The Outsiders

We have been working on The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton for some time now. The students enjoy the book because many of them can relate to the story being a teenager in a rural setting. Beginning the story way back in January we started off slow and read and discussed 1-2 chapters a week, starting with 1-4. After we covered 1-4 is when I believe the students had gained enough knowledge of character and we moved at a faster pace.

To help the students get through more of the book I read a portion of each chapter out loud and we were covering between a chapter and a chapter and half a day.

2 lessons I developed for the Unit was a Bio Poem and a Question Writing activity.

Bio Poem Activity I love poetry and I know not all students share a love of writing like I do. I thought the Bio Poem Activity would be a good exercise for students to do to break up some of the monotony. This was a good way for them to show what they learned about character.

Question Writing Activity After the mid-book test (chpt 5-9) I decided I wanted the students to do a question writing activity. We started off the lesson discussing the test they had just taken. "Did they think this test was easier than the first?" I started by asking them if they were writing a test what would they want to see on it? I opened with the fact the students would not being partaking in daily vocab, rather they would be answering questions (their own questions).