Why Do Children Feel Like Outsiders?

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I teach seventh grade English and Social Studies at a middle school in the South Bronx that serves mostly low income students. It's a wonderful school with a lot of dedicated teachers who work very hard everyday to help the children fulfill their academic potential. I gave up a lucrative job in law to teach these children and they reward me everyday with their smiles and laughter. One of the biggest obstacles these children struggle with is reading skills and comprehension. Without mastery of these skills they cannot excel on the state reading exam or even enjoy reading on their own. Last year, I started using classroom sets of books to aid reading comprehension and I saw my student's interest in reading for enjoyment go up as well as a dramatic improvement in their reading scores. These books were used for homework, literature circles and whole class readings. Since everyone had the same book, comprehension opportunities were maximized. Unfortunately, my school, like most schools, does not have enough resources to cover the multitude of resources the students need to learn. While we have great classroom libraries the children would benefit greatly from reading literature as a whole class. If someone would be interested in buying classroom sets (32 each) of one or both of the following paperback books, my class and I would be enormously grateful. 1. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Both of these books are popular and time-tested literatures that have themes my students can relate to. As Ponyboy says in The Outsiders, there are two kinds of people in the world; greasers and socs. A soc or "social" has money, can get away with anything and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. My kids feel they are greasers but they think only kids in the projects are outsiders. They would benefit from reading the feelings of other outsiders, unlike themselves. My students' critical thinking and reading skills would be improved by this exposure and we would love to write letters to show our gratitude for your support! Thanks so much for your consideration.