Chapter 1 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to stop on one word. In wet winters the Salinas “raged and boiled, bank full, and then it was a destroyer”; in summer it “didn’t run at all above ground.” Yet “It was not a fine river at all, but it was the only one we had and so we boasted about it—how dangerous it was in a wet winter and how dry it was in a dry summer.” The narrator draws a rule from it, “You can boast about anything if it’s all you have”, then pushes it one step further: “Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” “Required” turns the boast from a choice into a duty. The student decides who or what lays that duty on the people. The card must not make the river a symbol of good and evil; the paragraph is about pride in a hard place.

One reading

The people require it of themselves. A family with one poor river, thin hills and dry years needs a reason to stay, and a boast is a reason. Turning the flood and the dry bed into stories is how they keep loving the only place they have. The requiring comes from inside, from need.

• it was the only one we had and so we boasted about it
• You can boast about anything if it’s all you have.

Another reading

Something outside requires it: the measure other places would use. The narrator knows that measure, and by it the Salinas is “not a fine river at all” and “only a part-time river”. People who have less get looked down on, and the boast answers that look before it comes. The requiring comes from the world they are measured against.

• It was not a fine river at all
• The Salinas was only a part-time river.

Listen for

• Hears the weight of “required”: a boast that is owed, not chosen, and says to whom it is owed.
• Notices “Maybe”: the narrator offers his rule as a guess, the way he guesses at his feeling about the mountains.
• Notices that the boast holds the flood and the dry bed in one breath, a rare place in the chapter where people keep both halves of the valley in mind together.
• Sets the boast beside the dry years, when the same people are “filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley”, and asks when the boasting stops.

If stuck

• What does the river do in a wet winter, and what does it do by summer?
• What two things about the river do the people boast of?
• When have you heard someone brag about how hard their town, team or job is? Did they feel they had to?

A strong answer A strong response names who or what does the requiring and grounds it in the paragraph. One reader says the people require it of themselves: with “the only one we had”, a boast is how they keep loving a hard place, so the duty comes from need. Another says it comes from outside, from the measure the narrator himself knows, by which the Salinas is “not a fine river at all” and “only a part-time river”; the boast answers being looked down on. The best answers weigh the force of “required” against the softness of “Maybe”, and notice that the boast keeps both faces of the river in view at once, which the people of the chapter rarely manage.

What it asks It asks the student to notice a silence. “Once, fifty miles down the valley, my father bored a well.” The drill came up with topsoil, gravel, “white sea sand full of shells and even pieces of whalebone”, then black earth and “a piece of redwood, that imperishable wood that does not rot.” The narrator reasons back: “Before the inland sea the valley must have been a forest.” He ends, “And it seemed to me sometimes at night that I could feel both the sea and the redwood forest before it.” A well is dug for water, in a valley where dry years make people “haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking”, yet the paragraph never says whether any came. The student decides why. The card must say no more about the narrator’s family than this paragraph and the chapter’s last line give.

One reading

Because the boy did not care about it. What stayed with him was the wonder: a sea and a forest had been there, “right under our feet”. A well that found water was ordinary work; a drill that brought up whalebone in a farm valley was a marvel, and memory keeps marvels.

• And those things had happened right under our feet.
• white sea sand full of shells and even pieces of whalebone

Another reading

Because the man telling it has chosen what lasts. Water is used up season by season, and later in the chapter people forget the wet years as soon as they end. What the narrator keeps is what does not rot, the “imperishable wood”, and a feeling of every layer at once. Leaving the water out shows what kind of rememberer he is.

• that imperishable wood that does not rot
• I could feel both the sea and the redwood forest before it

Listen for

• Notices that the paragraph is ordered like the drill: topsoil, gravel, sand, black earth, redwood, each layer older than the last.
• Notices “that imperishable wood that does not rot” and asks why anyone would hold onto that detail for a lifetime.
• Sets the missing water against the dry years later in the chapter, when people haul water in barrels.
• Separates what the boy felt at the time from what the grown narrator chooses to tell.

