1. McCandless Is…
Write a few adjectives to describe Chris McCandless

2. Everything had changed suddenly – the tone, the moral climate; you didn’t know what to think, whom to listen to. As if all your life you had been led by the hand like a small child and suddenly you were on your own, you had to learn to walk by yourself. There was no one around, neither family nor people whose judgement you respected. At such a time you felt the need of committing yourself to something absolute – life or truth or beauty – of being ruled by it in place of the man-made rules that had been discarded. You need to surrender to some such ultimate purpose more fully, more unreservedly than you had ever done in the old familiar, peaceful days, in the old life that was now abolished and gone for good. (Page 103) Alex had this quote high lighted with the words “Need for a purpose” written in the margin. What do you think Alex thought his purpose was? I can compare and contrast themes across two texts.

3. I can analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices
The McCandless home in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, is tastefully decorated, spotless, devoid of clutter. Floor-to-ceiling windows take in the hazy panoramic of the bay. A big Chevy Suburban and a white Cadillac are parked out front, a painstakingly restored ‘69 Corvette sits in the garage, a thirty-foot cruising catamaran is moored at the dock. Four large squares of poster board, covered with scores of photos documenting the whole brief span of Chris’s life, have occupied the dining-room table for many days now.
(Page 104)
What do we learn about the McCandless family from this description of their home?
I can distinguish between what is stated and what is intended to understand point of view
I can analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices

4. Walt McCandless: First Impressions Write a few adjectives to describe Walt

5. Gianini Guitar
Walt bought Billie a Gianini guitar, on which she strummed lullabies to soothe the fussy newborn. Twenty-two years later, rangers from the National Park Service would find that same guitar on the backseat of a yellow Datsun abandoned near the shore of Lake Mead
(Page 106)
Why does Krakauer include this detail in the text?
I can analyze the cumulative impact of specific words

6. Convergence
It is impossible to know what murky convergence of chromosomal matter; parent-child dynamics, and alignment of the cosmos was responsible, but Christopher Johnson McCandless came into the world with unusual gifts and a will not easily deflected from its trajectory.
(Page 106)
What do you think this word means based on the context?

7. When Chris and I woke up in the morning to go to school, they’d be in the office working. When we came home in the afternoon, they’d be in the office working. When we went to bed at night, they’d be in the office working.
(Page 107)
What does the repeated phrase “they’d be in the office working” imply to the reader?
I can analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning.

8. Ostensibly
Loren Johnson, Billie’s father, ostensibly worked as a truck driver, “but he never held any job for long,” she says.
(Page 108)
What do you think this word means based on the context?

9. Walt grows quiet, staring absently into the distance
Walt grows quiet, staring absently into the distance. “Chris was fearless even when he was little,” he says after a long pause. “He didn’t think the odds applied to him. We were always trying to pull him back from the edge.”
(Page 109)
Was Chris’s fate destiny?
What words tell us how Walt feels about his son?

10. Make a prediction… 111
What sport do you think McCandless would excel at?

11. What is the significance of speaker’s metaphor?
“The whole idea was to lose our bearings, to push ourselves into unknown territory. Then we’d run at a slightly slower pace until we found a road we recognized and race home again at full speed. In a certain sense that’s how Chris lived his entire life.”
(Page 112)
What is the significance of speaker’s metaphor?

12. Sweet little 12th grade Chris
…he became obsessed with racial oppression in South Africa. He spoke seriously to his friends about smuggling weapons into that country and joining the struggle to end apartheid.
(Page 113)
What do you think this word means based on the context? Look it up if necesarry!
I can determine the meanings of words and phrases, including technical meanings

13. The Pros and Cons of being friends with McCandless

14. “I think he would have been unhappy with any parents; he had trouble with the whole idea of parents.”
(Page 115)
What do parents represent? Why would Chris have a problem with parents?

15. Convivial
McCandless’s personality was puzzling in its complexity. He was intensely private but could be convivial and gregarious in the extreme. (Page 115)
Off-putting
Dangerous
Friendly
Suspicious

16. Vocab Quiz! (Lucky you!!)
Determine an appropriate synonym of the following words
According to members of the extended family, his moods can be dark and mercurial, although they say his famous temper has lost much of his volatility in recent years. (Page 105)
On one occasion Chris picked up a homeless man from the streets of D.C., (and) brought him home to leafy, affluent Annandale, and secretly set the guy up in the Airstream trailer his parents parked beside the garage. Walt and Billie never knew they were hosting a vagrant. (Page 113)