HMH G10 Unit 6

Analyze the Image
In what ways does this image represent

both positive and negative impacts of
humanity on nature?
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Get hooked by the unit topic.

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496 UNIT 6
UNIT
6
Our Place
in Nature
“Wildness reminds us what it means to
be human, what we are connected to
rather than what we are separate from.”
— Terry Tempest Williams
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
What effect do we have
on nature, and how does
nature affect us?
497
Spark Your
Learning
As you read, you can
use the Response Log
Here are some opportunities to think about the (page R6) to track your
topics and themes of Unit 6: Our Place in Nature. thinking about the
Essential Question.
Think About the

Essential Question
What effect do we have on nature, and how does
nature affect us?
The interaction between humans and the natural world
is a two-way street. With a partner, make a two-column
list, noting ways that nature affects us on one side and
Make the Connection effects that we have on nature on the other. Do you
notice any patterns in the contents of the two lists?
In your daily life, how do you Discuss your ideas.
interact with nature, even in
small ways? If you could change
anything about how you
experience the natural world, what
would it be and why? Discuss your
thoughts with a partner.
Build Academic Vocabulary

You can use these Academic Vocabulary words to write and talk
about the topics and themes in the unit. Which of these words do
Prove It! you already feel comfortable using when speaking or writing?
Why should people pay

attention to what happens I can use it! I understand it. I’ll look it up.
in the natural world? Discuss
advocate
your ideas using one of the
Academic Vocabulary words. discrete
domain
enhance
evoke
498 UNIT 6
Preview the Texts
Look over the images, titles, and descriptions of the texts in the unit.
Mark the title of the text that interests you most.
The Great Silence Find Your Park Night Garden

Short Story by Ted Chiang Public Service Advertisement by Short Story by Shruti Swamy
National Park Service
A voice from the natural world reflects In a standoff between a pet and
on why humans don’t see what’s right Pretty scenery is just one part of what a deadly snake, humans can only
in front of them. our national parks have to offer. watch and wait.
Can Genetic Engineering Solve The Seventh Man Carry

the Problem We Created? Short Story by Haruki Murakami Poem by Linda Hogan
Argument by Sarah Zhang A wise man shares what he has learned Water is beautiful, essential—and
Humans introduce invasive species through dealing with the trauma of a dangerous.
everywhere we go, but scientists hope to natural disaster.
©National Park Service, D.C.; (tr) ©Gerckens-Photo-Hamburg/Shutterstock; (bl) ©Carolyn Jenkins/Alamy; (bc) ©Corbis;
undo the harm.

© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (tl) ©K.C. Wilsey/FEMA/Alamy; (tc) Find Your Park:
Think Outside the Box

Even if you live in a busy city, examples of nature are all around you.
In the space provided, draw a scene from your daily life that shows
how the natural world is part of the places you inhabit.
(br) ©Miguel Lasa/Steve Bloom Images/Alamy
499
Get Ready
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
The Great Silence on nature, and how does

nature affect us?
Short Story by Ted Chiang
Engage Your Brain

Communication Breakdown
Choose one or more of these activities to start
connecting with the story you’re about to read. What are some examples of humans communicating
with another species? How well do you think we and
this other species understand each other? Write a
A Small Extinction journal entry or blog post exploring your ideas.
When a single species goes extinct, it

might not affect our daily lives. But does
it still matter? Discuss your thoughts
with a partner.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©AuntSpray/Shutterstock
Extraterrestrial Message
If you could send a message to try to make contact with aliens,
what would it contain? Use the space provided to create a message
that could express something important about earthlings in a way
that an extraterrestrial might be able to understand.
500 UNIT 6 ANALYZE & APPLY

Get Ready
Analyze Point of View

In fiction, the narrator—the voice that tells the story—controls how the
story is told. The method of narration, or point of view, is revealed by Focus on Genre
the narrator’s perspective, or what the narrator tells the reader. Narrators Short Story
communicate the complexities and motivations of characters, advance • includes a narrator who may or
the plot, and develop the story’s theme. Consider these elements of first- may not be a character
person and third-person narration: • expresses a theme, or the
author’s message about life
Point of View Narrator Characteristics • can be read in one sitting
• short science fiction uses
First Person • uses the pronoun I to tell the story scientific ideas and the writer’s
• is a character in the story

imagination to explore the
past, present, or future
• shares only the perspective of a single character
Third Person • acts as an outside observer
• may tell the story from a broader perspective or may be

limited to what one character knows
In the story you are about to read, the writer uses the first-person perspective
of an unusual narrator. First-person narration creates a compelling voice
that can pull readers into a story. As the story develops, readers feel they are
inside the story along with the narrator—and gain a deeper understanding
of the narrator’s unique and personal perspective.
Analyze Narrative Structure

When writers introduce characters, establish setting, develop conflict, and
present events, they make choices that affect narrative structure—the way a
story is put together. Most stories use these traditional elements of structure:
• Exposition: introduces characters, setting, and conflict or struggle
• Rising Action: presents complications, building suspense
• Climax: reaches the story’s high point, making the conflict’s outcome clear
• Falling Action: shows results of character decisions/actions
• Resolution: reveals final outcome; also called denouement (d∑-n◊-män’)
Much of “The Great Silence” does not follow a traditional narrative structure.
Instead, the writer presents scientific facts and personal observations in ways
that make the story seem similar to an informational text or personal essay.
As you read, consider the order in which certain facts and observations are
revealed. How do section breaks contribute to the story’s structure? How does
the structure help create tension and develop a theme?
The Great Silence 501

Get Ready
Annotation in Action
Here is an example of one reader’s notes about “The Great Silence.” As you
read, mark words that reveal the narrator’s point of view and perspective.
But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they Narrator is a parrot!
interested in listening to our voices? first-person
Expand Your Vocabulary

Put a check mark next to the vocabulary words that you feel comfortable
using when speaking or writing.
attest
cacophony
Turn to a partner and talk about the vocabulary words
you already know. Then, write a short paragraph
eavesdrop describing a true or fictional interaction between
humans and the natural environment, using as many
primal vocabulary words as you can. As you read “The Great
Silence,” use the definitions in the side column to learn
reverberation
the vocabulary words you don’t already know.
malicious
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©American Foto Features/MEGA/Newscom
Background
Ted Chiang (born 1967) began writing science fiction
in high school and went on to become a leading writer
in the genre. His fiction ponders questions about the
nature of time, the universe, and humanity. One of his
best-known works, Story of Your Life, appeared in the
Starlight 2 anthology (1998), which then became the basis
for the acclaimed film Arrival (2016). His first collection
of science fiction, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002),
drew high praise. “The Great Silence” appears in a more
recent collection of his work, Exhalation (2019). Chiang
has won numerous prizes for his science fiction, including
the Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and Theodore Sturgeon awards.
Chiang lives in the state of Washington, where he works
in the software industry as a technical writer.

