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Copywork
About This Passage
After the hearing, the parking-lot fight with the Socs, the family argument, and Soda's tearful plea in the park, Pony comes home and picks up Gone with the Wind. A note falls out — Johnny's handwriting, written from the hospital. Johnny tells Pony that saving the kids was worth dying for, that there's still lots of good in the world, and that Pony should 'stay gold.' Reading the letter, Pony's grief stops being only personal. He sees, all at once, hundreds of other boys like Johnny and Dally — boys nobody told the truth to in time. He decides he is going to write his school theme paper about them, so people will understand. The phone call to Mr. Syme is the smallest action in the chapter and one of the largest in the novel: it is the moment Pony chooses to become a writer.
Tell Dally. It was too late to tell Dally. Would he have listened? I doubted it. Suddenly it wasn't only a personal thing to me. I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Narrate Chapter 12 in your own words. Tell about the hearing where Pony was acquitted. Tell about Pony losing things, walking home in his stocking feet, and failing his English class. Tell about Mr. Syme offering Pony a chance to pass with a special theme paper. Tell about the Socs in the parking lot and the broken Pepsi bottle, and Two-Bit's relief when Pony picked up the glass. Tell about the family fight, Soda running out, the chase to the park, Soda's plea about being the middleman, the three brothers' tied race home. Tell about Johnny's letter inside Gone with the Wind — 'Stay gold' — and Pony's decision to write his theme paper. Tell about the famous last sentence, which is also the book's first sentence.
Discussion Questions
- Soda tells Darry and Pony, 'It's like I'm the middleman in a tug o' war and I'm being split in half.' What in the story shows that Soda has been carrying this hurt quietly for a long time, and his brothers had never asked?
- When the Socs come up to Pony in the parking lot, he breaks a Pepsi bottle and threatens them — but then he picks up the glass so no one would get a flat tire. How can you tell that this small action is what proves Pony is still himself?
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Vocabulary
Item 1
A meeting in court where a judge listens to people and decides what should happen
Item 2
A person at court who decides what is fair; also, to form an opinion about someone
Item 3
Found not guilty by a court, set free from blame
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Critical Thinking
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