The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton Excerpt THE PARK WAS ABOUT two ...

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The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Excerpt. THE PARK WAS ABOUT two blocks square, with a fountain in the middle and a small swimming pool for the little kids.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton Excerpt THE PARK WAS ABOUT two blocks square, with a fountain in the middle and a small swimming pool for the little kids. The pool was empty now in the fall, but the fountain was going merrily. Tall elm trees made the park shadowy and dark, and it would have been a good hangout, but we preferred our vacant lot, and the Shepard outfit liked the alleys down by the tracks, so the park was left to lovers and little kids. Nobody was around at two-thirty in the morning, and it was a good place to relax and cool off. I couldn't have gotten much cooler without turning into a popsicle. Johnny snapped up his jeans jacket and flipped up the collar. "Ain't you about to freeze to death, Pony?" "You ain't a'woofin'," I said, rubbing my bare arms between drags on my cigarette. I started to say something about the film of ice developing on the outer edges of the fountain when a sudden blast from a car horn made us both jump. The blue mustang was circling the park slowly. Johnny swore under his breath, and I muttered, "What do they want? This is our territory. What are the Socs doing this far east?" Johnny shook his head. "I don't know. But I bet they're looking for us. We picked up their girls." "Oh, glory," I said with a groan, "this is all I need to top off a perfect night" I took one last drag on my weed and ground the stub under my heel. "Want to run for it?" "It's too late now," Johnny said. "Here the come." (Hinton, 62) Censorship Back when I was in seventh grade, my class was reading The Outsiders. Most of the students reading the book really enjoyed it. By the time we were finished reading the book a couple of parents had found out that we were reading it and did not approve. After that they stopped teaching The Outsiders at East Hartford Middle School because the parents had a strong problem with the violence, language and the fact that the kids smoked and other things and were not supervised. I am not sure if it is still banned or not. Intended Audience I believe that the intended audience for this book is young adults. I believe that teaching in schools between the grades of seventh and ninth is the perfectly acceptable. In my mind the book is written for people that age. If I hadn't read it then and just read it when I was older I probably would not have as much of a love for the book as I do. Some of the things that this book teaches is growing up and the importance of friends and family.

Summary This book is about a 14 year old boy named Ponyboy Curtis. The book talks about society and how it is kind of backwards sometimes and it confuses Ponyboy, he believes that he is an "outsider" because he is a greaser, which are the poor kids who live on the east side of town. Their rivals are the socs who are rich and live on the west side of town. Ponyboy lives with his two older brothers Sodapop and Darry. They are under the guardianship of Darry because their parents died in a car accident. The story starts with Ponyboy getting jumped by a group of socs. Johnny who is Ponyboy's best friend had also been jumped by the socs at one point earlier. Later on Ponyboy gets in a fight with Darry and runs away from home with Johnny. They were hanging out in park late at night when some socs came up to them and proceeded to beat them up. In defense for himself and Ponyboy, Johnny stabs and kills one of the socs. After the fight they run to one of their greaser friends Dally who helps them and tells them where to runaway too and that he would come find them when the time was safe. They go to this church and spend some time there. While there Ponyboy starts realizing the importance of his friends and family and that he is growing up and he can't stay young forever. Dally eventually comes up to see them. He takes them to get some food and then brings them back to the church. When they get back there is a field trip of kids there, but the church was on fire Johnny ran in to help and Ponyboy ran behind him. They save the kids that were inside, but both get pretty hurt themselves and have to go to the hospital. Ponyboy is okay and he doesn't have to stay in the hospital but Johnny is not as lucky and ends up dying because of his injuries. Dally seems to take this the hardest and in his pain and grief he robs a store. He runs from the police and calls his friends to come and pick him up. While waiting for his friends the police surround him, he pulls out an object, the police assume it's a gun and shoot him and it kills him. The violence and deaths that had just happened really affect Ponyboy and he realizes life is worth more and writes a book to all the people like Johnny and Dally in the world.

East Hartford High School (East Hartford, Connecticut)

We want students to be lifelong readers – to that aim, we encourage students to experience a broad range of fiction and non-fiction works, including contemporary and young adult literature alongside great literary classics.

Department Goals   

Students will use appropriate strategies before, during and after reading in order to construct meaning. Students will describe, interpret, reflect on, analyze and evaluate text in order to extend understanding and enjoyment. Students will select and apply strategies to facilitate word recognition and extend vocabulary development.

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Students will communicate with others to create interpretations and evaluation of written, oral, and visual texts. Students will recognize how literary devices and conventions capture the reader. Students will explore multiple responses to literature. Students will recognize and appreciate that contemporary and classical literature has shaped human thought. Students will recognize that readers and writers are influenced by individual, social, cultural and historical contexts. Students will explore decisions and political and social issues through literature. Students will use descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive and poetic modes. Students will prepare, publish and present work appropriate to audience, purpose and task. Students will employ research skills Students will conform to Standard English. Students will use language appropriate to purpose, audience and task. Students will use knowledge of their language and culture to improve competency in English.

I believe that East Hartford High School has great goals and great expectations for the students in the English classes there. I believe that The Outsiders meets some of these goals very well. One of the goals says that students will explore decisions and political and social issues through literature. I believe that The Outsiders is a perfect way to explore and understand social issues and consequences based on decisions because of how the greasers and socs live. This book also works with the goal that students will recognize that readers and writers are influenced by individual, social cultural and historical context. I also believe that this book is a great book to read to get kids into reading, it is such a great story that really grabs the readers attention. I hated the thought of any book before I read this book in the East Hartford School system and then once I read this book, I started to love to read.

Impact on the reader and possible problems This book does have some good lessons in it. Some of the good things that I believe this book teaches are that although there is violence it shows that the violence is pointless and that at the end of the day it solves nothing and most likely will only make things worse. It also shows how important friends and family are, Ponyboy realized that when he lost Johnny and Dally and when he was away from his brothers for so long. However, there could be some bad things in this book if youth do not know how to decipher what is right from what is wrong. It does show them smoking and drinking and fighting. If someone does not understand that these things are bad than they could think it is okay to do. But if they have a responsible parent or teacher telling them right and wrong it should be no problem.

S.E. Hinton She grew up in Oklahoma. The Outsiders was the first novel that she wrote, it was inspired by the gangs at her high school that she went too. The gangs were called the socs and greasers, they were the same gangs that she portrays in the book. A lot of the characters in the book were based on real people that she knew and grew up with. She was 16 when she wrote this book and it was published her freshman year of college at The University of Tulsa. Her books are:         

The Outsiders (1967, novel) That Was Then, This Is Now (1971, novel) Rumble Fish (1975, novel) Tex (1979, novel) Taming the Star Runner (1988, novel) Big David, Little David (1995, picture book) The Puppy Sister (1995, chapter book) Hawkes Harbor (2004, novel) Some of Tim's Stories (2006, short stories)

Awards:   

"Best Novel" by the L.A. Times (1979) The Eric Leatherberry Award (1988) Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)

Works Cited Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders New York; Viking Press, 1967. Print.

Hinton, S.E. Biography S.E. Hinton.com. Web Oct. 10 2012. http://www.sehinton.com/. East Hartford High School English Department East Hartford Public Schools. Web Oct. 10 2012. http://www.easthartford.org/page.cfm?p=9040.