ENG 110: Effective Writing
Essay Assignment: Comparing/Contrasting Into the Wild in Book and Movie Forms
What strikes you most forcibly in comparing Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild with the movie version
directed by Sean Penn? In thinking about this, you might want to consider the difference in genre—the
visual elements of film, the music and other sound effects. Or you might want to consider the element
of interpretation—the selection from the material the book offers us, actor Emile Hirsch’s portrayal of
Chris McCandless. What is left out of the movie? (You don’t want to answer all of these questions. These
are just possibilities for thinking about what you want to write.
As you plan your essay, remember that you may compare book and movie (showing similarities)
or contrast book and movie (showing differences) or do a combination of comparing and contrasting.
The challenging part of writing comparison/contrast is arriving at analytical conclusions about
the topic. It’s easy to see differences or similarities; it’s sometimes difficult to think about why it’s
important. In this case, you may want to focus on any aspect of understanding Chris McCandless that is
added by the movie or taken away—or on how your interpretation or analysis of Chris McCandless’s life
and death is affected by both reading the book and seeing the movie.
While the main sources for this paper are the book and the movie and your thinking about
them, it’s okay for you to bring in outside sources, such as reviews of the book, the movie, or the sound
track or additional information about Jon Krakauer or Sean Penn. These kinds of sources can deepen
your understanding of the text. Please do not use sources that are labeled “free essays on Into the
Wild.” You have come to college to learn some things, and learning to be a better writer will help you all
the way through college and life beyond college. If you have any difficulty in coming up with ideas, come
and talk with me or a Writing Center tutor and develop your own writing skills.
Keep track of the information for any source you use: who wrote the review, if available; the
sponsoring site (a blog or a periodical or movie database); the date of the review; the date you looked it
up. It’s a good idea to keep the URL too. Sometimes when you go back to look for a useful site a second
time, it’s difficult to find.
You should plan on having a draft of no less than three pages on Tuesday, 10/5, for peer
response. Make sure it’s on your X Drive or bring your laptop or a portable storage device to class so
that you can work further on the draft during class. You will revise it after peer response for inclusion in
the Midterm Portfolio.
Useful vocabulary for comparison/contrast writing: Like ____________; Similarly, . . . ; In contrast, . . .;
On the other hand, . . . .; Likewise, . . .; Apparently contradicting ____________; ___________ is handled
differently by _____________.