The Outsiders

The Hook is Set.

September 16, 2008
By

Since yesterday was late start day, classes were 11 minutes shorter, and what with copying the homework into planners and warmup and Academic Words Pretest #1, we ran out of time for Outsiders. Boy Howdy, they were ready today. The three biggest parts of chapter three: 1) Ponyboy blowing up about Darry and dissing Johnny (“…and we all know you ain’t wanted at home…” OUCH. But Two-Bit gives Pony one upside the head for us.) 2) The confrontation with Randy and Bob (Two-Bit’s joke, “Pity the back seat…” goes right by most of them; I usually pause and wait, and then explain) and Cherry telling Pony she’s going to pretend not to know him, which leads to our second important sunset line, “Just remember, some of us watch sunsets too.” 3) The blowup with Darry. There really is silence in the classroom when Darry slaps Pony. The kids are as shocked as Pony. They also laugh when Darry yells, “Pony, I didn’t mean to,” which Darry just got through yelling at Pony for saying. I managed to stop one class at the end of chapter three. “I was wrong.” Oh the begging. HAHAHAHAHA. One of the afternoon classes got into

Read more »

Which one is the real you?

September 11, 2008
By

Well. I guess daily posts might be a little ambitious for me… They’ve been begging to read Outsiders. (All according to plan.) Almost as much as they’re begging to see “Unpack Your Adjectives” again. One kid even said, “That’s why you don’t let us take it home. We’d just read it all in one night. You like to torture us with the suspense.” Very perceptive, that boy. We finished chapter two, and charged into chapter three today. We talked about foreshadowing with Johnny and the knife he now carries (after the flashback to his mugging), and foreshadowing again with, “I know better now,” at the end of chapter two. (See how easy it is to teach those kinds of terms with this book?) Then we get to how Cherry can actually open up to Pony, unlike around her “friends” and how she always has to keep up an image. I stopped there and asked them, “How many of you are a different person around your parents from the one you are around your friends?” Most of them raised their hands. “How many of you are yet a different person around Gramma?” Most hands again. “How many of you are a

Read more »

“It’s all about the love, then.”

September 3, 2008
By

Already missed a day. Dang. Tuesday was big day. I introduced KBAR and our first Show not Tell assignment. First KBAR. You can read the KBAR page for yourself, but during the first part of the year, while we are reading The Outsiders aloud in class, I try to use my mutation of our school-wide independent reading program to show them how to read and respond to literature. So as we read live in class, I can demo what they should be doing at home with their books. Show not Tell is one of me fave ways of getting 7th graders to think writing can be fun…and of getting their writing to be a whole lot less boring to read. After all, I gotta read 140 of whatever, and if they’re not interesting, it’s going to be a slog. More on both of these later, but I just have to tell about this one before I forget. I think I already have a fave class this year. I know you’re not supposed to pick faves, but…some classes are just more…fun(ny). Today, reading The Outsiders, we were getting to the end of chapter one, and I’m asking them why they think

Read more »

Read The Outsiders aloud…

August 31, 2008
By

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

Read more »

“Sorry about that Chief.” (also: Hippies!)

August 29, 2008
By
“Sorry about that Chief.” (also: Hippies!)

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

Read more »

Random Featured Post

Quizzes for Dummies?

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. [...]

more -->


Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

Archives

May 2012
M T W T F S S
« Apr    
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  

Recent Comments

Links

Privacy Policy

Tags

cartoons Charlotte Doyle Class Activities clickers CPS CTEL Flashback grammar high school idiosyncrasies irony Mailbag Me mechanics middle school teaching Monsters on Maple Street Moodle online learning oral reading Outsiders CHapter 5 Outsiders Chapter 7 RaffleKing Ray Bradbury Reading Richard Cory Seventh Grade Behavior Stories of Seventh Grade substituting Teaching Teaching Tips teaching with technology teaching with technology teaching writing Technology techology testing The Earth Men The Giver The Midwife's Apprentice The Outsiders Tips Tips for teachers Tom Sawyer Wiki Writing