Secondary Classrooms Trending 5 Text Lessons to Pair With The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Ponyboy Curtis narrates his own coming-of-age story in real time, which means your students get his hindsight built right in. Handy, since the book covers a house fire, a killing, a rumble, and a funeral in about a week and a half of plot.

A novel that moves that can outrun a classroom discussion just as easily as it grips a reader. That's where a Book Pairing comes in : a small set of short lessons, matched text by text to specific moments in the novel, that build the background knowledge students need to actually think through what's happening instead of just following along. Each one comes with its own summary and a "When and How to Pair" note telling you exactly where to use it and what to ask.

Here are five CommonLit lessons from the full Book Pairing for The Outsiders, in the order you'd actually use them, plus exactly how to bring each one into your classroom.

New to CommonLit? These lessons are free with an educator account. Go to CommonLit.org, click "Sign Up," choose "I Am an Educator," and confirm your school email to unlock the full Book Pairing.

 "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks 

Read this one before students open the novel at all. Brooks's poem puts them inside a gang-member persona in eight lines flat, so when Ponyboy introduces the Greasers, students already have a lens for the tension between identity and mortality running underneath it.

"Herd Behavior" by CommonLit Staff 

Assign this after Chapter 2, right after Johnny gets jumped. It gives students the sociology behind why groups turn violent when they feel threatened by a rival group, which reframes the Greasers-Socs rivalry as something bigger than two gangs who don't like each other.

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost 

This is the poem Ponyboy actually recites in Chapter 5, so pair it right there. Ask students what "hardest hue to hold" means to Frost, then ask what's the hardest thing for Ponyboy to hold onto as the novel moves forward.

"Of Revenge" by Sir Francis Bacon 

After Chapter 9, when the rumble is looming, hand students Bacon's essay arguing that revenge never pays off the way people think it will. Ask them to weigh Bacon's argument against what the Greasers are actually getting out of fighting the Socs.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling 

Save this for after the novel ends. Kipling's poem and Darry's hopes for Ponyboy land on the same idea of what it means to grow into a man, so it's a clean way to close out a discussion of who Ponyboy is by the last page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Book Pairing on CommonLit?

 A Book Pairing is a set of supplemental lessons, each built around a short story, poem, or nonfiction text, that CommonLit's team has matched to a specific novel for the goal promoting knowledge-building, spark classroom discussion, and unearth deeper thematic understandings. Every entry includes a summary and a "When and How to Pair" note explaining when and how to introduce it during the unit.

Does CommonLit have a full Book Pairing for The Outsiders? 

Yes. CommonLit's Book Pairing for The Outsiders includes nine lessons in total, spanning poetry, nonfiction, and informational texts matched to specific chapters.

What text pairs well with the poem Ponyboy recites in The Outsiders? 

Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is the poem Ponyboy recites in Chapter 5, and CommonLit's pairing suggests introducing it at that exact moment to discuss the novel's themes of fleeting youth. CommonLit’s lesson for "Nothing Gold Can Stay" allows students to analyze the poem outside the context of the novel and to reflect on its meaning within it. 

Can I print the lessons paired with The Outsiders? 

Yes. Every lesson in a Book Pairing can be assigned digitally through CommonLit or printed for offline use.

How do I find the full Book Pairings for a specific book? 

Search title of the book you’re teaching using CommonLit's Search & Filter tool with Content Type set to "Book Pairings” or visit the full library. 

Next Steps

We picked five lessons for this post, but the full Book Pairing for The Outsiders has nine in total, so there's more where these came from if your unit runs long.

For teachers: And if The Outsiders isn't the only novel on your reading list this year, there's a good chance CommonLit already has a pairing built for that one too. Browse the full Book Pairings library and search your other titles.

For administrators: If your ELA team teaches multiple novels across sections and grade levels, connect with the CommonLit team to see how Book Pairings can standardize novel support department-wide.