Welcome to our Catcher in the Rye mini-unit! The book responsible for the art at the top of our 10th grade website page. You will find your intended reading on the document below.
THIS VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT has your reading calendar printed on it, as well as summaries of the chapters we will skip. Every day, you will have one brief post-reading task which is intended to help you better understand the novel, as a very short two-chunk will be your final for LA 10. Let's do it! MONDAY, JUNE 3RD Introduction: Introducing Holden Caulfield, Who Thinks You Are a Phony Objective: Recognizing emerging themes & establishing characterization Holden Caulfield, the main character and narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, has been described as “yet another quizzical adolescent, scornful of what he does see and quite sure there is even more to unearth and condemn.…He serves the author’s purpose: to scrutinize the banalities and cruelties that the rest of us, grown up and so sure of our right to preach to children, often make a point of ignoring or justifying.” Divide yourself into groups of 4. Each group should select a different topic from the list that follows. In your small groups, discuss your chosen topic from the list below. After taking a close look, make a list of all the “banalities and cruelties” (Holden's words, meaning unfairnesses and stupid things that happen) that Holden associates with each topic. Include specific examples for each point on your list. Topics to Examine: • The way parents react to the failure of their children • The attitude of teachers toward students who fail • The attitude of handsome, athletic males towards females • The methods school administrators use in dealing with failing students • The attitudes of social misfits towards others • The attitude of wealthy private school students and faculty • The way students who are failing react to their failure • The differences between private and public schools TUESDAY, JUNE 4TH With a partner, draw Holden Caulfield in all of his glory and pity, on the back, answer the following questions.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5TH In these chapters, Holden starts to dip to his rock bottom. He is acting pretty manically- and makes poor choices which ultimately will hurt his emotional health. Holden is a hotly debated character. We are going to "take sides" around Holden and who he is (we've done this get up and move around activity before). Here are you questions:
THURSDAY, JUNE 6TH Chapter 18 is kind of "THE" chapter of this book. Take out a piece of binder paper. Do this by yourself. Look at the following passages and write a few sentences of commentary about how this helps you to understand what Holden truly thinks about other people, and weather he is really onto something, or weather he is just completely angsty and "blowing smoke." Once you're done- look back at your commentary and write a theme statement for the book. 1) On Jane dating a jock: "He's all muscles and no brains...I couldn't understand it. I swear I couldn't. After we started going around together, I asked her how come she could date a show-off bastard like Al Pike. Jane said he wasn't a show off. She said he had an inferiority complex. She acted like she felt sorry for him or something and she wasn't just putting it on. She meant it. It's a funny thing about girls. Every time you mention some guy that's strictly a bastard- very men, or very conceited, and all- and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority complex" (Salinger 176). 2) On the movie Holden sees, he hates the whole thing, except one single part: "The part that got me was, there was a lady singing next to me that cried through the whole god damn picture. The phonier it got, the more she cried. You'd have thought she did it because she was kind-hearted as hell, but I was sitting right next to her, and she wasn't. She had this little kid with her that was bored as hell and had to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn't take him. She kept telling him to sit and behave himself. She was about as kindhearted as a god damn wolf. You take somebody that cries their god damn eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine time out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. I'm not kidding" (Salinger 181). 3) On his jock brother D.B shipping off to war: "I swear, if there's another war, they better just take me and stick me in front of a firing squad. I wouldn't object. What gets me about D.B. is he hates war and violence so much, and yet he got me to read this book A Farewell to Arms last summer. He said it was so terrific... I don't see how he could like a phony book like that and still like that one The Great Gatsby. D.B. got sore when I said that... Anyway, I'm sort of glad the atomic bomb was invented. If there's ever another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it. I'll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will" (Salinger 183). FRIDAY, JUNE 7TH AH, the confusing chapter where Holden explains what the catcher in the rye means. Read the passage and interpret Holden's dream. What the heck does it mean? How does it connect to the theme? Read with a partner and be prepared to share with the class. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running, and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." MONDAY, JUNE 10TH How is Mr. Antolini characterized? Do we trust him? Why is this the final nail in Holden's coffin? Why is this the thing that sets Holden over the edge? TUESDAY, JUNE 11th Check and Connect - Conference About Grade / Study for Finals Period FINAL: CATCHER IN THE RYE IN CLASS TIMED WRITE (3 PROMPTS TO CHOOSE FROM, NO CHROMEBOOKS)
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