4-23-10 Prompt

Out of the papers you are putting into your English portfolio, which one do you think shows your best work and which one do you think needs to be edited the most? Explain why. Be specific. Provide examples of your best and weakest areas.

I think my best essay was the personal analysis. I felt really connected to it and it was something I enjoyed being able to talk about. My group members said that I was able to weave my story with my famous person well and that it was good overall. It does need a little bit more examples and more specific details to really integrate our stories and to better serve my purpose.

My worst essay is my research paper because I know that I need to use my sources more, not be so repetitive with certain words and phrases, and I need to add more examples and expand on my it serves a purpose in my paper. overall, my purpose is clear and the reader will know what I'm trying to argue in terms of what i'm trying to accomplish in this essay. I do provide some good examples but they need to be expanded more and to analyze them. Maybe looking up more sources would add to my research paper and support my thesis.

4-16 prompt

Describe the kind of things you think Chris would do if he did make it out of the wild alive? Would he contact his parents? What would he say to them? Would he get a job, go back to school?

-I believe that Chris would want to tell people that the freedom of being in the wild will never compare to whatever one will ever feel being confined in a hypocritical, superficial society we all live in today. He would be an activist for forests, national parks, and being pro-green. He would show that being in the wild made him into a better man with more life skills thought could help him. But mainly, if one is looking for peace of mind and clarity of the conscious that going into a forest or to just be surrounded by trees that one can find themselves.
-Knowing that he didn't really have a good relationship with his parents, he would probably not have contacted them but maybe his sister, who actually loved and cared for him.
-In reference to going back to school or to get a job, I think that he would completely avoid it and would just be an advocate and activist for the preservation of forests or anywhere that has trees on it as well as promote being green and saving the earth.

4/2/10 prompt

My opinion of McCandless is the same, that his trip into the wild was something he did own his own and that he felt was right. Like Krakauer said, it was McCandless's intention to go out into the wild without being prepared. The point of his trip was to be relaxing and done without a thought. Though many said that what he was doing was ignorant, they didn't know McCandless for who he was and for what reasons he wanted to go out into the wild. Krakauer did a good job and showing a human side to McCandless, not an ignorant kid looking for something to do. McCandless had a purpose for his trip and Krakauer, through his experiences as well, showed that that ignorance people are calling McCandless's trip is something done by pure spontaneity and with the intention of freeing the mind.

Krakauer did a good job in trying to convince the naysayers that read the book or know of the story but he got his point across by explaining why McCandless did it and the reasoning of maybe why he left everything behind to get freedom in the wilderness.

McCandless is what certain people show try to become, leave all the material, superficial, and unnecessary things and venture towards a clean conscious and find inner peace.