Connections to Salinger

Reading this article kind of helped me to understand why Salinger wrote the book. The article talked about how when Salinger grew up teenagers began to rebel. It talked about his life and how he was either kicked out or ran away from many private schools. That is very similiar to his character Holden in the novel. I think that in s sense Salinger wrote the novel about himself as a teenager. It was about his journey through all the schools he's went to and him trying to find his place in the world. The connections it made between his personal life growing up and the novel that he wrote helps me to understand it better.

I think that in a way all teenagers can connect with Holden because he is kind of trying to figure out who he his and where he belongs in the world and that's what most teenagers are trying to do as well. Holden seems to think that everyone is phony or fake and i know that i personally think that a lot of people are fake and act differently around different people just to impress them. But in the end Holden kind of ends up being one of the most phony poeple in the book. I think that everyone has their opinions on who is fake but at the end of the day we are all a little phony ourselves.

I think that this helps to understand Holden better because it makes me realize that he is just another person as well, though he may be a little mental. We all have our faults and at times everyone is at least a little bit phony.

J.D. Salinger

I think that if any new works by J.D. Salinger are published it will have a huge impact on American Literacy. Salinger's most famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye, has had a huge impact on American Litearacy and has created tons of controversy in schools and libraries across the Nation. Salinger's family has said that there are at least 15 unpublished novels by Salinger. I think that eventually his family will choose to publish some of these novels. With such controversy from his other novel, The Catcher and the Rye, i think that any new novels will also create controversy.

Life as a Crippled

Abby Peterson, Lindsey Moore, and Chelsea McDermand

For the first part of our project we decided dress a little crazy. We wanted to dress out of the ordinary and see how people reacted. Abby wore a long velvet medieval skirt, a tie-dye shirt, and rainbow hat with a fluffy ball on the top. Lindsey wore a purple tutu dress that was very sparkly and poofy and an orange jacket. We wore these outfits to school one day. We expected people to stare, laugh, and ask questions.
Our hypothesis came true for the most part. We got reactions the second that we got out of our cars in the parking lot. Everyone was staring. People that weren’t even in Abby’s first hour class followed her in there just to stare at her. People were talking about it all day long. By the end of the day there were various rumors around about why we were dressed that way. Since we were playing Williamsville that night at the football game and we were both wearing purple, people that that we had dressed that way because we were rooting for Williamsville. All day long we got weird looks and people stared. As you walk down the hallway you could hear all the comments people were making under their breath about how weird we were and wondering what we were doing.
For the second part of our project we decided to put Chelsea in a back brace and give her a walker. She acted completely normal and dressed normal, except for the back brace she wore on the outside of her clothes. We went to several places including McDonald’s, Target, Barnes & Noble, Shoe Carnival, and the mall. We expected that people would stare and some may even try to help her.
The first place that we went was McDonald’s. When we first arrived one lady came up to us and held the door open for Chelsea. As soon as we walked in everyone started to stare at Chelsea. After we sat down and got our food, one man came up to us and said that he didn’t want to be nosy but he wanted to know what happened to Chelsea. Chelsea told him that she had scoliosis and had to have surgery on her back. He said that he was sorry and that he hoped she felt better soon. We ate our food and when we were getting ready to leave the lady that opened the door for us came up and started talking to us. She asked what happened and said that she was a nurse and told Chelsea to take it easy and get a lot of rest.After we left McDonald’s we went to Target. When we went to target no one said anything to us or Chelsea, but we got a lot of weird looks. One little boy walked around the corner and saw Chelsea and began walking very slowly as he stared at her. He was so focused on Chelsea that he tripped and fell. It was quite funny.We went to a couple of other stores and then we went to the mall. At the mall we got a lot of reactions. In almost every store that we went to the sales people were extra helpful. No one asked us what happened or said anything directly to us, but as soon as they walked by they would turn around and stare at us and start to talk about us. Many people pointed and gave us weird looks.
Analysis: Chelsea was very nervous. She felt very shy. Everyone that walked by was staring. It made her feel like she was different than everyone else, even though she was not. It is amazing how differently people look at you and treat you when your appearance has changed. Nothing about her on the inside was changed. Abby and Lindsey also felt very weird. It feels awkward to have everyone starring at you when the day before you went unnoticed. We learned to respect people more and what it is like to be the person that is always stared at because of their differences. It is what’s on the inside that really matters. It is wrong to judge people by what they are wearing or what they look like. We now understand what those people are going through. We know that a person should not stare at other people no matter what. We won’t make the mistake of staring again.

Other Shoes

Abby, Chelsea, and I are all in a group. At first we wanted to dress weird to see how people would react, so we did that at school on Friday, but then we decided that there wasn't really a label behind that. Though we got a lot of weird looks, and a lot of funny comments, there wasn't really a point behind it. So we came up with a new project. We decided to put Chelsea in a back brace with a walker. We decided we are going to go to McDonald's, the mall, and a few other stores. Our hypothesis is that we will get a lot of weird looks and a few people may try to help.