The Great Silence
Short Story by Ted Chiang
A voice from the natural world reflects on why NOTICE & NOTE
As you read, use the side
humans don’t see what’s right in front of them.
margins to make notes
about the text.
1
T he humans use Arecibo1 to look for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Their desire to make a connection is so strong that they’ve
created an ear capable of hearing across the universe. ANALYZE POINT OF VIEW
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©K.C. Wilsey/FEMA/Alamy
2 But I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they Annotate: Mark the
interested in listening to our voices? questions the narrator asks in
paragraphs 1–3.
3 We’re a nonhuman species capable of communicating with them.
Aren’t we exactly what humans are looking for? Infer: What is the narrator’s
perspective on humans?
4 The universe is so vast that intelligent life must surely have arisen
many times. The universe is also so old that even one technological
species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is
no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi
paradox.2
5 One proposed solution to the Fermi paradox is that intelligent
species actively try to conceal their presence, to avoid being targeted
by hostile invaders.
1
Arecibo: a radio observatory located south of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, used to track objects
in the sky and to study the atmosphere.
2
Fermi paradox: The question “Where is everybody?” was famously asked by Italian-
American physicist Enrico Fermi, regarding why no other civilizations have been
discovered outside of Earth.

6 Speaking as a member of a species that has been driven nearly to
attest extinction by humans, I can attest that this is a wise strategy.
(∂-t≈st´) v. to affirm to be correct, 7 It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.
true, or genuine.
8 The Fermi paradox is sometimes known as the Great Silence.

cacophony The universe ought to be a cacophony of voices, but instead it’s
(k∂-k≤f´∂-n∏) n. jarring, discordant disconcertingly quiet.
sound. 9 Some humans theorize that intelligent species go extinct before
they can expand into outer space. If they’re correct, then the hush of
the night sky is the silence of a graveyard.
10 Hundreds of years ago, my kind was so plentiful that the Rio
Abajo Forest3 resounded with our voices. Now we’re almost gone.
Soon this rainforest may be as silent as the rest of the universe.
11 There was an African grey parrot named Alex. He was famous for his
cognitive abilities. Famous among humans, that is.
A human researcher named Irene Pepperberg spent thirty years
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©USFWS Photo/Alamy

12
studying Alex. She found that not only did Alex know the words
for shapes and colors, he actually understood the concepts of shape
and color.
13 Many scientists were skeptical that a bird could grasp abstract
concepts. Humans like to think they’re unique. But eventually
Pepperberg convinced them that Alex wasn’t just repeating words,
that he understood what he was saying.
14 Out of all my cousins, Alex was the one who came closest to
being taken seriously as a communication partner by humans.
15 Alex died suddenly, when he was still relatively young. The
evening before he died, Alex said to Pepperberg, “You be good.
I love you.”
16 If humans are looking for a connection with a nonhuman
intelligence, what more can they ask for than that?
3
Rio Abajo Forest: a designated National Natural Landmark comprising some 3,590 acres,
located within the Rio Abajo Forest Reserve in Puerto Rico.

17 Every parrot has a unique call that it uses to identify itself; biologists ANALYZE NARRATIVE
refer to this as the parrot’s “contact call.” STRUCTURE
18 In 1974, astronomers used Arecibo to broadcast a message into Annotate: Mark the topic of
outer space intended to demonstrate human intelligence. That was paragraphs 17–20.
humanity’s contact call. Analyze: How does the
19 In the wild, parrots address each other by name. One bird author use this topic to show
imitates another’s contact call to get the other bird’s attention. a connection between parrots,
20 If humans ever detect the Arecibo message being sent back to humans, and extraterrestrials?
Earth, they will know someone is trying to get their attention.
21 Parrots are vocal learners: we can learn to make new sounds after
we’ve heard them. It’s an ability that few animals possess. A dog may
understand dozens of commands, but it will never do anything but
bark.
22 Humans are vocal learners too. We have that in common. So
humans and parrots share a special relationship with sound. We don’t
simply cry out. We pronounce. We enunciate.
23 Perhaps that’s why humans built Arecibo the way they did. A
receiver doesn’t have to be a transmitter, but Arecibo is both. It’s an
ear for listening, and a mouth for speaking.
24 Humans have lived alongside parrots for thousands of years, and

only recently have they considered the possibility that we might be
intelligent.
25 I suppose I can’t blame them. We parrots used to think humans
weren’t very bright. It’s hard to make sense of behavior that’s so
different from your own.
26 But parrots are more similar to humans than any extraterrestrial
species will be, and humans can observe us up close; they can look us eavesdrop
in the eye. How do they expect to recognize an alien intelligence if all (∏vz´dr≤p) v. to listen secretly to a
they can do is eavesdrop from a hundred light-years away? private conversation.
27 It’s no coincidence that “aspiration” means both hope and the act of VOCABULARY
breathing. Multiple-Meaning Words: Mark
28 When we speak, we use the breath in our lungs to give our two different meanings of
thoughts a physical form. The sounds we make are simultaneously “aspiration” in paragraph 27.
our intentions and our life force. Draw Conclusions: In what way
29 I speak, therefore I am. Vocal learners, like parrots and humans, are these two meanings related?
are perhaps the only ones who fully comprehend the truth of this.
30 There’s a pleasure that comes with shaping sounds with your mouth.
It’s so primal and visceral that throughout their history, humans have primal
considered the activity a pathway to the divine. (prπ´m∂l) adj. primitive, basic, or
31 Pythagorean mystics believed that vowels represented the music fundamental.
of the spheres, and chanted to draw power from them.4
4
Pythagorean mystics . . . : those believing in the mathematics- and music-based
philosophical and religious ideas—including ideas about the sun, moon, and other
heavenly “spheres”—known as Pythagoreanism, founded around 2,500 years ago in
Southern Italy.

32 Pentecostal Christians believe that when they speak in tongues,
they’re speaking the language used by angels in Heaven.5
33 Brahmin Hindus believe that by reciting mantras, they’re
strengthening the building blocks of reality.6
34 Only a species of vocal learners would ascribe such importance to
sound in their mythologies. We parrots can appreciate that.
35 According to Hindu mythology, the universe was created with a

sound: “Om.” It’s a syllable that contains within it everything that ever
was and everything that will be.
36 When the Arecibo telescope is pointed at the space between stars,
it hears a faint hum.
37 Astronomers call that the “cosmic microwave background.” It’s
the residual radiation of the Big Bang, the explosion that created the
universe fourteen billion years ago.
reverberation 38 But you can also think of it as a barely audible reverberation of
(r∆-vûr-b∂-r∑´sh∂n) n. an echoing that original “Om.” That syllable was so resonant that the night sky
sound. will keep vibrating for as long as the universe exists.
39 When Arecibo is not listening to anything else, it hears the voice
of creation.
40 We Puerto Rican parrots have our own myths. They’re simpler than
human mythology, but I think humans would take pleasure from
them.
41 Alas, our myths are being lost as my species dies out. I doubt the
humans will have deciphered our language before we’re gone.
42 So the extinction of my species doesn’t just mean the loss of a
group of birds. It’s also the disappearance of our language, our rituals,
our traditions. It’s the silencing of our voice.
43 Human activity has brought my kind to the brink of extinction, but

malicious I don’t blame them for it. They didn’t do it maliciously. They just
(m∂-l∆sh´∂s) adj. deliberately weren’t paying attention.
harmful; spiteful. 44 And humans create such beautiful myths; what imaginations they
have. Perhaps that’s why their aspirations are so immense. Look at
Arecibo. Any species that can build such a thing must have greatness
within it.
NOTICE & NOTE 45 My species probably won’t be here for much longer; it’s likely that
WORDS OF THE WISER we’ll die before our time and join the Great Silence. But before we go,
When you notice a wise character we are sending a message to humanity. We just hope the telescope at
giving advice about life, you’ve
Arecibo will enable them to hear it.
found a Words of the Wiser
signpost.
46 The message is this:
47 You be good. I love you.
Notice & Note: Mark the insights
or advice offered in paragraphs
43–47.
5
Infer: What is the message about Pentecostal Christians . . . : A religious experience known as speaking in tongues involves
uttering sounds that resemble words and speech, but in an unknown language. It is said
life or human nature? How might
by Pentecostal Christians to be a gift of the Holy Spirit.
it relate to the story’s theme? 6
Brahmin Hindus . . . : In Hinduism, certain mantras, or hymns, are sacred sounds and
phrases traditionally recited by the priestly class known as Brahmin (also Brahman).

COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
What is the effect of the narrator’s repetition of Alex’s words at the What effect do we have
end of the story? With a partner, discuss how the meaning of these
nature affect us?
words changes from the first use to the second.
Review your notes and

add your thoughts to your
Response Log.
Assessment Practice
Answer these questions before moving on to the Analyze the Text
section on the following page.
1. The story’s title, “The Great Silence,” refers to which two ideas?
A Signs of intelligent life should fill the galaxy.
B Humans have shown that they are not good listeners.
C Parrots have an urgent and important message.
D Extinctions eliminate voices humans could communicate with.
E There are many kinds of intelligence across the universe.
2. This question has two parts. First, answer Part A. Then, answer Part B.
Part A
What inference can you make about the narrator?
A The narrator wants parrots to be as intelligent as humans.
B The narrator wants to save humans from extinction.

C The narrator believes humans are not capable of listening.
D The narrator believes parrots are the most advanced species.
Part B
Which detail supports the answer in Part A?

A “It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.”

(paragraph 7)
B “Humans like to think they’re unique.” (paragraph 13)
C “[W]e use the breath in our lungs to give our thoughts a physical
form.” (paragraph 28)
D “But before we go, we are sending a message to humanity.”

(paragraph 45)
Test-Taking Strategies

Respond
Analyze the Text

Support your responses with evidence from the text.
NOTICE & NOTE
1 SUMMARIZE The author structures this story, not in a narrative Review what
sequence, but by exploring a series of topics or key ideas. Complete the you noticed and
noted as you read
chart to identify the topic of each section of the story. What theme do all
the text. Your
of these topics or key ideas develop? annotations can
help you answer
these questions.
Section Topic or Key Idea
Paragraphs 1–10
Paragraphs 11–16
Paragraphs 17–26
Paragraphs 27–39
Paragraphs 40–47
2 EVALUATE What is the effect of the author’s choice to narrate the story
through the perspective of an animal? How would the story be different if
it were told from a human perspective?
3 DRAW CONCLUSIONS In paragraph 11, the narrator introduces Alex

the parrot as “Famous among humans, that is.” What is the effect of this
comment? What does it mean that humans find Alex exceptional but
parrots don’t?
4 INFER Why do humans seek communication with extraterrestrials while

ignoring communication from parrots, according to the narrator?
5 ANALYZE Consider the connections the author draws between humans

across history and belief systems in paragraphs 31–33. What point is made
through these linked ideas?
6 EVALUATE Throughout the story, the narrator expresses Words of the

Wiser in the form of questions. Why might asking questions, instead of
making direct statements or demands, be an effective way for the narrator
to make an important point that might change the way humans behave?

Respond
Choices
Here are some other ways to demonstrate your understanding of the
ideas in this lesson.
Writing
As you write and discuss,
Short Story
be sure to use the
Think about the perspective of something that isn’t human— Academic Vocabulary
such as an animal, a star, or a tree. Write a short story from the words.
perspective of this narrator. Include a lesson or message for humans advocate
as a part of your story.
discrete
domain
enhance
Research evoke
Presentation
“The Great Silence” addresses a wide range
of topics, including the Big Bang; attempts to
communicate with extraterrestrial life; species on
the verge of extinction; ancient mythology and
more.
Choose one topic from the story, and develop

a question you have about it. Then conduct
research to answer that question, documenting Social & Emotional Learning
the sources you consult using the method your Communication Strategies
teacher prefers. Share your findings in a short
Humans face challenges even when
presentation, using images, sound, and video as
communicating with each other because
appropriate to enhance understanding.
thousands of different languages are spoken
around the world. In a small group, share some
classroom-appropriate words from languages
other than English. Then discuss this question:
How can people who don’t share a language

communicate with each other?

Respond

PRACTICE AND APPLY
Answer the questions to show your understanding of the vocabulary
words. Use a dictionary or thesaurus as needed.
1. How could you attest that your friend enjoys chocolate?
2. During what situation might you experience a cacophony?
3. Why might someone eavesdrop?
4. What actions or things could be described as primal?
5. Where would you go to hear a reverberation?
6. Are animals capable of being malicious? Explain.
Vocabulary Strategy
Multiple-Meaning Words
When you read, you may come across multiple-meaning words, or
words having more than one definition. You can search for context clues Interactive Vocabulary
in surrounding words, sentences, and paragraphs to determine a word’s Lesson: Multiple-Meaning
appropriate meaning. Consider the word reverberation in the following Words
sentence from “The Great Silence”:
But you can also think of it as a barely audible

reverberation of that original “Om.” (paragraph 38)
The word reverberation can mean “an echoing sound or series of echoes”
or “a prolonged or continuing effect; repercussion.” However, the words
audible and “Om” are context clues that suggest that the correct meaning
of reverberation in this sentence is “an echoing sound.”
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Find these multiple-meaning words in the story: grasp (paragraph 13),
common (paragraph 22), divine (paragraph 30), and humanity
(paragraph 45). Work with a partner, using context clues to determine
each word’s meaning in the text.
1. Figure out how the word functions in the sentence: as a noun, an
adjective, a verb, or an adverb.
2. Review the surrounding text to find context clues.
3. Write down your definition, checking a dictionary as needed.

Respond
Watch Your Language!

Parallel Structure
In “The Great Silence,” the author makes effective use of parallel
structure—the repetition of grammatical forms within a sentence.
Repeated words, phrases, and clauses establish a rhythm that propels the
reader through the text. Parallel structure helps writers to express and
connect ideas and to evoke emotion.
Parallel Structure Example from “The Great Silence” Effect
Parallel words Humans are vocal learners too. We have Repeating we not only
that in common. So humans and parrots creates rhythm in this
passage; it also supports
share a special relationship with sound.
the idea that humans
We don’t simply cry out. We pronounce. and parrots have a lot in
We enunciate. (paragraph 22) common.
Parallel phrases So the extinction of my species doesn’t The author’s word choice
just mean the loss of a group of birds. It’s (loss, disappearance) and
repeated phrasing (our
also the disappearance of our language,
language, our rituals, our
our rituals, our traditions. (paragraph 42) traditions) work together to
evoke emotion.
Parallel clauses Pythagorean mystics believed that Three clauses using

vowels represented the music of the repeating forms of believe
create rhythm, moving
spheres, and chanted to draw power
readers from one example
from them. (paragraph 31) to the next and showing
Pentecostal Christians believe that when connections across human
they speak in tongues, they’re speaking history and belief systems.
the language used by angels in Heaven.
(paragraph 32)
Brahmin Hindus believe that by reciting
mantras, they’re strengthening the
building blocks of reality. (paragraph 33)
Identifying parallel structures and other language elements can enhance

reading enjoyment, appreciation for the writer’s craft, and understanding
of a complex text. Challenge yourself to find other examples of parallel Interactive Grammar
structure in “The Great Silence.” Lesson: Sentence Structure
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Do you have a favorite pet you feel close to? Is there another species that
you think has a lot in common with humans? Write a paragraph about the
pet or species, using at least two examples of parallel structure to point
out the similarities.

