Argumentative Reflection

My argumentative assignment is my “Is Christopher McCandless Inspiring or Idiotic” Essay. This assignment
was completed first semester of senior year, in my English class. In this assignment, I was asked to write an
argumentative essay of whether Christopher McCandless, the character from “Into the Wild”, was inspiring or
idiotic. This assignment is argumentative because I was asked to take a stand in the debate, support my claim
and then give a counter argument. I stated that Christopher was inspiring because he followed his ideas,
beliefs, and he was determined. My counter argument was that he was idiotic because he went into the wild
unprepared and lacking equipment for the environment he was walking into.

In this assignment, I exercised my critical thinker SLO. I was a critical thinker because I had to think of
what argument I wanted to support based on my own ideas I had created while reading the novel. While
reading, I gathered notes that supported my claim that he was inspiring. Some of my notes included that he
was inspiring because before going on his journey he donated his money to charity. He was also inspiring
because he stood by his beliefs and made a journey that he believed in so bad. I also had to critically think of
what my three reasons for supporting my argument would be, which were that he was inspiring because he
followed his beliefs, ideas, and was determined. A third reason why I was a critical thinker was because I had
to come up with a good counter argument that would make my claim strong, which was that he was idiotic
because he went on a journey unprepared and lacking resources.

This assignment helped me be a critical thinker because it guided me to think of supporting details and
information to back up my argument. Focusing on the assignment, I still need to improve on working on
creating strong supporting details. Supporting details must be strong in order reinforce our argument. The
skill of critical thinker can be used in the future because it will help us construct strong ideas to help us analyze
a certain topic and emphasize on topics that must be presented to an audience.