3C - Reading Journal/Portfolio - Into the Wild

READING JOURNAL/PORTFOLIO – INTO THE WILD

• For points (to be determined, but at least 30) – Due Thursday,  June 18 at the latest!
•  Buy yourself an A5 Heft.  Write your thoughts and exercises in the Heft to turn in.
• Do the work yourself.  Don’t rely on the Internet or your friends to do the work for you.11

It stands to reason that the more you read (and listen to!) English, the better your texts will be. Why? Because you are constantly improving your vocabulary, sentence structure, story structure and reading comprehension.

We have chosen the book, Into the Wild, because the story of Chris McCandless is interesting. To begin with, how could an intelligent guy end up dying of starvation/poisoning? In addition, his life philosophy (giving away all his money, living off the grid, pitting himself against the elements) has been an inspiration to millions. Many have aspired to live like “Alexander Supertramp,“ although perhaps not to such an extreme.

To get the most out of the book, you should heed the following guidelines:

• Find a quiet place for a few minutes a day to read the book (15-30 recommended). No distractions! No cell phones, music, television, etc. Unplug and go Into the Wild with Chris McCandless!
• The epigrams at the beginning of each chapter are not so important (unless it is a letter/postcard from Chris McCandless). You can skip them.
• The chapters are quite short, so you can do different exercises for each of them. 
• Resist the urge to look up every word you don’t know (try to figure out the meaning from context ) BUT you should try to improve your vocabulary. For every page, you should write at least one phrase (and its meaning!) in your reading journal. You may also keep a list of words that occur more than once, or are really important. 
•  See the blog for more hints and tips! Ennsvalleyenglish.blogspot.com

Some of the exercises you can do:

• Keep a running list of phrases and vocabulary
• Write a summary of each chapter.
• Respond to the chapter: did anything make you think? 
• Pretend you are Chris McCandless, and write a postcard to one of his friends based on the chapter. 
• Keep a list of quotes that inspire you
• See the blog for more suggestions: 

Tasks to sum up the book:

• Write a review about the book for a school newspaper
• Write about Chris McCandless’ life philosophy, using examples from the book.
• What do you think would have happened if Chris McCandless had lived?
• Pretend you are Chris McCandless in his last days, and write a letter to his parents
• Would you like to go on a journey like Chris McCandless? What would you do differently?
• See blog for other tasks:  ennsvalleyenglish.blogspot.com