Get Ready
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
MEDIA
Find Your Park nature affect us?
Public Service Advertisement by National Park Service
Engage Your Brain

You’re about to watch a public service advertisement
promoting America’s national parks. What do you picture
when you hear the words “national park”? Make a list of
your ideas and then discuss them with a partner.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (t) ©Idamini/Alamy; (b) ©jiawangkun/Shutterstock
Background
The National Park Service was established to preserve
meaningful places, moments in history, and monuments and
is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Over 20,000
people work for the National Park Service, and over 300,000
people volunteer at the parks to preserve these national
treasures and educate the public about them. More than
400 areas in the United States and its territories—including
American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin
Islands—provide the public with history, archaeology, and a
celebration of wildlife and the natural world, to be protected
for all time.

Get Ready
Analyze Media Techniques

and Purposes
Focus on Genre
A media message may be created for many purposes, or reasons:
to entertain, to share information, to persuade. Public Service
Public Service
Advertisements, or PSAs, are messages created to give the public useful Advertisement
information rather than to sell something. They may appear in magazines • addresses a wide, public
and on billboards, radio, and television. PSAs are informative, but they audience
may also make a persuasive appeal. Media techniques such as those listed • provides information free of
can create rhetorical effects that help achieve a specific goal. charge to raise awareness or
change attitudes
• includes images and words
with an emotional impact
• is multimodal, with elements
Sound Elements including print, audio, or video
Music and Sound Sounds from nature and music can work to build a particular mood
Effects that affects the emotional response of the viewer.
Word choices can appeal to viewer emotions, but so can the

Voice-over Narration
speaker’s vocal expression, emphasis, and pace.
Visual Elements
Art, photos, animation, graphs, and video can work together to

Images
share information and create emotional appeal.
Onscreen text in the form of titles, subtitles, captions, or visual

© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: Find Your Park: ©National Park Service, D.C.
Words
guides to the narration can emphasize key ideas.
Sequencing shots implies a connection between ideas or

Juxtaposition
events, adding meaning in ways that enhance the message.
Pretty scenery is just one

part of what our national
parks have to offer. Find Your Park
Video
View “Find Your Park” in
Public Service Advertisement by
your eBook.
National Park Service
Find Your Park 513

Respond
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
nature affect us?
Analyze Media
Support your responses with evidence from the PSA.
1 CITE EVIDENCE The PSA sequences images and words in categories to build
toward an overall impression of its subject. List examples of details from each
category to map the structure of the message.
Overall
Nature History/Culture People Activities
Impression
2 ANALYZE Describe the interaction between the music and the onscreen
text reading “PARK.” How does this interaction help organize the PSA into the
categories listed in the chart above?
3 EVALUATE How would you characterize the pace, or speed, of cuts between
images? How does this pace serve the purpose of motivating viewers to go
visit a national park?
4 ANALYZE What kinds of sentence lengths and structures are used in the
voice-over? How do these types of sentences enhance the pacing and message
of the PSA?
5 EVALUATE What is the overall effect of this PSA? Explain how it does or does
not achieve its purpose through media techniques.
6 COMPARE Think about the ideas you had about national parks before
viewing this PSA. What images in the PSA confirmed or matched that initial
impression? What parts of the PSA challenged or changed your previous ideas?

Respond
Choices
Writing As you write and

Letter to the Editor discuss, be sure to
use the Academic
Write a letter to the editor advocating for a new national park. Your Vocabulary words.
proposed park may be a real place you have visited or a place you
advocate
imagine. Your letter should be brief, about 100–200 words long.
• Use a business letter format and formal language for your letter. discrete
• Make a claim. Why does your park merit national park

designation?
domain
enhance
• Discuss one or more reasons, using evidence to support your
claim. evoke
• Directly address a possible opposing claim.
• Conclude with a specific and logical call to action.
Social & Emotional Learning

Problem Solving
Media
U.S. national parks are a great resource for
Advertisement
interacting with America’s landscape and history,
Work with a partner to plan a one-minute but they’re not accessible to everyone. Meet
advertisement promoting the national park of in a small group to identify the main problems
your choice. Consider compelling aspects of the that prevent people from experiencing what
PSA you watched. Follow these steps to write a national parks have to offer, and develop at least
script for your ad: one solution that solves an access problem by
• Provide two columns in your script. On the

left, indicate any text to be spoken by a
addressing a root cause. Present your group’s
work in a panel discussion.
character or the narrator, as well as sound

effects or music. On the right, indicate visual
components that will accompany the text.
• Incorporate into your ad what you found

compelling about the PSA video. If you have
access to digital media, create your ad using
copyright-free images and sound.
• Present your ad to classmates. Ask for feedback

on its effectiveness.
Find Your Park 515

Get Ready
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
MENTOR TEXT
Night Garden on nature, and how does

nature affect us?
Short Story by Shruti Swamy
Engage Your Brain

connecting with the story you’re about to read.
Red Alert!
When you feel afraid, what changes happen in your body?
Does your heart race? Do you feel sweaty or cold? Write
a journal entry or blog post discussing physical reactions
you have in response to a scare—from riding a thrill ride,
being startled by a friend playing a prank, or any time
when you might briefly feel in danger.
Perfect Pet
Territorial Claims Think about a pet—either one you have had
Around your school or the place where you live, or your ideal pet. What characteristics does
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Stefan Kranefeld/Westend 61/Media Bakery
which areas belong more to humans and which this animal have that make it such a good
belong more to nature? Where do these territories pet? Discuss your ideas with a partner.
overlap? Use the space provided to draw a map
showing the territories and who or what inhabits
them.

Get Ready
Analyze Pacing and Tension

Pacing refers to how quickly or slowly a story unfolds. Fast pacing
moves the action forward and creates tension, or a sense of Focus on Genre
anxious anticipation. Slow pacing can provide a lull, or rest from
Short Story
the action, although slower scenes can still be tense. Writers may
slow the pacing to develop characters or provide backstory. • is a short work of fiction
• includes setting, characters,
Writers vary their pacing in order to keep readers engaged. To plot, and theme
speed up pacing, they may use shorter sentences or group many • focuses on one main conflict
events together. To slow down pacing, they often use longer but may also include subplots
sentences or paragraphs with detailed descriptions. Dialogue can • varies pacing to engage
slow down the pacing by shifting focus from the central conflict, readers and build tension
but it can also heighten tension by introducing complications.
Beginning Middle End

(Exposition) (Rising Action + Climax) (Falling Action + Resolution)
How quickly What events take place? Does the tension ease up?
is the conflict How does the story build tension? Does time slow down?
introduced? Are there lulls or breaks in tension? How is the story resolved?
As you read, note how the author varies the pacing and builds tension in the story.
Analyze Figurative Language

