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Into the Wild is a book of journalism. Krakauer takes the reader on a journey to discover who Chris McCandless was and why he did what he did---travel into the Alaskan bush and die. This book dives into the human spirit and forces people to reconsider how they may want to live their lives.

I chose this book for this portfolio because of its compelling structure and the depth in which students are able to rhetorically analyze Krakauer's writing. While students today do not recognize the tragic story, they ultimately get quite intrigued by the narrative and the reasons McCandless went away. This book forces students to slow down while they read and really take every chapter, passage, sentence, and word into consideration when looking at the book as a whole. This is my core text as it will anchor all the other skills students learn in AP Language and Composition: rhetorical analysis, argument, and synthesis writing while also offering philisophical debates and discussions.

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Lexile: 1270

This Lexile score means that the book is appropriate for twelfth grade or older readers. This book, being used for AP Language and Composition, is appropriate for the students' reading comprehension skills because they are an accelerated group of kids who need higher grade reading materials in order to be challenged but not overwhelmed. My plans for instruction with the book will be to have students read the text over the course of a few months, periodically doing reading and writing checks for comprehension paired with discussions.

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The complexity of my core text Into the Wild is mainly based in the structure of the book because of how Jon Krakauer produces the interwoven narrative including his own experiences as well as Chris McCandless’s. Although the text is in a chronological sequence for the most part, there are plenty of time jumps whether forward or backward. The other complex issue with this text is how students will use the book as whole for their learning. The main skill students will be learning with this book is rhetorical analysis with some argumentative writing embedded throughout. This skill is difficult to approach with this text because students already struggle with identifying the purpose behind language within a shorter text that they can “see” the beginning and end of, so to ask students to do this same thing with a significantly longer text can be daunting. The main aspect of rhetorical analysis is to identify what a writer is trying to say, and why are they saying it. The purpose behind Into the Wild is fairly unclear for a majority of the book, and it isn’t really until the end when readers can guage why Krakauer decided to craft a piece of journalism centered around this one extreme person McCandless.

The complexity of the text will influence my instruction in several ways. Students need to be close reading passages to understand the broad scope of the overall text, so they should be taking notes independently and purposefully. Students need to comprehend what they are reading, and although the language is fairly straight forward with accessible langauge, the antecedent knowledge of the history built into the context of the piece is required to fully understand Krakauer’s purpose. With this in mind, students will need baseline knowledge of concepts such as transcendentalism, Tolstoyan principles, and rhetorical analysis skills.

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The strengths of the Into the Wild undoubtedly are within the nuanced approach Krakauer decides to craft the narrative. He plays with the readers’ emotions by offering small moments of hope and possible relief from the inevitable, tragic outcome. Through the complex structure of his writing, Krakauer allows for more in depth critical thinking regarding thematic ideas such as passion, success, and failure. Students are normally heavily engaged with the story either out of frustration with the main “character” Chris McCandless or inspiration from his outlandish mentality. It’s almost as if students can see themselves a bit in who McCandless was because of his overly passionate desire to break free from the system that forced him to become someone he was not.

While the text offers a great deal of introspection and linguistic nuance, some challenges it poses may include the accessibility of historical context and, similarly to the strength, the complex structure and rhetorical nuanced approach to story-telling. Structurally, the book’s chapters are fairly short, but the content is so heavy and dense that students often struggle with getting through the reading during longer periods of time.

Specifically for AP Language & Composition, the book offers students the ability to practice rhetorical analysis and some argumentation. The core text alone involves many rhetorical strategies and a variety of appeals to readers, which lend themselves well to the core skill students must learn in AP Lang. The core text, however, does not provide much figurative language because of how straightforward the writing is. Krakauer’s writing style does not include many, if any, fictionalized elements, so students cannot practice identifying those types of devices.

These challenges, while seemingly daunting for an English teacher (figurative language and literary devices seems to be the air that we breathe—see what I did there?) can be overcome through supplemental texts. One additional short story I have students read is “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, so students can get a few things out of it: students can read some fiction that has more literary devices and figurative language; students can still rhetorically analyze the short story; and students get a better idea of who one of McCandless’s inspirations was, Jack London.

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Austrian artist Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss details a man and woman embracing one another with different shapes and colors embedded into themselves and their clothing. The painting speaks to the masculine and feminine aspects of this couple while also commenting on what roles men and women play in society.

This painting is used to introduce visual rhetorical analysis and offers an opportunity for students to consider a variety of elements when analyzing art work or literature. This is the bridge between where students are, as they watch videos and consume multimedia daily, and the rhetorical analysis skillset they need for the class. This supplemental text, while not related to Into the Wild is still valuable as there are accessible thematic ideas and aspects for students to analyze and write about.

