The Outsiders Graffiti Wall

Language Arts 7

Students created a graffiti wall in the classroom of Language Arts Teacher Bill Kartechner, centered around their study of The Outsiders. The classes viewed clips from Style Wars, a documentary film that follows a group of graffiti artists in 1980's New York. There are uncanny parallels between the characters in The Outsiders and the artists portrayed in the film, which lead to rich discussions on group culture, loyalty, identity, slang, and conflict.

Students were shown examples of graffiti. They identified the characteristics of graffiti-style letterforms, and practiced creating their own. Further discussion on The Outsiders identified the key themes, ideas, images, and symbols from the book. After determining which words and ideas should be emphasized on the wall, students began working individually and in pairs on their final designs.

The project allowed students to make parallels between the world of the Outsiders characters, and that of other groups on the margins of society. It required them to recognize, analyze, and evaluate the importance of themes and ideas in the book, while coming to collaborative agreement on visual considerations, such as size, placement, color, and style.