Figurative language communicates ideas beyond the literal meaning of
the words. Writers use figurative language to create images that help a
reader look at familiar things in new and unusual ways.
Figurative Language Example from Story Effect on Meaning or Mood
A simile uses like or as to I felt hollow, like

compare two unlike things a clay pot waiting
that have some quality in
for water.
common.
A metaphor compares I pressed

two unlike things that have this thought

some quality in common. It
against me.
doesn’t contain like or as.
When an animal, object, or Who had death

idea is described as having come for, the dog
human qualities, this is
or me?
called personification.
As you read, keep track of the figurative language used in the story.
Think about how this language affects meaning as well as the mood or
atmosphere of the story.
Night Garden 517

Get Ready
Here is an example of one reader’s notes about the first paragraph of
“Night Garden.” As you read, mark changes in pacing during the story.
I knew Neela’s voice well: the bright happy barking that he threw
out in greeting, the little yips of pleading for a treat or a good
rubdown, and the rare growl, sitting low and distrustful in his
throat when the milkman came around—he was a friendly dog. 2 short sentences
This sound was unlike any of those. It was high and held in it a follow a very long one;
mineral note of panic. speeds up the pacing


taut you already know. Then, write a paragraph about an
encounter you had with a creature in nature that made
vigil
you feel tense or anxious. As you read “Night Garden,”
arrogance use the definitions in the side column to learn the
vocabulary words you don’t already know.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Aleksandar Kamasi/Shutterstock

Background
Shruti Swamy is a two-time O. Henry Prize winner—
“Night Garden” was featured in The O. Henry Prize Stories
2017. She was a 2017–2018 Steinbeck Fellow at San
Jose State University, a fiction fellow at Kundiman (a
national nonprofit that nurtures writers and readers of
Asian American literature), and a 2018 Elizabeth George
Foundation recipient. Her work has appeared in The Paris
Review, Kenyon Review Online, the Boston Review, and
elsewhere. Although best known for her short fiction, she
began her first novel in 2014. Swamy grew up in Northern
California and lives in San Francisco.

Night Garden
In a standoff between a pet and a deadly snake, NOTICE & NOTE

humans can only watch and wait.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Gerckens-Photo-Hamburg/Shutterstock
about the text.
1
I heard the barking at six thirty or seven. It had been a long, hot
day, and evening was a relief. I was cooking dinner. I knew Neela’s
voice well: the bright happy barking that he threw out in greeting,
the little yips of pleading for a treat or a good rubdown, and the rare
growl, sitting low and distrustful in his throat when the milkman
came around—he was a friendly dog. This sound was unlike any of
those. It was high and held in it a mineral note of panic. I went over
to the kitchen window that looked out onto the yard, where we had
a garden. There was a pomegranate tree, an orange tree, and some
thick, flowering plants—jasmine and jacaranda—and some I did not
know that my husband had planted years before. But I was the one
who kept them alive. Neela stood dead center, in the red earth. His
tail was taut and his head level with his spine, ears pinned against his taut
skull, so his body arrowed into a straight line, nearly gleaming with (tôt) adj. tightly stretched; strained
a quality of attention. He was not a large dog, black and sweet and or tense.
foxlike, sometimes shy, with yellow paws and snout. Facing him was a
black snake—a cobra—with the head raised, the hood fanned out.
Night Garden 519

ANALYZE PACING AND 2 I let out a cry. The cobra had lifted the front of its body at
TENSION least two feet from the ground. I had never seen one so close, even
Annotate: Mark details in separated by four strong walls and a pane of glass. I could see her
paragraph 2 that describe the delicate tongue, darting between her black lips. Her eyes were fixed
cobra and her actions. on the dog, and his on hers. Their gaze did not waver. Her body, too,
Interpret: How do the details was taut with attention, shiny back gleaming in the low evening light.
help build tension? The sky, I saw now, was red, low and red, and the sun a wavering
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Mary Swift/Shutterstock

orange circle in the sky.
3 Of course my first instinct was to rush out with a broom,
screaming, and scare the thing off. But something stopped me. I
stood for a full minute at the sink, shaking all over. Then I took a
deep breath and phoned my sister.
4 “There’s a cobra outside with Neela.”
5 She exhaled. She was my big sister, and had been subject, lately,
to too many of my emergencies. “It’s okay. Call Dr. Ramanathan. He
knows about snakes. Do you have his phone number?”
6 I did.
7 “Are you crying?”
8 “No.”
9 “It’s okay, Vijji.”
10 “I can’t—” Then I stopped myself.
11 “Can’t what?” My sister has a voice she can soften or harden
depending on circumstance. She kept it soft with me now, like talking
to a child. I wiped my face, like a child, with the bottom of my shirt.
12 “I’ll call back,” I said.

13 I went again to the window. The animals were still there, exactly ANALYZE FIGURATIVE
where they had been when I last looked. The dog had stopped LANGUAGE
barking, and the cobra looked like a stream of poured oil. I dialed Annotate: Mark the simile in
Dr. Ramanathan’s number. paragraph 13.
14 “Doctor, there’s a snake out there with my dog. A cobra. In Analyze: What mood does this
my yard.” description create?
15 “A cobra is it?” I could see him in his office, his white hair and
furred ears. He had a doctor’s gruffness, casual in the most serious
of circumstances, and had seen both my children through countless
fevers, stomach upsets, and broken bones. “Has it bitten?”
16 “No, they haven’t touched each other. They’re not even moving.
Just staring each other down.”
17 “Don’t do anything. Just watch them. Stay inside.”
18 “Nothing? He’ll die,” I said. “I know it, he’ll die.”
19 “If you stay inside the house, he won’t die. The snake was trying NOTICE & NOTE
to come inside the house, and he stopped it. Now he is giving all his WORDS OF THE WISER
attention to the snake. If you break that concentration the snake will When you notice a wiser character
giving advice about life to the
kill him, and it will also be very dangerous for you.”
main character, you’ve found a
20 “Are you sure?” Words of the Wiser signpost.
21 “No one must come in until the snake has left. Tell your husband
Notice & Note: Mark what the
to stay out until the snake is gone.”
doctor advises the narrator to do
22 After I hung up with Dr. Ramanathan, I took a chair and set it in paragraphs 17–21.
by the window, so I could sit while I watched the dog and the snake.
Infer: What’s the lesson, and how
It was a strange dance, stranger still because of its soundlessness.
might it affect Vijji?
The snake would advance, the dog would retreat a few steps. The
hair was standing up on the back of his neck, like a cat’s, and now
his tail pointed straight up. I could see fear in his face, with his eyes
narrowed and his teeth bared. The snake in comparison looked
almost peaceful. I didn’t hear her hiss. The white symbol glowed on
her back. Their focus was completely one on the other. I wondered if
they were communicating in some way I couldn’t hear or understand.
Then the dog stood his ground and the snake stopped advancing. She
seemed to rise up even higher. Something was too perfect about her
movements, which were curving and graceful. Half in love with both,
I thought, and it chilled me. Evening came down heavily; the massive
red sky darkened into purple.
23 The phone rang. It was my sister.
24 “Well?”
25 “They’re still there. They’ve hardly moved.”