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This video is based on Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire" which AP Language and Composition students read as another supplemental text for Into the Wild. The video is a visual interpretation of what the original source material is. The story itself follows a man who battles the elements with a befriended dog and ultimately dies due to hypothermia. The story highlights the human, male ego and what determination can do to individuals.

This is one of the supplemental texts because before students read the actual short story, they watch the video to get an idea of what is going to happen in the story. The reason I have students watch this first is because I want them to focus on the language London writes with rather than trying to figure out what the story is in the first place. The video serves as a mood setter for students to buy into the story itself and have more enjoyment while reading the written text.

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Jack London 'To Build a Fire' | Nexus Studios

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The painting, while not reflective of my students’ cultural identities and histories, is still representative of their multimodal literacies because of the number of artists I have in my two sections. This is a mirror text because of how my students can identify their own gender roels in the artwork. Considering students have societal expectations and considerations of who they are beyond school, my kids can connect with the text on a deeper level.

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Reader Considerations - "To Build a Fire"

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Reader Considerations - "To Build a Fire"

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The short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, in truth, does not do a solid job of reflecting any of my students cultural or linguistic identities and/or histories. The text’s surface level features also do not mirror my students. However, I argue that the text does not need to reflect these components because the purpose of the text is to develop their skills in analysis and writing. While I could find another text that could possible adhere to the guidelines of this consideration, I am unsure that would be beneficial for the purpose of the core text. Part of what makes the narrative interesting and this short story compelling for more contemporary students is the fault of the male ego. Therefore, from this lens, students could reflect and identify what their personal faults may be and how they would either “fall” from them or reflect and “rise.”

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Source: Buehl, D. (2017). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Routledge.

Area of Focus: Writing & Composing

Description: This strategy uses, "reader responses to prompt essential comprehension processes, such as making connections to background knowledge, creating mental images, posing questions, making inferences, and clarifying confusions when thinking about classroom texts." The primary step for students to consider is during the information entries, students should "focus on a single comprehension process," and then jot down their thinking processes.

Implementation + Student Support: This strategy would be implemented during the reading of Into the Wild when students are preparing for their "Fishbowl Discussion." This strategy will be modified slightly to have a rhetorical analysis lens in which students identify elements related to diction, structure, and appeals. Students will write down the specific quotes in their T-charts then record their thoughts on the reading in the next column. I chose this strategy because students will gain practice in annotating with a specific targeted purpose instead of aimlessly identifying "important" parts of each chapter. This focus allows students to have the opportunity to practice annotating for when they will have to annotate short passages/excerpts for the AP exam.

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Source: Dyches, J., Boyd, A. S., Baker, K., & Kaulfuss, A. (2023). Power tools: 30 critical disciplinary literacy strategies for 6-12 classrooms. Myers Education Press.

Area of Focus: Speaking

Description: This strategy focuses on allowing students to have the opportunity to talk in a formal discussion setting. Students will get into, "small groups...[taking] turns speaking while their classmates actively observe." One specification to ensure students will discuss is having students plan their responses in order to lower the stakes and anxieties that may come with speaking and listening.

Implementation + Student Support: After reading the book Into the Wild, students would be assessed using this strategy based on the "Double-Entry Diary" notes they were taking during the reading process. While the original strategy suggests the activity should be low stakes and lower anxiety, I would use this as half of their summative assessment, so they would need those speaking skills scaffolded earlier on in the unit. This strategy would effectively get more participation in a holistically analytical environment which is an important skill for students to learn during their year in AP Language and Composition. One way students would be supported during this activity would be to have a digital version where they can offer their thoughts perhaps in a more secluded way based on necessary accommodations.

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Source: Buehl, D. (2017). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Routledge.

Area of Focus: Vocabulary

Description: This strategy focuses heavily on questioning and developing logical reasoning based on historical facts. Students engage in considering how and why historical events happened, specifically, "through a historian's lens." The steps involved in this process include, "[selecting] several time periods," "[highlighting] the six categories of change," "[assigning] students to work as partners to examine a text through use of the History Change Frame graphic organizer," having, "students continue examining [and analyzing] as they begin to read," and having discussions with students about how people are affected in different ways throughout history (Buehl, 2017, pp. 118-119). I chose this strategy for this text because I can foresee students analyzing multiple pieces of art and analyzing the significance of why different pieces were created at different points throughout history, which inevitably led to different major historical events. Although I would slightly modify this strategy to pair with my texts more specifically, I believe students would gain a lot from the historical context of the artwork.

