Exploring S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders: A Deeper Understanding for Year 8 Students

Background:

• Susan Eloise Hinton (S.E. Hinton) forever altered the landscape of young adult fiction with her overwhelmingly unflinching narratives of adolescence. Born in 1950 in Oklahoma, she was merely a teenager when she penned her groundbreaking coming-of-age novel, The Outsiders. This piece was inspired by the social divisions and tensions that Hinton observed in her own high school, thus cementing an unprecedented level of realism and emotional depth to young adult literature.

• Throughout her phenomenal novel, she explored class struggles, loyalty and identity, which inspired multiple film adaptations.

• Prior to The Outsiders, young adult literature was largely didactic, often idealised, and disconnected from the realities of teenage life. Hinton’s novel revolutionised the genre by presenting authentic teenage voices, real-world struggles, and morally complex characters. Her work paved the way for later Young Adult authors to explore serious themes such as violence, poverty, and emotional turmoil.

• In this section today, we will break down key essay topics to learn how to brainstorm text response pieces for The Outsiders, but before that:

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Essay Prompt #1

S.E. Hinton's novel, The Outsiders, explores how “we lie to ourselves ‘all the time’ rather than face reality”. Do you agree?

The first step to writing your text response essay is breaking down the prompt. Regardless of how well you write, or how great your idea is, if your piece does not reflect the prompt, then you will not receive the marks you need.

Let's first identify the key terms in this prompt, and a brief explanation of each term:

We	Inclusive language, makes us feel important and recognised
All the time	Similar to words like 'never' and 'always' (Definitive time statements). These are extremely exaggerated words - are you really sure we lie to ourselves all the time? Be careful here!
Face reality	Hiding oneself from the truth. Theme of self-deception. Fear, anxiousness. etc.

Now the next step is to recognise that this is a 'do you agree' prompt. In VCE English, this type of prompt requires you to take a stance on the given statement/viewpoint related to the text. In this case, the question is asking whether you:

• Agree

  • You will find textual evidence to support your contention that "we lie to ourselves all the time".

• Partially Agree; or,

  • You will form a nuanced argument exploring both sides of 'agree' and 'disagree' in that "we do lie to ourselves", but perhaps not "all the time", for example.

• Disagree

  • You will find textual evidence to support your contention that "we [do not] lie to ourselves all the time"

A well-written highly comprehensive piece will more usually than not follow the 'partially agree' viewpoint as both the agree and disagree stances are explored, and highlights deeper knowledge of the text.

Now, just having valid arguments is not enough - you always need textual evidence to back up your argument and solidify your explanation. This is the next step. Let's brainstorm one prime example for the affirmative side (the 'agree' stance):

Affirmative stance (We agree):	Explanation:	Evidence:
We are always in constant denial of our situation	As a means of reassurance Escaping from reality/truth to feel more safe	Johnny's death Ponyboy witnessed Johnny’s murder ● He cannot accept it happened ● Tries to hide that Johnny died ● He cannot admit Johnny is dead
We lie to ourselves, especially when dealing with death (grief)	To feel that the person is still with us	How does Ponyboy show this? ● He avoids it ● Doesn’t like talking about that topic ● Tries to forget because he doesn’t want to remember
We lie to ourselves for safety reasons (to keep ourself safe)	Doing something that frightens us, or scares us First reaction is to stop Confidence booster	Why do people in general create a false reality? ● To hide something ● They are afraid/scared ● As a means of reassurance ● To feel safe/protected ● To feel accepted/important

When writing your piece, it's very important to incorporate the key themes, which are:

1. Friendship and Loyalty

   1. Exploration of relationships among the Greasers and Socs

2. Class Struggle

   1. The impact of socioeconomic status on behaviour and choices

3. Identity and Belonging

   1. Characters' quests for self-discovery and acceptance

Now, that's all we've got for today. But we do get it—essays, text analysis, and exams can be painful.

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