26 “Vijji, have you eaten? It’s getting late.”
27 I had been in the middle of making a simple dinner for myself
and had, of course, forgotten. The rice was sitting half-washed in a
bowl next to the sink. I didn’t feel hungry, less even than usual—I
don’t like to eat by myself. Instead, I felt hollow, like a clay pot waiting
for water. It was pleasant, almost an ache.
28 “What time is it?”
29 “Nine thirty, darling—eat something. Shall I come over?”
30 “No! Dr. Ramanathan says no one can come in or out.”
31 “You phoned Susheel?”
Night Garden 521

32 “What’s the point?”
33 “What if he comes home?”
34 “He’s not coming.”
35 “It’s his dog too.”
36 “My dog,” I said, too loudly. “He’s my dog.”
37 Then back to the window. It had grown dark. I hesitated to
turn on the light in the house, in case they would startle. Our eyes
sharpened as the light faded. There was a bit of light that came in
from the street, from the other houses, though it was filtered through
the leaves and branches of the fruit trees and the flowers. In it, I
could see the eyes of my dog, bright as live coals. There is a depth
that dogs’ eyes have, which snakes’ eyes lack. Snakes’ eyes are flat and
uncompromising, and reveal no animating intelligence. Perhaps that’s
why we never trust them.
ANALYZE FIGURATIVE 38 Now, very quietly, I could hear the snake hissing. The sound had
LANGUAGE
a rough edge to it. Neela advanced. The snake seemed to snap her
Annotate: Mark comparisons the jaws. I have seen a dead snake, split open on the side of the road. Its
narrator makes in paragraph 38 blood was red and the muscle looked like meat, swarmed with flies.
about the standoff between the
People said it was a bad omen for me, a bride, to see it then. Imagine
dog and the snake.
the wedding of the Orissa bride,1 who married the cobra that lived
Analyze: How do these near the anthill, and was blessed by the village. People make jokes
comparisons reflect how
about the wedding night, but everyone’s marriage is unknowable
powerless the narrator feels?
from the outside. I saw a picture of her in the newspaper, black
hair, startled eyes, and I blessed her too—who wouldn’t? This same
1
Orissa bride: a woman in Eastern India who married a cobra in real life.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Abir Bhattacharya/Shutterstock

communion, it must have been, two sets of eyes inextricably locked, Don’t forget to
for hours. The kumkum2 smeared in her part like blood. The dog was Notice & Note as you
read the text.
gaining ground. He stood proud and erect, still focused, but doggish
now, full of a child’s righteousness. His ears pricked up. But then, for
no reason I could discern, the weather between them turned, and
it was the snake who held them both, immense and swaying, in her
infinite power.
39 Who knows how much time passed. I sat there by the window.
The three of us were in a kind of trance. Once, I awoke with my head
in my arms; I had fallen asleep right there on the lip of the sink. I
blinked once, trying to make sense of the kitchen’s dark shapes. It
seemed as though I had had a dream of a snake and Neela, engaged in
a bloodless, endless battle, and when I looked outside there they were,
keeping this long vigil. Their bodies were outlined by moonlight. vigil
At this hour, they looked unearthly, gods who had taken the form (v∆j´∂l) n. a watch kept during
of animals for cosmic battle. But I could see the fatigue in my dog. normal sleeping hours.
You see it with people on their feet for hours, even when they try and
hide it, a slump in the shoulders, the loose shoulders of the dead. No
different with my dog. He would die, I was sure of it. I pressed this
thought against me. The empty house. I would let all the plants die in
the yard. I would move.
40 I find that at night you can look at your life from a great
distance, as though you are a child sitting up in a tree, listening to
2
kumkum: in Hindu culture, a red powder placed in the part of a woman’s hair to show
that she is married.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Abir Bhattacharya/Shutterstock
Night Garden 523

the meaningless chatter of adults. I stood up in the kitchen. It had
been years since I stayed up this late. Slowly, infinitely slowly, the
creatures were inching back, toward the shed at the side of the house,
the dog retreating, the snake advancing. Their movements were like
the progression of huge clouds that seem to sit still in the sky, and
you mark their advancement only against the landscape. I followed
them, moving from one window to another. I became very angry
arrogance with Neela. What arrogance or stupidity had urged him to take on
(√r´∂-g∂ns) n. overbearing pride. this task? It’s easier to be the hero, to leave and let others suffer the
consequences. To run barking into the house was all he needed to do,
ANALYZE PACING AND to show me the snake so I could close up our doors.
TENSION 41 I stood. The snake hissed up and made a ducking move forward,
Annotate: Mark the moment toward Neela, who snarled, baring his yellow teeth, doing a delicate
in the story when the tension is move with his paws, shuffling back, weaving like a boxer. He let out
broken. three high yelps, pure anger, and snapped his jaws, and the snake rose
Analyze: How does the pacing even higher, flaring out her hood, hissing, I could hear it, loudly, like
change here to create a sense of a spray of water. Then she lowered herself. Undulating back and forth
relief? on the ground, she slunk away, leaving her belly’s imprint in the dirt.
42 I went outside. The air was clean and cool, thin, as it hadn’t been
all day, almost as if it had rained. He was tired. He whimpered when
he saw me, pricked up his ears, and pressed his wet snout into my
hand when I drew close. He was radiant. With his mouth pressed
closed between my hands, his eyes looked all over my face, joyful and
humble, the way dogs are, filled with gladness. He swayed on his feet
with fatigue, then slumped down to his knees in a dead faint, tongue
lolling back. His breathing came slow and easy.
43 Who had death come for, the dog or me? I lifted the sleeping
creature into my arms. He was no heavier than one of my children
when they were young, and I took them in my arms to bed. The
air was very still outside at this time of night—or morning. Hardly
any sounds came from the street, and all the lights were off in the
neighboring houses. The air rushed in and out of Neela’s body, his
lungs and snout. What you have left is what you have. I carried him
into the house.
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION

What effect do we have How tense did you feel when reading this story? How did the
ending affect the way you felt? Discuss your reactions with a
nature affect us?
partner.

Response Log.

Assessment Practice
Part A
What inference can you make about the narrator?
A She looks forward to her husband coming home.
B She and her husband have recently separated.
C She is worried that her husband will startle the snake.
D She wants to leave her husband and live by herself.
Part B
Select the sentence that best supports the answer to Part A.
A “‘Tell your husband to stay out until the snake is gone.’’’ (paragraph 21)
B “I didn’t feel hungry, less even than usual—I don’t like to eat by myself.”
(paragraph 27)
C “I would let all the plants die in the yard.” (paragraph 39)
D “It’s easier to be the hero, to leave and let others suffer the
consequences.” (paragraph 40)
2. Why does the doctor advise Vijji to stay inside the house?
A He believes that Neela, like all dogs, knows how to kill cobras.
B He expects that Vijji’s husband will deal with the cobra when he comes home.
C He knows that if the dog is distracted, the cobra is more likely to attack.
D He thinks the cobra will get into the house if Vijji opens the door.
Night Garden 525

