The other day in English class, we were all sitting in a circle talking about the book we were reading- J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. We’re writing creative essays for it about scenes from a minor character’s perspective or the main character’s if he were at Thacher, and so on. Everyone was excited to get into creative essays. People started joking about the main character, an underachieving, though intellectual, lonely, critical teenager, going to Thacher and speaking in his “voice”.

While we were all laughing, the jokes led into more discussions about the main character’s physiological traits. Those that could be picked up from the symbolism throughout the book made for a large variety of ideas of what the symbols represented. From in-depth discussions, I get a deeper understanding of the book and there are loads of “Oh! I get it now!” moments going on. In addition to hearing my classmates’ opinions and such, listening to our teacher’s view of the book leads me to making more connections. Plus, we all get a kick out of hearing his opinions and thoughts as he can get very into the book and his perspective is that of an adult. It’s interesting thinking about the book and subjects like money, gender, sex, and children from the perspective of an adult and from those of my classmates with different experiences and knowledge.