The literary canon is literature that is considered to be the most influential in a culture or society, often setting benchmarks for academic standards. These books are often taught in English or Language Arts classes. Examples are Edgar Allan Poe’s works, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and, until recent events, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.
One such teacher who chose to teach The Martian is Mrs. Cassandra Henderson. She states, “The aim for that [replacing the book] was to look for something a little bit more modern and was more plot driven. The Catcher in the Rye has really good character development, but it’s not really plot-driven as a work.” When asked if The Martian had any similarities to The Catcher in the Rye, she adds, “I would say they share themes of isolation, but in many different ways. In The Martian, Mark Watney [the protagonist] is physically isolated on Mars because of the predicament he’s in, whereas Holden Caulfield [the protagonist] in The Catcher in the Rye is also very isolated from people, but not because he’s not around other people.”
How do students feel about this change, though? Ezra Capps ‘27 states, “I think that sci-fi like The Martian would be more fun to read and would be more enjoyable for students, but The Catcher in the Rye is a lot more helpful for understanding different people’s perspectives.” Emma Curtis ‘28, however, adds, “I think it [The Catcher in the Rye] was pointless to read as a school book. It was really hard to annotate, as everything was given to you, and I didn’t really get anything out of it until the end of the book.”
This is the first year teaching The Martian to the English 10 students, so there is still a lot of trial and error to come. In terms of recent success, Henderson says, “I definitely have more students right now that are reading ahead than I ever would have had with The Catcher in the Rye.”