Stayed True to a Classic of YA Literature and, All These Years Later, THE OUTSIDERS Continues to Bring Us Inside Adolescent Narratives

I wake up mesmerized by what a class of students can do with a book - pull out of it brilliance, made connections to history and paradigms, and connect with their own lived experience. I continue to be amazed, however, that S.E. Hinton wrote this novel as a 16-year old. Every time I read it, I'm hooked right back to the story as if I was 15.

1967...5 years before I was born...and still resonating with readers today.

We discussed what makes a piece of literature canonical and who gets excluded. I paired the conversation with Kimberly Jones reaction to riots in Atlanta in 2020, all while Covid had us under our grasp and racial unrest (warranted) was center stage. Her reason and understanding within this spur-of-the-moment break down of her own local events resonated with me and always helps me to ask, "But what else was going on then? Before then? Now? Who benefits and is excluded from the way we frame classical stories?

That's class in America. That's race in America. 

Today, a visitor from Jesuit refugee services in Canada is doing a workshop with our honors class. I'm looking forward to the learning and feeling fortunate to be teaching what I am this semester.

I'm also thinking sleep, but that's besides the point.