If stuck

• What did the drill bring up, in order?
• What does the narrator say he could feel at night?
• When you remember a day from long ago, what do you keep, and what drops out?

A strong answer A strong response explains the silence and supports it from the paragraph. One reader says the boy simply did not care: water was ordinary, while a sea and a forest “right under our feet” were a marvel, and memory keeps marvels. Another says the grown narrator chose it: he keeps what lasts, the wood “that does not rot”, and a sense of every layer at once, which sets him apart from people who live one season at a time. The best answers notice how much water matters everywhere else in the chapter, which makes its absence here louder.

What it asks It asks why the narrator stops to pass on a piece of advice. “Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition.” He applies it at once: “Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white”, so a field of them is “more blue than you can imagine.” The woman is not named and does not appear again. The student decides what the tip does in the chapter. The card must not say who she is.

One reading

It is a lesson in how to look, and the chapter keeps it. Colors need an edge to show, and the narrator sets the valley out the same way: the bright eastern range beside the dark western one, the wet years beside the dry, the deep floor beside the thin hills. The tip names the method he is already using.

• to give the colors definition
• Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white

Another reading

It is a memory of a person. Her tip is the first speech of anyone besides the narrator that the chapter reports, and he has kept it for years along with the names of flowers. His eye for the valley came partly from what others taught him to see; it was trained, not only born.

• Once a woman told me
• I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers.

Listen for

• Notices the word “definition”: white does not add color, it gives the colors an edge.
• Finds other pairs in the chapter that work like the white edge, and asks whether each half needs the other to be seen.
• Notices that the woman has no name and no story; only her advice survives.
• Hears the tip as advice about writing as well as about flowers.

If stuck

• What did the woman tell him?
• What does the white edge do to the blue of the lupins?
• Where else in the chapter does one thing look clearer because something different stands beside it?

A strong answer A strong response gives the tip a job and shows it at work. One reader says it is a lesson in seeing that the chapter follows, setting bright against dark and wet against dry so that each half gets its “definition”. Another says it is a memory of a person: the narrator keeps her words as he keeps his “childhood names for grasses and secret flowers”, and his eye for the valley was partly taught. The best answers may notice that the tip works only when both colors are there at once.

What it asks It asks the student to test the narrator’s most confident judgment against his own details. The history part opens: “First there were Indians, an inferior breed without energy, inventiveness, or culture, a people that lived on grubs and grasshoppers and shellfish, too lazy to hunt or fish. They ate what they could pick up and planted nothing. They pounded bitter acorns for flour. Even their warfare was a weary pantomime.” The student weighs the judgment against the facts the same paragraph gives, using only the page. The card must not present the narrator’s verdict as fact or as the book’s settled view: it is one confident judgment in a voice that elsewhere admits “Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say”. A teacher may want to read the paragraph aloud with the student and name it plainly as the narrator’s claim.

One reading

Badly. His own list argues with him. People who live on shellfish are fishing in their own way, and pounding bitter acorns into flour is slow, patient work that takes knowing how. The details show people who found food in a hard place; the judgment says they did nothing. The paragraph tells more about the narrator’s certainty than about the people.

• a people that lived on grubs and grasshoppers and shellfish
• They pounded bitter acorns for flour.

Another reading

By his own measure, they fit. His test of a people is planting and building, and by that test gathering does not count: they “ate what they could pick up and planted nothing.” The details back the judgment only because the measure is his. The paragraph shows a standard more clearly than it shows a people, and a reader can see that standard and refuse it.

• They ate what they could pick up and planted nothing.
• Even their warfare was a weary pantomime.

Listen for

• Catches “shellfish” and “too lazy to hunt or fish” in the same sentence.
• Notices there is no “I remember” in this paragraph, and sets its certainty beside his “I cannot say” about the mountains.
• Notices that he is just as quick with the Spaniards, “greedy and realistic”, and the Americans, “more greedy”, whose taking of the land gets one short sentence before a paragraph of houses and gardens, and asks whether he is a harsh judge of every people.
• Keeps the line as the narrator’s claim, not as history.

