I have them consider what kind of group they associate with. Students then get the chance to analyze their own identities.

Students should develop a list that may include such things as having long greased hair, fighting, committing crimes, being tough, carrying a switchblade, and showing loyalty, for example. appearance, interests, actions, personality, etc.).

Then, in small groups or as a whole class, I get students to discuss the important elements of identifying with this group (i.e. This gets students thinking about the idea of “identity” before they even sit down.Īt the start of class, I explain that Ponyboy identifies himself as a greaser. Post by Tania Runyan, author of How to Read a Poem.On the day after students have read chapters 1-2 from The Outsiders, I like to initiate this activity by putting up an identity-related poster on the classroom door. Photo by LadyDragonflycc, Creative Commons, via Flickr. It makes me want to unearth hard memories and yes, embrace plants, though fall’s flowers are the messiest, seediest, wildest ones of the year. This time of year makes me want to cry and dance. I look down at my spinning, sandaled feet, still tan-patched with July and August, when I hiked through so many sundrenched states and couldn’t imagine an end. Gone.Īnd when the spokes spark into the last swatch of prairie, the goldenrod picks up in the breeze again. Where do they go when the snow piles up? Nothing gold. Nothing gold, marching in my mouth, the vowel like my exhalation as I pedal up to the pond where turtles sun on logs. The whisper of noth, noth like the coneflowers brushing and dropping seeds. I downshift to push uphill and pump to the rhythm of the line: Nothing gold can stay. Writing calls, and before long, the Indian summer sun makes me sweat. I can take my bike out at will, ride for seven hours if I want. I’ve sent all my children to school, the first year all three are gone. And the day before that, crushed under snow. Then woods open to prairie again, alight with false sunflower, which just yesterday, it seems, was budding.

A few asters pop through the spotted shade. I glide down a slope and cruise over a small steam. As I enter the prairie, stalks of goldenrod wave by the thousands, their studded strands hanging like the light that drips from a firework seconds after it explodes. I hop on my bike and ride to McDonald Woods, the forest preserve nestled behind our neighborhood. I just can’t get this line out of my head. Yes, the phrase features famously in The Outsiders.īut I don’t care about that now, don’t care about the scores of articles and web sites siphoning the meaning from the poem, the students across the country hammering out their theses for their first poetry paper of the year. Yes, the line’s from a famous Frost poem. As September flickers out like a candle, this line of poetry marches through my brain: “Nothing gold can stay.”

Robert frost poem in the outsiders