Respond
Analyze the Text

NOTICE & NOTE
1 CITE EVIDENCE What can you infer about the main character’s Review what
husband, Susheel? Cite evidence to support your answer. you noticed and
noted as you read
the text. Your
annotations can
2 SYNTHESIZE Think of the ways in which the actions of the sister, the
help you answer
doctor, and Neela are similar. What message does this suggest? Explain. these questions.
3 COMPARE Compare the metaphor of the dance in paragraph 22 to

the metaphor of the battle in paragraph 39. How do these metaphors
contribute to the tension of the story?
4 CONNECT Explain the metaphor “two sets of eyes inextricably locked,

for hours” (paragraph 38). How does that image tie the story of the Orissa
bride to the main conflict in the story?
5 DRAW CONCLUSIONS What does the narrator mean by “What you have
left is what you have” (paragraph 43)?
6 EVALUATE What Words of the Wiser does Vijji’s sister offer her during
their second conversation (paragraphs 24–36)? Explain whether you think
this is good advice, both in the present situation and more generally.
7 CRITIQUE Use the chart to outline the author’s use of fast and slow
pacing. How effectively does she use pacing to build tension throughout
the story? Explain.
Beginning Middle End

(Exposition) (Rising Action + Climax) (Falling Action + Resolution)

Respond
Choices
Writing
Literary Analysis
be sure to use the
Readers experience the narrator’s tension and concern about what Academic Vocabulary
will happen over the course of this story. How does the author use words.
pacing and details, including figurative language, to build tension advocate
as the story develops? Write a one-page analysis of the way the
author crafted this story, supporting your ideas with quotations discrete
from the text.
domain
enhance
evoke
Speaking & Listening

Group Discussion
What are some ways that pets show loyalty to
Media their owners? Gather examples from your own
Photo Essay experience as well as anecdotes from others to
support your ideas, and discuss with a group
The central conflict in “Night Garden” is the
why pets might behave in seemingly selfless
result of untamed nature existing close to
ways. Try to reach a consensus within your group
a civilized and settled area. Wild nature in
and then share your conclusion with the class.
the form of the cobra meets tame nature in
the form of a loyal pet. Think of other places
where wild nature and tame nature meet,
and create a photo essay or video montage
juxtaposing images of wild and tame nature

that would exist there. Include narration or
captions to explain the locations and images
you chose.
Night Garden 527

Respond

PRACTICE AND APPLY
Answer the questions to show your understanding of the vocabulary
words. Use a dictionary or thesaurus as needed.
taut vigil arrogance
1. When is it necessary for a rope to be taut?
2. Why might people in a community hold a vigil?
3. What might cause a person to display arrogance?
Vocabulary Strategy
Verify Word Meanings
When you notice an unfamiliar word while reading, you can use the
word’s context, or surrounding words and sentences, to infer the word’s
meaning. To come up with a more precise definition, use a dictionary or
other reference source to verify the word’s meaning. Here is a definition of
a word used in the story:
com·mun·ion (k∂-my◊n´y∂n) n.
1. The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings. Interactive Vocabulary
Lesson: Using Reference
2. Religious or spiritual fellowship. Sources
3. An act of worship practiced in many Christian churches in

which people consume bread and wine in remembrance of
Jesus’s death.
Word in Context Inferred Meaning Verified Meaning

This same communion, it must have relationship or interaction Definition 1: the act of sharing
been, two sets of eyes inextricably thoughts or feelings
locked, for hours. (paragraph 38)
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Locate these words in the story: gruffness (paragraph 15), uncompromising
(paragraph 37), animating (paragraph 37), and inextricably (paragraph
38). Using context clues, write what you think each word means. Then
verify the word’s meaning in a dictionary. Write the definition next to your
prediction.

Respond

Relative Clauses
A relative clause is a dependent clause that works as an adjective,
modifying a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase. Writers use relative clauses
to convey specific meanings, describe something in more detail, or add
variety and interest to their writing. A relative clause begins with a relative
pronoun—that, which, who, whom, or whose—and contains a verb.
Two Types of Relative Clauses Examples from “Night Garden”
The highlighted relative clause is

essential. It conveys necessary I went over to the kitchen window that looked out
information about the noun it onto the yard, where we had a garden. (paragraph 1)
modifies (window).
This essential relative clause

begins with who because the clause But I was the one who kept them alive. (paragraph 1)
describes a person.
This is a nonessential relative clause.

It adds extra information, so it is Something was too perfect about her movements,
set off from the main clause with a which were curving and graceful. (paragraph 22)
comma.
This sentence contains two relative

clauses. The first is essential, so
There is a depth that dogs’ eyes have, which
it begins with that. The second is
nonessential, so it is set off with a snakes’ eyes lack. (paragraph 37)
comma.
When you add relative clauses to your writing, think about whether they
provide essential or nonessential information. That will help you use the
correct relative pronouns and punctuate the clauses correctly.
Interactive Grammar
Lesson: The Adjective
Clause
PRACTICE AND APPLY
Write a paragraph describing the dog in “Night Garden.” Use relative
clauses to provide details that describe the animal and to add variety
and interest to your writing. Include at least one essential relative clause
and one nonessential relative clause. Make sure to punctuate your
clauses correctly.
Night Garden 529

Get Ready
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
Can Genetic Engineering on nature, and how does
nature affect us?
Solve the Problem We
Created?
Argument by Sarah Zhang
Engage Your Brain

Tech Thoughts
connecting with the argument you’re about to read. Genetic engineering used to be the stuff of science
fiction but is becoming more frequently used.
What do you picture when you hear about genetic
Unintended Consequences engineering? Is it mostly positive, mostly negative,
Sometimes well-meaning actions wind or a mix? Discuss your ideas with a partner.
up causing problems. What’s an example
of a time when you or someone else did
something with good intentions but
got unexpectedly bad results? Write a
blog post or journal entry exploring the
causes and effects.
Oh, Rats!
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Valentyn Volkov/Shutterstock

Wherever humans go, rats are sure to
follow. Why is that a problem? Use the
space provided to jot down negative
impacts of rats. Then compare your ideas
with those of a classmate and discuss a
possible solution to one problem that
you both noted.

Get Ready
Monitor Comprehension
Texts that include technical terms and scientific concepts can be
challenging. Use these strategies to monitor comprehension, or check
Focus on Genre
your own understanding as you read:
Argument
Comprehension Strategy Use the Strategy • presents a stance, or position
on an issue
Annotate • Mark key terms, main ideas, and supporting
details.
• supports claims using logical
reasoning and credible
evidence
• Look up the meaning of technical terms as
needed.
• rebuts and refutes potential
opposing claims with relevant
evidence
Ask questions • Ask who, what, where, when, why, and how
questions about the subject as you read.
• arrives at a conclusion
• Look for answers in the text.
Take notes • Jot down key concepts.
• Create an outline to track the author’s argument.
Use background
knowledge
• Make connections between the text and what you already
know about the subject.
• Use these connections to make inferences about meaning.
Analyze Pro-Con Organization

In a well-crafted argument, ideas are organized so that they can be easily
understood by the reader. One way to organize an argument is to let
pros (ideas “for” or “in favor of”) and cons (ideas “against” or “opposed to”)
provide structure. As you read, notice the following:
• a claim, or position—often stated in the introduction or soon after
• a balance of pros and cons appearing throughout the argument

• ros include relevant reasons and valid evidence supporting the

P
claim.
Look for facts, quotations by experts, and statements from

well-regarded institutions.
• Cons include opposing views against the claim.
Look for how opposing views are rebutted or disproved. Note

any concessions that acknowledge a valid point made by the
opposition.
• a conclusion summarizing the argument
Can Genetic Engineering Solve the Problem We Created? 531