If stuck

• What does the narrator say the Indians ate?
• Which of those foods take work or know-how to get?
• When someone judges a group of people, how can you test the judgment against the details they give you themselves?

A strong answer A strong response tests the judgment against the paragraph and reaches a verdict on it. One reader says the details argue back: shellfish sit in the same sentence as “too lazy to hunt or fish”, and acorns pounded into flour are patient work, so the judgment is louder than the facts. Another says the details fit only by the narrator’s own measure, planting and building, since he faults people who “planted nothing”; the paragraph shows his standard more clearly than the people. The best answers set his certainty here beside his “I cannot say” about the mountains, and never repeat the verdict as fact.

What it asks It asks what a name keeps when its story is gone. The Spanish priests named places for saints and holidays, and sometimes for how the expedition felt, “Buena Vista because the view was beautiful”. The later American names “refer more to things which happened there”, and these the narrator calls “the most fascinating of all names because each name suggests a story that has been forgotten.” Of Morocojo, “a lame Moor”, he asks “who was he and how did he get there?” and gives no answer. He claims that “The names of places carry a charge of the people who named them”, and that “You can name anything San Lorenzo, but Shirt Tail Canyon or the Lame Moor is something quite different.” The student decides what such a name is worth. The card must not invent the stories behind the names.

One reading

A great deal. The story is lost but the charge is not: Shirt Tail Canyon still says that whoever named it was not being reverent, as San Lorenzo never could. The name keeps the namers when the event is gone, and it keeps the place from being just anywhere.

• The names of places carry a charge of the people who named them
• You can name anything San Lorenzo, but Shirt Tail Canyon or the Lame Moor is something quite different.

Another reading

Its worth lies in the one who wonders. The name holds almost nothing; it is the narrator who fills the gap, asking who the Moor was. A forgotten story gives a listener room, and the fascination is his. The name is worth what a curious person brings to it.

• who was he and how did he get there?
• these to me are the most fascinating of all names

Listen for

• Notices “to me”: the narrator owns the fascination as his.
• Sets a saint’s name, which could go anywhere, against a name only one place could have.
• Notices that a chapter about people forgetting the wet and dry years ends its history on names that outlast their stories.
• Weighs whether a name records the place, the event, or the namers.

If stuck

• What kinds of names did the Spanish give, and what kinds did the Americans give later?
• What does the narrator wonder about the Lame Moor?
• Think of a name near you whose story nobody knows. What does it still tell you?

A strong answer A strong response sets a value on a forgotten story and argues it from the names. One reader says the name keeps a great deal: the story is lost, but the namers’ “charge” remains, so Shirt Tail Canyon still says something no saint’s name could. Another says the worth lies in the person who wonders, since the name holds almost nothing and the narrator fills the gap with a question. The best answers notice the narrator’s “to me”, and how a name can outlast the very memory it was made to keep.

What it asks It asks the student to put a price on memory. The water comes “in a thirty-year cycle”: five or six “wet and wonderful years” when “the land would shout with grass”, then middling years, then dry years that “put a terror on the valley”, when cattle starve and “Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away.” Then: “And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” The student weighs what remembering would cost the people and what it would save them, builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The chapter’s one rememberer is the narrator, who feels “both the sea and the redwood forest” under the valley; he can be set beside them. The card must not claim anything about droughts later in the book, or about the narrator beyond what the chapter gives.

One reading

Little, and it would save them a great deal. Remembering the rich years in a drought would stop families selling “for nearly nothing” land that will shout with grass again. Remembering the dry years in a wet one would let them get ready. The cycle is regular enough to plan for, and only memory lets anyone plan.

• Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away.
• The water came in a thirty-year cycle.

Another reading

A great deal. Remembering the dry years would spoil the wet ones, since no one could plant gladly while dreading the next drought. Remembering the shouting grass in a drought would make the cracked ground harder to bear. A thirty-year cycle is longer than hope can stretch. The forgetting comes as surely as the rain, and it may be what lets anyone stay in a valley that will not stay one thing.

