Viridiana Preciado

May 3, 2019

Argumentative Essay

This argumentative essay was about the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. This
assignment shows what I think of McCandless and what others think as well by analyzing what
he did throughout the story. This assignment was completed in 12th grade, English class. What
I was asked to do in this assignment was to write an argumentative essay about a character in
a book. The character was McCandless, from the book, Into the Wild. I had to argue if
McCandless was heroic or idiotic in his choice of life. This assignment is an argumentative piece
since I was asked to write an argumentative piece because I had to make an argument
supporting my statement that McCandless was idiotic in his choice. Then I had to counterclaim
my reasoning where someone would disagree with my own opinion. I proved that McCandless
was idiotic by providing multiple reasons, for example he went to Alaska to explore what is
already known, he pushed those who cared about him away because he wanted to do
everything alone, and he went unprepared mentally and physically. I further explained my
reasoning by giving examples of his behavior throughout the book with others and also by
understanding why he went to Alaska unprepared.

The SLO that I met was being a critical thinker. I was a critical thinker because I had to
analyze a character, by looking at his actions, thoughts, and what he said. For example, how he
treated his parents when he was away in vacation during the summer. He pushed away his
parents, his family, and especially the help of others that he met along his journey. His parents
would write him letters and others would give him advice and all he would do is ignore it all and
call it stupid. This shows that McCandless is a very ignorant person because he believes his
thoughts are correct and the advice that others give him mean nothing because they do not
know or they just do not understand. I also analyzed his words. For example, McCandless idea
of this journey was to do everything alone without anyone’s help, this led to consequences in
which he later died because no one was there to help. His family and others did not know where
he was located in the first place because he wanted to prove something out of himself.
McCandless said himself that he wanted to do everything on his own without anyone’s help. I
also had to analyze his thoughts which led to his actions because his thoughts are the
beginning of this planned actions he will take. For example, he was the top of his class in high
school and in this case because he thought he was smart he decided to go unprepared mentally
and physically to Alaska.

I still need to continue improving my critical thinking skills. I really need to critically
analyze the cause and effect of different problems. By being a critical thinker I must be able to
be analytical, open-minded, creative, and a good problem solver. To be able to do all those
things I must improve my critical thinking skills when it comes to evaluating an issue, I must be
able to then form a judgment. I use my critical thinking skills in the future while I am in college
because my major is psychology. Taking psychology classes will consist of being involved in
different cases to take them apart and understand the situation. If I am to involved in the
understanding of why this case happened then I should take a step back to oversee the whole
situation from a whole perspective to come up with a solution. After I come up with a solution I
will implement it back to further understand the case and come up with a solution.