1. THE OUTSIDERS

2. S.E. HINTON BIOGRAPHY S. E. Hinton grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the city in which The Outsiders is set. Writing helped her to process her experiences and find refuge from her troubled home life. She was inspired by her frustration with the social divisions in her high school and the lack of realistic fiction for high school readers. The book was based on the social problems she witnessed at her Tulsa high school.

3. The Outsiders, first published in 1967, tells the story of class conflict between the greasers, a group of low-class youths, and the Socs (short for Socials), a group of privileged rich kids who live on the wealthy West Side of town. During Hinton's teenage years, she wrote two books that were unpublished before she wrote The Outsiders, which was published when she was 19 years old.

4. After The Outsiders, she wrote several other young adult books. In recent years, she has published children's fiction and adult fiction as well. In 1988, the American Library Association awarded her the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors the work of authors whose books have proven to speak for and to adolescents. She was also awarded the 1998 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award by the Oklahoma Center for the Book. Hinton lives in Tulsa with her husband.

5. HISTORICAL CONTEXT The book reflects the growing disillusionment and social stratification Americans experienced during the 1960s. Young people were finding their voices and making their presence felt on the political stage.

6. Race relations were changing dramatically as the Civil Rights Movement drew attention to organized and persistent discrimination against African Americans. Though Hinton does not refer directly to any historical or political events in her work, the book seeks to elevate public awareness of marginalized groups and to confirm the voices and experiences of young people.

7. Hinton’s publishers decided that Hinton should publish her novel under the name S. E. Hinton in order to cloak her gender. They worried that readers would not respect The Outsiders, which features male protagonists and violent situations, if they knew a female wrote it. Hinton has said that she does not mind using an authorial name that is gender neutral. What other famous female authors have hid their gender to avoid stereotypes?

8. THEMES As we read through the novel you should pay close attention to not only the plot and characters but also to the themes that arise. There are a variety of themes that become prominent in the novel, including: o The Disparity Between the Classes (social, economic and educational) o Empathy – seeing the struggles of someone else o The Loss of Childhood Innocence o Self Sacrifice and Honor o Individual Identity vs Group Identity

9. CHAPTER 1 Use the graphic organizer that you have been provided to keep track of the key characters in the novel. This chapter has many connections to the theme of divided communities and the differences between the classes. Can you spot them?

10. JOURNAL ENTRY #1 Use the following questions and points to guide your journal entry. Each entry should be approximately a page in length. Be sure to make text-to-text and text-to-self connections. Write about your personal identity? What is your group of friends identity? Do you act differently when you are around certain friends? Why? Is having a strong personal identity hard for some people? What makes it difficult for some people to embrace their own identity? * keep in mind that SE Hinton that hid her own identity when she published this novel