I have been teaching The Outsiders ever since I started teaching junior high. The only “required” novel when I got to my school in 1993 was Tom Sawyer. The “approved” novels were shtuff like A Day no Pigs Would Die and Where the Red Fern Grows. Ummm, no offense, but I couldn’t cope. (Actually, I kinda liked ADNPWD – a bit.) I was rummaging around in the old English department storage room, and came across a class set of The Outsiders. Paydirt! Way better than Summer of the Monkeys. But it was only a class set. So, not knowing what else to do at the time, I decided we would read the whole thing as a class, in class. It has worked out beautifully. In fact, if I could only make one recommendation about teaching the novel, it would be this: don’t let them take it home! Hide all the copies in the school library. Tell the parents not to let them buy it or rent the cheesy movie. Read the whole thing in class! And read most of it to them. By the time we hit “I was wrong” at the end of chapter 3, most of them are
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I really did mean to post yesterday, but my fine web host decided it was a fine time to botch an upgrade, and my sites were inaccessible until this morning. Sorry about that. And the even more beauty part was that last night was Back to School Night, when I like to showcase to parents how they can keep tabs on their little angels by using the Seventh Grade web site. I used the local version on our school network, but still, it was pain. Wait, I guess I missed Wednesday too. Okay. Here’s yesterday. We followed up Delinquent with another Langston Hughes piece, Thank You M’am. It’s a classic, and our district uses it for the district writing assessment (response to literature). It also fits with the whole outsider(s) theme…get it… Motto (don’t judge; dig and be dug in return), Delinquent (“it takes a village” and all that), and Thank You M’am (ditto). Now… The Outsiders. I start by asking them what they think they know about 1967. (I was 6.) The first answer is almost always “hippies!” Every year. Ummmm… Not quite. Especially not in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We talk about having only 3 stations on TV and no
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The first day is always so… well mostly they sit and stare. Some aren’t used to having to do something on the first day. My “faves” are the ones with the fat binder… WITH NO PAPER! Hello?! What’s up with that? Or toting the giant backpack that half of them could fit in… WITH NOTHING TO WRITE WITH! Anyway. I’m getting going on my Outsiders stuff a little earlier this year. We read Motto today, and I divvied the class up into thirds to try to translate how he uses the words cool, dig, and jive. They were a bit (a lot) tentative, but we did OK. Some of them set me up nicely by trying to translate slang with other slang, so we could compare that with looking up vocabulary in the dictionary and having the definition be a word they don’t know either. They seemed to enjoy Geetz Romo, and his explanation of the concept of digging. Wait, they dug it. Dig? And that led us to the new let’s-see-how-they-write-at-the-beginning-of-the-year assignment. I think one will be fun to read. Here’s today’s agenda. (I hesitate to call it a lesson plan, but…)
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School starts tomorrow. Even after 18 years of doing this, I still get excited. Anyway, here are a couple of shameless plugs: Brainscramble.com – Wacky wordies, trick questions, what I like to call Mental Floss. Great for Friday warm ups or so-called sponge activities (do they still call them that?) or just to get the brain working. AboutSEHinton.com – All kinds of background info, interviews, reflections on the 40th anniversary of The Outsiders, and a lot more. Time for nigh nigh.
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Tomorrow’s a “teacher work day.” The kids start Tuesday. I have actually been trying to get into the groove a little earlier this year… I revamped my class expectations sheet(.pdf) this year. I had sort of gotten into a rut each year of basically changing the year (or maybe a cosmetic change or two) and that’s about it. I decided there was too much fluff. I added a more complete list of novels, I rewrote the intro section and highlighted some of the technology we use, I included the late work policy (finally! duh!), and I added the KBAR FAQ. Speaking of FAQ’s. I added some to my web page this year. I finally got tired of answering the same questions over and over (hmmm you’d think I would learn faster than my seventh graders), especially the ones about late work and extra credit. (The pickle recipe is the best ever!) Anyway, I will emphasize these pages at Back to School Night, and with any luck, answer fewer questions this year.
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A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth. [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)