1. Chris McCandless left “the good life” because his life was too easy and he wanted a challenge. According to Krakauer, in the desert, McCandless burned all of his remaining money and abandoned his car. He wanted a challenge because his life was too easy. So what? How does burning his money make life harder? What does this have to do with his trip and his old life? Tell your reader what they are supposed to know/understand from the evidence. What are you using the quote to show them? THE CLAIM REPEATER 

2. Chris McCandless left the “good life” because his life was too easy and he wanted a challenge. On a postcard, he wrote, “My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal.” McCandless liked how interesting life was when he had no money and had to look hard for food. So What? How does this postcard reveal why McCandless left? How does this connect to the life he left? Tell your reader what they are supposed to know/understand from the evidence. What are you using the quote to show them? THE EVIDENCE RESTATER 

3. Christopher McCandless left the good life to survive in Alaska because he wanted peace, and he didn’t want people to come looking for him. When Gallien asked him, McCandless said that nobody knew of his plans. He also said he didn’t want to know what time or day it was. McCandless probably didn’t tell anybody about his plans because he wanted to be alone. If anybody came looking, they would probably find him, bringing his adventure to an end.

4. Chris McCandless left the “good life” to try new things. He wanted to know what it felt like to struggle, to fend for money, to live under highways. In the text it states, “My days were more exciting when I was penniless and had to forage around for my next meal.” McCandless liked to be challenged. He wanted to know what it would be like to work for money instead of having it handed to him. This was his way of starting a new life.

5. Krakauer believed that McCandless, like himself, had an agitation of the soul, not a death wish. Looking back on his own life and how he ignored all pleas to give up his dream, Krakauer believes McCandless thought likewise. Krakauer wasn’t suicidal. He said that he “couldn’t resist peering over the edge of doom, but never tried or wanted to jump off of it.” Due to their similar experiences, Krakauer believed that McCandless was like him, in the fact that he wanted to be near death but never succumb to it.

6. Jon Krakauer believes that Chris McCandless, like himself, was not suicidal when he went on his adventure. Krakauer believes this because he went on a similar adventure when he was young. He went into the wild because he thought it would fix all of his problems and he was stirred by the mystery of death. Krakauer did not have a death wish, he only was curious about death. Krakauer knows McCandless didn’t have a death wish because he has been in McCandless’s position and wasn’t suicidal.