We continued discussing the author's ongoing defense of Chris McCandles' life, and , in the context of critical reading, analyzing the author's word choice . For example, the author declares Chris a "skilled survivalist " because Chris kept himself alive for over 100 days by living totally off the land. However, the author overlooks that Chris was emaciated and weakened during this time undermining his claim that Chris was "skilled". We further examined the last two books Chris read, focusing on Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich" which Matthew recently completed. I pointed out portions of the Tolstoy novel that Chris would have found a justification for his lifestyle choices but then drew distinctions between Tolstoy's fictional characters and Chris. We performed the same exercise by reexamining the portions of Thoreau's "Walden" which Matthew also read. Last, we explored what ideas of Tolstoy and Louis Pasternak (Dr Zhivago) might have induced Chris to attempt to return to a more conventional life. As we will be having final tests on the book next week,I made suggestions for studying and annotating the book which can be used during the essay portion of the test. HW- study for test/continue rewrite of essay by editing and also adding paragraph on Oedipal issues as a motivating force for Chris.