I never read The Outsiders in school, and I know it’s part of the Language Arts curriculum now in some schools. My students were reading it today for class, so I decided to join them! The kids really seemed to like it – they were all actually silently reading, which for a class of eighth graders with a substitute is fairly impressive. At first I didn’t think I was going to like it all that much. It’s not the type of thing I usually choose […]
A nostalgic visit to my early teens
Ponyboy Curtis is an orphan. He lives with his two older brothers, Darry, who works construction and Sodapop, who dropped out of school to work in a garage to help support the family. Ponyboy and his friends are Greasers, kids with leather jackets and long, grease-slicked hair from working class backgrounds, often with a lot of trouble at home. Quite a few of the Greasers are part of gangs and having a criminal record isn’t all that uncommon. Ponyboy would much rather be a Greaser […]