-it-notes, write a sentence about what each picture represents about the
events of the story. Place the note above or below the picture as a reminder for class
discussions.
This activity asks students to think laterally by linking pictures (when their relevance isn’t
always immediately apparent) with the text. Using pictures also helps students to create
their own picture narrative in their heads; rather than the event being a list of words.
Students will also have different interpretations of the same picture, which results in
interesting class discussion and enables the teacher to see how the student thinks about
different events in the text.
Once students have sequenced the pictures they can also:
• Put each of the character’s names next to one picture that represents a significant
action/event they participate in
• Divide the pictures into sections that represent stages of the narrative (such as
orientation, complication, crisis and resolution).
• Cause and effect chart
One thing leads to another in texts. We want students to particularly understand the
sequence of causes and effects in texts where character decisions clearly lead to
outcomes that are significant to the story and ideas of the narrative. This activity works
well with the picture plot procedure described above. In the handouts section are a series
of words to describe the causes and effects of events and actions in a plot. Give this to
students and get them to:
1) Arrange the pictures from the Picture Plot activity into a sequence which represents
the sequence of events from a plot.
A Ticking Mind Resource
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2) From the list of 19 words in the Cause and Effect handout, pick at least ten that
describe cause and effects in the plot.
3)
Place these words on the pictures that best represent these causes and effects.
4) Now, using the words as headings - students should create a flow chart that represents
cause and effect in the text.
• Creating a map:
Another way for students to familiarise themselves with The Outsiders is by visualising the
setting of the novel. Attached are a set of pictures in a resource labelled ‘The Outsiders
Setting Pictures’. Divide students into pairs, give each pair an A3 piece of paper and a
copy of the ‘Setting Pictures’ resource. Students should cut the pictures out and place
them on the page in a way that spatially creates some kind of map of the novel.
Emphasise to students:
• We don’t always know where one place is in relation to another in the book. Just have a
go putting the places on the page where you think they might go.
After students have stuck each place on the page, they should annotate each place using
this formula:
(Insert place name) is a place where...At this place (insert character name) feels... and
(insert another character name) feels...
A Ticking Mind Resource
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