Name: ______Date: ______
English 7, Period: ______Ms. Skolnik/Mr. Koondel/Ms. Harwood
The Outsiders (Chapters 10-12): Connected Reading and Writing 10 Quiz: Passage 1
The Outsiders: A Disappointed Teacher's Review
By Christopher Wren
It excites me that so many students have found this book so enticing and satisfying as a reading experience, but my excitement has everything to do with the act of reading, and not this specific book. I'm glad a book turned them on this much, but I hope they move on to better books, less insulting ones, and I hope other teachers feel this way, too. Look at some of the low reviews--by both kids and adults, and you'll see that there's a great deal of divided opinion, and not just because the book was the dreaded "assigned reading."
The Outsiders is an absurdly weak novel. It is almost artless in its prose, and yet Hinton doesn't supply us with persuasive grittiness in its place. The tough scenes are tough because the book wants them to be so, and because the facts of death and guilt have an impact on us--but not because Hinton successfully locates the real, grinding force of these happenings. So we have a book that just lacks expressive force, making it at most a series of sometimes engaging incidents. The characters and dialogue are problems, too. Hinton's teenage kids alternately fail to see some of the most manifest, obvious meanings behind some circumstance and then fill a whole page with insight after insight about each other and the discriminatory society they inhabit. Near the end, in the course of a couple pages, we get a whirlwind of family revelations as Ponyboy understands something about Darry because of a little shouting match, and then Darry and Ponyboy realize something about Sodapop's family anxieties. The rush of these sudden epiphanies makes them hasty and unconvincing, and the fact that Hinton was a teenager when she wrote it is a problem, not a justification.
It isn't even clear that the book has compassion for its own characters. In the flashback that tells of Johnny's bad mauling by Soc kids, the other greasers show up (they always seem to know where to find each other immediately after something awful has happened) and they just sit around listening. So Johnny's supposedly gut-wrenching pain becomes merely a cause for character conversation, and that flashback just leaves him there bleeding, in the company of friends. He is the novel’s maudlin spectacle. Frankly, Dally is dangerous because the book keeps saying so, not because the book really demonstrates or illustrates a dangerous quality in him. Many of the characters are just indistinguishable guys with unrevealing dialogue or action; they lack definable individuality.
The theme of being judged by appearances has been done better in almost every work of fiction I have ever encountered. Heck, I read my own children a funny, spirited picture-book called I Stink, about a garbage truck, and that offers the topic more useful examination than this does. The unremitting suffering and misunderstanding and misdirection these characters undergo in Hinton's novel is more punishing and melodramatic than revealing. The book is simply substandard reading that satisfies the way a bad summer movie does, and it cares about that much for its characters and is about as insulting to its readers.
It was a terrible read and I found the violence to be in the book because it was needed to advance the characters. Good books should be lead by great characters. Violence, or any action, should only be in the book if its characters lead - not the other way around. No wonder this author got a D+ in English! This book and movie only survive because teachers have been told that they must teach this book.
While the "idea" of this book is interesting, exploring class warfare through the eyes of teenagers, the book itself is not worth reading. Hopefully the educational system will catch on and stop making kids read this horrid book!
Name: ______Date: ______
English 7, Period: ______Ms. Skolnik/Mr. Koondel/Ms. Harwood
The Outsiders (Chapters 10-12): Connected Reading and Writing 10 Quiz: Passage 2
The Outsiders: An Excellent Novel
By Andrew Raker
S.E. Hinton's novel, The Outsiders, is among my favorite novels that follows the tradition of Realism. The novel seeks to portray a group of young people (a gang) called the Greasers, who are often viewed by others in their community as little more than white trash. However, through Ponyboy Curtis' narration, S.E. Hinton complicates the notion that the poor are stupid losers rather than people who have had a hard life. For instance, both of Ponyboy's parents are dead as a result of a tragic accident, and Ponyboy's 20 year-old brother, Darry, has forgone college to work in order to support Ponyboy, so Ponyboy and Sodapop (other brother) would not end up in a boys’ home.
Even Ponyboy's narration of the text is communicated in such a way that his intelligence shines through. Ponyboy's poetic narrative voice is often sympathetic and nuanced towards the characters and world that surrounds him. At times, Ponyboy's world is crudely broken down into the Greasers (poor, struggling kids) and the Socs (those kids from a higher "social" standing), yet Ponyboy's inner voice and feelings perceive a much richer spectrum than this, and by the novel's end he realizes that societal differences are not what they seem. Though Ponyboy lives in a world of uncertainty, male aggression, and physical danger, he is often filled with curiosity, wonder, and other feelings that contrast with the stark realities he faces.
Johnny Cade's character is also well developed. In addition to being Ponyboy's friend, S.E. Hinton's portrayal of 16 year-old Johnny (through Ponyboy's narration) is one of deep, emotional depth. Johnny is not a bad kid. He murders a Soc, but only because the Socs, in their state of drunkenness, might have murdered Ponyboy. In addition, Johnny feels very badly after committing the murder, and the scenes in the abandoned church (as well as the fire scene) further convey Johnny's humanity. Johnny's character is important in dispelling modern notions that wish to place people in boxes of either GOOD or BAD, as though people are either saint-like or demonic, and as though economic circumstances and other environmental factors exert no influence over a person's life or actions.
Of course, S.E. Hinton's novel is not about portraying Greasers as good and Socs as bad. That would defeat the entire purpose of her novel. The Socs are also products of their environment, an environment of total entitlement, lack of discipline by wealthy parents, and a police department that turns the other way when children of the wealthy engage in drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, and other sordid and irresponsible behaviors. Worded differently, the Socs cannot imagine a world in which they are not the kings of the hill - the rulers of the scum of the earth (i.e. the Greasers) because that is how their parents view young people of the ghetto.
In short, this novel can be read as a call for humanism - to acknowledge that people are products of their environment and backgrounds (economic and social) - and a call for all human beings to treat one another with greater dignity and respect. It is hard for me to describe just how huge an impact this book had on my life when I was growing up. Any young adult can relate to this book, especially the way it vividly portrays what it feels like to be an "outsider" who's not part of the "popular" crowd; and the surprising flip side, that the people in the popular group may be just as lonely (and subject to the same pressures) as the outsiders. Any teen should relate strongly to this story.
If asked to name my favorite book of all time, this would probably be it; it meant so much to me growing up. Thank you, S.E. Hinton, from the bottom of my heart.
Extra Credit Short Response:
Based on your judgment of The Outsiders and both reviews, which reviewer’s opinion do you agree with and which do you disagree with? Use details from each review to support your answer.
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Short Response Rubric (10 Points Total)
Score / Points / Response Features2 Point / Addresses all of the requirements of the prompt
Valid inferences and/or claims from the text
Evidence of analysis of the text
Relevant and sufficient facts, definitions, concrete details, and/or other information from the text
Complete sentences where errors do not impact readability
1 Point / Addresses some of the requirements of the prompt
A mostly literal recounting of events or details
Some evidence of analysis of the text
Some relevant facts, definitions, concrete details, and/or other information from the text to develop response
Some incomplete sentences and errors in spelling/grammar/syntax where errors impact readability
0 Point / Does not address any requirements of the prompt
No inferences and/or claims from the text
No evidence of analysis of the text
No relevant facts, definitions, concrete details, and/or other information from the text to develop response
Many incomplete sentences and errors in spelling/grammar/syntax where errors significantly interfere with readability
Total Score