GRADE 11
Summer Reading List for Summer 2008

Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer

FOCUS QUESTIONS

Character: Does author Jon Krakauer present Chris / Alex as a heroic pilgrim looking for freedom or as a misguided, spoiled rich kid? What do you think of Chris McCandless

Your Personal Response: What do you feel about reading a true story about the death of someone only a few years older than you?

Writer’s Style: The author writes for Outdoor Magazine. He definitely respects Nature. Where does the reader see that in the book?

Plot: Who is most to blame Chris McCandless’ death? How did his parents contribute?

Character: Chris McCandless changed his name to Alexander Supertramp! Have you ever thought of changing your name or identity? To what? Why?

Movie: If you get a chance, check out the recent movie of Into the Wild. How is it different from the book? How is it similar?

Vocabulary

Look up the following Vocabulary Words from the book and prepare to be tested on them in September:

• Author's Note:
  decomposed, elite, transcendent, convoluted, allure, adversity

• The Alaskan Interior: Chapter One
  congenial, dissuade

• The Stampede Trail: Chapter Two
  escarpment, amalgam, oxidized, anomaly, cursory, posit

• Carthage: Chapter Three
  mawkish, convivial, severance

• Detrital Wash: Chapter Four
  egress, flout, intermittent, austerity, indolently

• Bullhead City: Chapter Five
  oxymoron, itinerant, primordial

• Anza-Borrego: Chapter Six
  anachronistic, creosote, unabated, prodigious, indigent, relent, claustrophobic, brash, vagabond, virulent

• Carthage: Chapter Seven
  maw, ascetic, enticement, lament

• Alaska: Chapter Eight
  demise, strident, contrived, histrionic, recondite, banalities, subsist, equanimity, harrowing, crevass, lucrative, paucity

• Davis Gulch: Chapter Nine
  defile, ephemeral, emblazon, brazen, eminent, callow, insolence, droves

• Fairbanks: Chapter Ten
  flora, fauna

• Chesapeake Beach: Chapter Eleven
  arcane, mercurial, chasten, convergence, concoct, grueling, inherent

• Annandale: Chapter Twelve
  obsequious, dollop, clemency, philanderer, sanctimonious, indignation, obliquely, anomalous, idiosyncratic, lambast, castigate, confrere, extemporaneous, hue, pellucid, carrel

• Virginia Beach: Chapter Thirteen
  recalcitrant, bereavement

• The Strikine Ice Cap: Chapter Fourteen
  demarcate, precipitous, desideratum, labyrinthine, phantasmagoric, emanate, recumbent, dearth, chutzpah

• The Strikine Ice Cap: Chapter Fifteen
  volatile, hector, rueful, epiphany, grimace, onerous, needlessness

• The Alaska Interior: Chapter Sixteen
  gloaming, bulwark, gauntlet, rictus

• The Stampede Trail: Chapter Seventeen
  heathenism, malevolent, incandescent, sustenance, rumination, demean

• The Stampede Trail: Chapter Eighteen
  munificence, precarious

• Epilogue
  solace, percussive

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