'That was yesterday, this is today' : Challenging the heteronormative dominant discourse by incorporating Jeanette Winterson's novel 'Written on the Body' in the EFL classroom

Sammanfattning: Winterson’s Written on the Body is an experimental and provocative novel that challenges the reader’s mindset as well as society’s heteronormativity by implicitly questioning societal norms and fundamental values. With an unusual protagonist as a point of departure, upper secondary school students in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom can discuss important political and social issues and giving them the chance to become more open-minded and inclusive towards all people regardless of one’s sex, gender, and, or sexuality. This essay shows that Written on the Body with its unusual, queer protagonist challenges the heteronormativity in modern Western societies and instead of solely focusing on students’ language development during their English education, they are invited to interrupt and question set attitudes, behaviours, and traditions in modern Western societies.