• the land would shout with grass
• It was always that way.

Listen for

• Notices the pronouns: by the river the narrator says “we boasted”, but here it is “the people” who forget, and he stands outside them.
• Sets the people who hold one season at a time beside the narrator, who feels “both the sea and the redwood forest” under the valley, and asks what his remembering costs him.
• Notices that only “Some families” sell, and asks whether the ones who stay are the ones who forget.
• Revises a first answer by separating the two forgettings, of the rich years and of the dry ones, which may not cost the same.

If stuck

• What happens to the land, the cattle and the families in the dry years?
• What do people forget in a drought, and what do they forget when the rain comes back?
• Is there anything hard in your own life that is easier to face because you forget it in between?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on what remembering would cost, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it would cost little and save much: the cycle comes round again and again, yet families sell for nearly nothing in a drought because they cannot hold the rich years in mind. The strongest objection is that a thirty-year cycle is longer than hope can stretch, and that forgetting the dry years is what lets anyone plant in the wet ones. A good revision might hold that the two forgettings differ, one costly and one merciful. Another might set the narrator, who feels every layer under the valley and stands outside “the people”, against those who live by one season, and ask what remembering gives or costs a person who has to farm there.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. The narrator calls the Gabilans “light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness” and the Santa Lucias “dark and brooding”, and says, “I always found in myself a dread of west and a love of east.” He cannot say where the feeling came from, and guesses: “It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feeling about the two ranges of mountains.” The valley he goes on to describe really is double: a river that “raged and boiled” and then sank under its sand, deep soil on the floor and “a skin of topsoil” on the hills, wet years and dry. Yet the people in it boast in one season and forget in the next, and the names they give “carry a charge of the people who named them”. The student builds a thesis on where the light and dark live, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not turn the two ranges into a neat symbol of good and evil, which the chapter never names, and must not reach past the last line’s grandfather into the book’s families.

One reading

In the land. The valley is built of real opposites before anyone looks at it: rain of “nineteen to twenty-five inches” and then “only seven or eight inches”, a river that is a destroyer in winter and gone in summer, rich floor and flinty hills. Even the narrator’s guess points to something real: the morning does come over the Gabilans, and the night does fall behind the Santa Lucias. The feeling has a cause in the ground and the sky.

• the morning came over the peaks of the Gabilans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Santa Lucias
• and then it was a destroyer

Another reading

In the people who look. The narrator admits he “cannot say” where his dread came from, and the range he dreads is the one that “kept the valley from the open sea”, a guard as easily as a threat. The farmers find the same valley wonderful or disgusting by the season, and the namers stamp it with saints or with Shirt Tail Canyon. The land offers both halves; people choose which one to see.

• Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say
• Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley.

Listen for

• Notices that the western range “kept the valley from the open sea”: the sentence shows it doing a guard’s work and still calls it dangerous.
• Hears the hedges, “I cannot say”, “unless it could be”, “It may be”, and weighs them against the narrator’s flat certainty about the Indians.
• Sets the narrator, who holds sea and forest in mind at once, against the people who hold only one season.
• Revises by asking whether the light and dark could be in both, the land supplying the pairs and the looker choosing which half to love.

If stuck

• What words does the narrator use for each range of mountains?
• What reason does he guess at for his feelings?
• If two people looked at the same dark mountains, could one of them feel safe?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on where the light and dark live, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis puts them in the land: the valley really swings from flood to dry bed and from shouting grass to cracked ground, and even the narrator’s guess rests on something real, the sun rising over one range and setting behind the other. The strongest objection is the narrator’s own “I cannot say”, the dark range that “kept the valley from the open sea”, and a people whose feelings about the same ground flip with the season. A good revision might hold that the land supplies the pairs and the looker chooses which half to keep in mind. Another might argue that the chapter teaches the reader to doubt any eye that sees only one half, the narrator’s included.