first and foremost is that each reading is individual...but that interpretation's validity rests on textual evidence...then I guess salinger takes over...I might nudge students with q's like what advice holden needs, or encourage stories written in holden/salinger dialects, it's funny but most students enter the fictive space of catcher so clearly that I've always had classes easily discuss it...maybe the trick is that I teach a lot of freshmen courses--my senior level salinger seminar students tend to prefer the 9 stories and 4 longer ones--maybe another trick is creativity--students have fun writing fictional journal entries--this year I used catcher's educational thinking and some thinking from nyu's John Mayher about _Uncommonsense Learning_ to encourage students to analyze some of the learning concerns for holden and themselves in light of mayher's idea that school doesn't offer enough real learning modes. I like what I read plus I think (with a lot of help from mr. salinger and prof mayher) I got a very "young" group of eng 101 students thinking critically about their own learning modes. I collect final portfolios tomorrow! yippee, school's almost over! will