Posts Tagged ‘ The Outsiders ’

OMG! Haircut!

January 5, 2009
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I’m going to dispense with the “oh noes, vacation is over, and I didn’t do anything except sleep in, install a toilet, and play Wii” in one sentence and be done with it. There. Also, before I get back to 120 Seconds tomorrow, I have another first to share. (That’s another beautiful thing about this job; even after almost 20 years, I still get surprised.) I have this thing about haircuts. I don’t like them, never have. I didn’t like getting clipped by my dad, I didn’t like going to the barber shop, I don’t like going to the salon. I always had to stuff my hair up into my headgear for wrestling, back in the day. I was a long hair (rock and roll stylie – middle of the back) for many years in the 80′s. I even did my first student teaching with hair like that. (Parent conferences were a beauty; parents with whom I had had fine phone conversations reacted quite differently sometimes when meeting me in person. I like to tell those stories during The Outsiders.) My wife has cut me now and then, but after a slip of the clip once, she has begged off.

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Oh, of course!

October 27, 2008
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As we have seen, the seventh grade mind works in mysterious ways. Last week left us pondering seventh grade translations for the euphemism, “vertically challenged.” In addition to the correct response, short, and many silly ones (retarded? stupid?), we also received three sincere, mystery responses: hard, clumsy, and gay. Here are the kids’ explanations: Hard – “Well, if something is vertical, it’s high, so it’s hard to get over. So it’s hard. So, see…” Hmmm. Why do all explanations like this begin with the word well, and have lots of so’s in them? Clumsy – “Well, you know, if you have a hard time staying vertical, you’re clumsy right? Always falling down? Not vertical any more.” This one isn’t bad. I think I gave it to her. Gay – “Well, if you’re not straight…you’re gay, right?” Who am I to argue with logic like that? I asked the girl in the afternoon who had also said gay. She said that was what she was thinking too. Of course. More follow up and suchlike. And some actual talk about the namesake of this blog. We finished The Outsiders. We read chapter 12 together, and there are almost as many tears during

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“Who is this Jhonny?”

October 16, 2008
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Most of them have gotten past chapter 10, and the answers to my question, “Why is Dally’s death somehow sadder than Johnny’s?” are starting to trickle in. I’ll share some of those soon, when we talk about chapter 12, but I want to talk about this guy Jhonny. (me, reading the first responses to the question, while they read silently) “‘Cal,’ how do you spell Johnny?” “J-o-h-n-n-y.” Sort of puzzled. “So, who’s this Jhonny guy?” I pronounce it like I’m clearing my throat, “Jah-Honny.” Everybody laughs. Of course, as you know, 7th graders are like parrots; they have to repeat everything they hear that catches their attention. So now I have half the class sounding like they have a 2 pack-a-day habit. “I figure I have at least 6 or 8 of you, in this class, who did the same thing. Who is this Jhonny guy? Some of you went even back and forth between Johnny and Jah-Honny.” Every year is the same. Jhonny. “Where does this come from? Who knows someone who spells his name that way? Where, in English, do we ever see the jh combo!?” Of course, some try to claim that, “I knew a guy in

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I hate “make-up” work requests. Also, silence.

October 14, 2008
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I was going to talk about the absolute silence that reigned when I turned them loose to read silently today. OK I will anyway, then I’ll rant about make-up work requests. I told them today I was going to read aloud up to the bottom of page 146, and then they were going to read silently until the end of chapter 11. I told them I wanted to watch them read (you’d be surprised at what you see – or maybe you wouldn’t), and see how well they could do on a quiz on their own. (Most of the Outsiders quizzes have been open-mouth stylie.) “But we don’t read as good as you! Or as fast!” “Well, not good. Adverb, remember? You’ll be fine. You don’t all have to be finished at the same time. You’ll get time each day this week.” I gave them a 20 question quiz to finish along the way. (Question 20: Why is Dally’s death somehow sadder than Johnny’s? Be sure to use an example from the book.) I read up to Dally saying, “Sucker,” to the cop. I left them laughing, and told them they were on their own. Instant, absolute silence. I was

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Chapter Nine – Part I (Also, sarcastic comedy.)

October 13, 2008
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Admittedly, chapter 9 has some filler. I still don’t get Pony’s little poll about why each of them fights. I finally eliminated questions about that from my quizzes. Unlike almost everything else in the novel, this feels tacked on, maybe just to build tension for the rumble. There are a few laughs. Soda trying to cheat at poker (I always have to stop a beat, and let them catch it), Steve catching him, and of course, the horseplay and Two-Bit’s Soc imitation. “Get thee hence…” They are quick to see that they are trying to get themselves fired up for the rumble. I point out that they do it by using the insults others hurl at them. Soda sticking his tongue out at Darry is a fine image. And Dally’s line when he shows up is a classic. Tomorrow, we’ll read aloud up to where Dally jukes the cop on the way to the hospital. I let (make) them read from there to the end of chapter 10 on their own. Part of it is like they figure, part of it is that they need to experience this for themselves. This is what makes them have a connection to a

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Random Featured Post

“How cute. Like hobos…” (Also: Hank Williams.)

Wednesday. Vocabulary Pretest. Talk of facades and irony. Both figure large in The Outsiders. More on that later. Today I have more insight from my friendly class. We’re reading chapter 4 (the death of Bob, Dally helping with the getaway, jumping the train out of town), and we get to where Dally is telling Pony and Johnny to “hop the 3:15 freight to Windrixville.” We pause and talk about how it’s only been less than 36 hours (book time) since the beginning. They find it hard to believe until we start to do the timeline. Figure that Pony gets out of the movie in the late afternoon, and gets jumped and saved. Pony and Johnny and Dally go to the Nightly Double the next night, and it’s now 3:15am that same night. Then I make sure they know that a freight is a train. And one girl says, “How cute. Like hobos…” Hobos maybe. Cute? [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do? When the boys run to find Dally at Buck Merrill’s house, Pony offers a brief description of Buck that ends with, “…he was out of it. He dug [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989. He sometimes tweets when he's in the right mood: @mrCinSLO.

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  • Heather commented on No Soup for YouGazpacho beats Jhonny any day of the week.
  • Heather commented on MAUS is back. (Rerun)I like the idea of a fairly steep age requirement for an interview project. Interviewing is one of our standards for eighth graders, and I usually have them interview someone about what middle school/junior high was like "back in the day" after reading The Outsiders and Garrison Keillor's anecdote "Something from the Sixties" from
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  • Meg commented on Even “Disneyland” is in Danger (Part 1)I find it funny how much the US is trying to change the system to "up the test scores" when China is trying to figure out how we produces such creative and innovative thinkers. Seriously, China, Japan, all of those 'high test score' countries are sending people over to the states to learn how
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  • Mrs. M~ commented on The PitchYes, yes, FIVE snow days in the last three months, and two of them were this week. In APRIL. This has been a god-awful winter. People are becoming almost laughingly crabby and morose. To the south of us they got a terrible ice storm, and lots of people have been without
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