How to use The Catcher in the Rye in the English classroom. Let the students enter and discuss the phony world.

Abstract

In this essay I have chosen to work with the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in the English classroom in Upper Secondary School. I do this in order to provide students with a novel that deals with the prejudices a person carries with him or her due to the sex he or she was born with, and also the ordeal of growing up. Through the complex protagonist Holden Caulfied we meet both his good sides and bad sides and the ambivalent relationship between these two sides. We have the opportunity to follow how he and other people reason about men and women from different perspectives, and that provides us with the possibility to discuss traditional male and female gender roles and identity seeking. These issues are raised in the curriculum for Upper Secondary School and that is why I have chosen to work with this perspective. The Catcher in the Rye is also a great resource for letting student develop their communicative competence and to practice their English in various ways which I will demonstrate in this essay as well.