![]() The story hasn’t changed, of course, but The Outsiders has infinite possibilities for teaching. I still remember the love affair I had with Ponyboy and the Greasers when I met them in 1983, and each year it is a thrill to revisit the gang. The Outsiders, SE Hinton’s classic novel about a gang of boys growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, still attracts the 12-14 year old a half century after it was written. There are many masterful works that I could read with my students, but I keep returning to a 50-year-old novel, written by a first time author when she was only fifteen.Īre you with me? If you teach middle school English, you probably are. I teach one classroom novel a year and finding a book with wide appeal – one that will be adored by girls, boys, reluctant readers and dystopian devotees – is no small feat. ![]() Laurie Lichtenstein, a middle school English and Social Studies teacher in the northern suburbs of New York City, reflects on the book’s half-century hold on the adolescent mind and heart. Hinton (Susan Eloise) was a high school student when it appeared, and teens and tweens surely account for much of the book’s 15+ million in estimated sales. What do you think were some of the issues teenagers faced in the 1960s?ĥ.The Outsiders (published April 24, 1967) had its 50th anniversary in 2017. What do you think a “coming-of-age” novel means?Ĥ. What do you think “The Outsiders” means?ģ. Use the link below to submit your answers.ġ. Considered a coming-of-age novel, The Outsiders examines many social and teenage issues that were prevalent in the 1960s and are still issues today.Īnswer the following questions in complete sentences. The setting of the novel, Oklahoma in the 1960s, is the same setting in which Hinton wrote the book. Hinton, because the publisher did not think that people would believe that a girl wrote this novel! Hinton began writing the story in response to an act of teenage violence that occurred in her hometown. The author, Susan Eloise Hinton, began writing the story when she was 15-years-old and it was finally published when she was 17-years-old, in 1967. The Outsiders was written by a teenager about teenagers. Taken from the Author’s Foreword in The Outsiders Speak Platinum Edition, published by Penguin Group (1995) If this sounds like I am overwhelmed by the decades of incredible response to what began as a short story I started when I was fifteen years old, well, I guess that’s the truth. It’s certainly done more good than anything I could accomplish on a personal level. Who am I to change anyone’s life? I guess the best reply is “It’s the book, not the author” and “It’s the message, not the messenger.” A lot of the time I feel that The Outsiders was meant to be written, and I was chosen to write it. The letters saying “I loved the book” are good, the ones that say “I never liked to read before, and now I read all them” are better, but the ones that say “The Outsiders changed my life” and “I read it fifteen years ago and I realize how much it has influenced my life choices” frankly scare me. Kids who can’t imagine living lives like those in The Outsiders. Kids who are living like those in The Outsiders. From convicts and policemen, teachers, social workers, and of course, kids. From twelve-year-olds and forty-year-olds. I receive letters from every state, from dozens of foreign countries. So I was both elated and not surprised when I received my publishing contract on the day I graduated from high school.įans. ![]() By the time I was in high school I had been practicing for years. I began in grade school, because I loved to read, and liked the idea of making stories happen the way I wanted them to. I desperately wanted something to read that dealt realistically with teen-age life. At the time, I was mad about the social situation in my high school. To deal with the problems I had to face, and write my way to some sort of understanding and coping. Looking back, I realize how important it was to me to have another life at that time. Actually I began it when I was fifteen, as a short story about a boy who as beaten up on his way home from the movies.īut I didn’t just write The Outsiders, I lived it. I wrote The Outsiders when I was sixteen years old. ![]() It is very difficult for me to write about myself, and especially The Outsiders, which was written at a horrendous time in my life, was published by a series of mind-boggling synchronicities, and has gone further than any author dared dream.
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