Implementation + Student Support: I would implement this strategy prior to the Chapter Tours strategy because I would want more historical context for my students to have an idea of which era(s) we would be studying and writing about. Additionally, I would have students analyze multiple pieces of art instead of just The Kiss by Klimt, so they would be able to effectively partake in the Chapter Tours activity. This strategy would be effective in supporting my students' interests because I have many artists in class, and they would be more engaged with the process of understanding the historical relevance of some famous art pieces. Moreover, students would be able to take this knowledge and apply it elsewhere in the curriculum when we learn about argumentative writing.

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Source: Buehl, D. (2017). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Routledge.

Area of Focus: Comprehension

Description: Per the description by Buehl, "A Chapter Tour...guides or talks readers through a chapter or selection and points out features of the text that warrant special attention. An effective tour should set up readers for comprehension by stimulating connections to prior knowledge, self-questioning, imagining, inferring, determining importance, and ultimately, synthesizing understanding." I chose this literacy strategy because in order for students to understand the purpose of rhetorical analysis, I will have students review and analyze the painting The Kiss by identifying important aspects of the art and providing a detailed explanation of the purpose/function of the varying color schemes, shapes, and focuses.

Implementation + Student Support: The strategy would be implemented during the "reading" process of the painting as I would, "ask volunteers for hunches about the [painting]" and "discuss with students the frustrations they encountered when trying to read the passage without frontloading" (Buehl, 2017, p. 75). By offering this painting to introduce the skills necessary to understand rhetorical analysis, students will be more likely to engage with the materials to follow in order to understand how to analyze literature and a variety of texts with a rhetorial lens. Following this step in the Chapter Tours process, I would create an actual "tour" in which students can understand and process the artwork in a more analytical way. Regarding student support, this strategy is a great way to scaffold the skills that they will need for the remainder of the year as they unpack and understand how to identify purpose in writing. This text, paired with the strategy will ultimately benefit my students' learning because they will be more interested in the visual aspect of the analytical process during this strategy.

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Source: Buehl, D. (2017). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Routledge.

Area of Focus: Speaking

Description: I will be focusing on the Readers Theatre component in this literacy strategy which consists of students finding passages that could be roles-based. Then, students practice reading independently or with a partner, "to create their own Readers Theatre excerpts" (Buehl, 2017, p. 180). This literacy strategy allows for students to comprehend the text in a different way by becoming "characters" and diving into the world the text is in. I chose this strategy to get students to practice reading aloud with more purpose than just working on dry fluency. This strategy pairs well with the short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London because students can craft the narrative through their voices and work on understanding tone throughout the piece.

Implementation + Student Support: I would implement this text after we have read the short story but before we watch the video linked. Students would decide, as a class, which parts they would want to read and narrate in order to produce somewhat of a black book theatrical performance. They would get in front of the class and deliver their performances for everyone. This strategy would allow for students to break away from the mundane exercises of reading and writing as they would be able to exercise a separate part of their English fluency. Students looking to make more emotional connections to the narratives we read about would be beneficial for those who enjoy performing, and the students who do not enjoy performing would hopefully gain some perspective on the value of public speaking.

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Source: Dyches, J., Boyd, A. S., Baker, K., & Kaulfuss, A. (2023). Power tools: 30 critical disciplinary literacy strategies for 6-12 classrooms. Myers Education Press.

Area of Focus: Critical Disciplinary Strategy; Writing & Composing

Description: This strategy focuses on having students write a story only using 6 six words--no more, no less--"that examines a person or character's positionality." The specific goal in mind is to have students consider the power struggle of historically marginalized groups of people. The strategy suggests to have students assume the role of the memoirist and develop a narrative that demonstrates the complexity of power dependent on the topic or person the student writes about.

Implementation + Student Support: This strategy could be implemented effectively using the short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. Although my students wouldn't be focusing on a marginalized group, they will still practice the writing skill. My students would write their 6 word stories to create a narrative that mirrors the complexity and imagery of the short story. I would also consider having students write multiple 6 word stories based on the different sections of the short story. The specific use for this activity would be to focus on the power of diction and how specific language affects mood, tone, and overall structure. My AP Language and Composition students would need to heavily consider how their reader(s) will read the stories and the rhetorical effects their writing has. Considering the somber tone of the short story, students should reflect on how they can develop specific feelings in the reader to ultimately achieve whatever purpose they're desiring. Once all the 6 word stories are written, the students could wall walk and read their peers' stories to vote on which one was the class's favorite.