Get Ready
Here is an example of clues one reader noted about unfamiliar words in
the first paragraph of the argument. As you read, mark words and phrases
that help you monitor your comprehension.
The Galapagos Islands are famous for exotic birds, tortoises, “archipelago” = a
and iguanas, but recently the archipelago had become overrun group of islands
with more prosaic animals: rats and mice.
“prosaic” = opposite of
“exotic”

invasive
you already know. Then, write a few sentences about
prestigious a conflict between nature and humans, using as many
of the vocabulary words as you can. As you read “Can
beset Genetic Engineering Solve the Problem We Created?”,
use the definitions in the side column to help you
synthetic
learn the vocabulary words you don’t already know.
Background © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©nobeastsofierce Science/Alamy
Genetic engineering involves altering the structure of

genetic material—DNA—in a living organism, so that
its biological capabilities are changed. For example,
genetically engineered bacteria can be used to synthesize
insulin for treating diabetes. While this field can produce
many benefits, it is controversial because consequences
of any specific change may be unpredictable.
Science writer Sarah Zhang writes about genetic

engineering, biotechnology, and other related topics.
Her work appears in The Atlantic, Wired, Nature, and other
publications. She graduated from Harvard University,
where she studied neurobiology.

Can Genetic
Engineering Solve
the Problem We
Created?
Argument by Sarah Zhang
Humans introduce invasive species everywhere NOTICE & NOTE

we go, but scientists hope to undo the harm.
about the text.
1
T he Galapagos Islands are famous for exotic birds, tortoises, and
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Carolyn Jenkins/Alamy
iguanas, but recently the archipelago1 had become overrun with

more prosaic animals: rats and mice. Rodents that came on old sailing
ships. Rodents that stowed away on modern cruises. Wherever they
came from, rodents that eat the eggs and chicks and hatchlings of the
animals that so dazzled Charles Darwin.
2 The same story plays out on islands all over the world. So Island
Conservation, a nonprofit that rids islands of invasive species, has invasive
come up with a daring plan: genetically engineer the rodents so that (∆n-v∑´s∆v) adj. tending to spread
they all turn into males, shrinking the population one lonely pest at widely in a habitat, especially
non-native species.
a time.
3 This plan is far from going into effect, but it gets a serious
airing in a report out today from the National Academy of Sciences,
a prestigious group that often makes recommendations on prestigious
controversial areas of research. The make-all-rodents-boys idea is one (pr≈-st∏´j∂s) adj. having a good
of seven case studies for the use of “gene drives”—engineered pieces reputation; esteemed.
1
archipelago: a large group of islands.

of DNA that spread more quickly through a wild population than
any normal gene would. You might say gene drives are a way to cheat
evolution. Gene drives could also be dangerous and unpredictable;
once a manmade DNA sequence gets into a wild population, it’s
hard to get back out again. The National Academy’s report lays
out guidelines for scientists to responsibly study this method of
genetically altering wild plants and animals.
4 Gene drives have gotten a lot of attention as a way to prevent
mosquitoes from spreading disease: Scientists have engineered
mosquitoes with gene drives that kill the parasite behind malaria, and
they’re working on gene drives that either eradicate the mosquitoes
that spread dengue, chikungunya, and Zika2 or make them resistant
to the viruses. The recent rise of Crispr3 gene-editing technology has
made it easier than ever for scientists to construct gene drives.
5 But using gene drives not to benefit humans but to restore natural
beset habitats—like tropical islands beset with invasive rats—forces you
(b∆-s≈t´) v. to trouble persistently. to answer a very basic question: What is natural? What does it mean
to engineer animals to restore nature? Environmentalists have long
decried genetically modified organisms, but will they embrace them
for conservation?
A New Natural
6 Kent Redford, former director of the Wildlife Conservation Society
Institute, has questioned the working definition of “natural,” and in
2013 he wrote about the lack of dialogue between synthetic biologists
and conservationists. The reaction among conservationists he says,
was “a range of anger and disgust to enthusiasm and excitement.”
Since then Redford, along with Ryan Phelan, executive director of
Revive and Restore—an organization that promotes synthetic biology
synthetic for the “genetic rescue” of endangered and extinct species—have held
(s∆n-th≈t´∆k) adj. prepared or made meetings to get the two groups talking about specific problems, like
artificially; not natural. invasive rodents on islands.
7 No matter how you feel about genetic modification, the current
approach to killing island invasives might make you understand
the “enthusiasm” for gene drives. It is not pretty. Recently, on the
2
dengue, chikungunya, and Zika: infectious viral diseases transmitted by mosquitoes.
3
Crispr: A gene-editing technology that allows for relatively fast, easy, and specific
changes to DNA; the acronym stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic
Repeats.

British island of South Georgia, pilots spread 200 tons of bait one Don’t forget to
helicopter load at a time, blanketing the island in a rat poison called Notice & Note as you
read the text.
brodifacoum. Brodifacoum keeps blood from clotting, so the rodents
die of internal bleeding—as can birds and other mammals at high
enough doses. But gene drives? “We could do it in the most humane
way possible by having them just turn to an all-male population and
live out their natural lives,” says Heath Packard, communications
director for Island Conservation.
8 Islands are also well suited for gene drive solutions because the ANALYZE PRO-CON
ocean is a natural barrier against their spread. And invasive rodents ORGANIZATION
are a critical problem: As Darwin discovered, islands are hotbeds of Annotate: Mark the reasons in
biodiversity,4 and 40 percent of the critically endangered species in paragraph 8 that support using
the world live on islands. Plus rats and mice are an easy genetic target gene-drive solutions on islands.
because scientists have long tinkered with their genetics in the lab. Infer: Is the author in favor of
The downside, of course, are unintended consequences. Ecology is using gene drives? Explain.
complicated, and nobody has put a gene out in the wild before.
9 Island Conservation’s scientists were investigating gene drives
as a possible “game-changing” eradication technology even before
Crispr became hot. Their research partners at Texas A&M University
and North Carolina State University are studying a naturally-
occurring gene drive in mice that doesn’t even require Crispr
technology. Island Conservation has also partnered with the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and Australia’s national Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation so when the time
comes, it gets regulatory approval for field tests in the future. That’s
all years away, says Packard, though the group is now planning to
fundraise for the gene drive research.
10 The National Academy report considers other conservation
scenarios for gene drives: killing off mosquitoes that spread avian
malaria in Hawaii and controlling invasive knapweeds in U.S. forests.
But reading the report, you get a sense that the scientists realize they
are out of their depth. “Questions about how to define ‘nature’ and
how to understand the value attached to nature raise a number of
difficult philosophical and social problems,” says the report. “They
are left here as open questions, and are part of a growing and heated
debate among environmentalists about the values that underpin
environmentalism.” Consider this: Gene drives may be “unnatural,”
but how natural is dropping tons of rat poison out of the sky?
4
biodiversity: the number and variety of species found within a geographic region.

Small, uninhabited, horseshoe-
shaped island seen from above off of
Isla Isabela in the Galapagos Islands.
MONITOR COMPREHENSION 11 In any case, if scientists can construct such a gene drive, if
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Rebecca Yale/Moment/Getty Images
Annotate: In paragraph 11, mark conservationists can get permission to release mice carrying them,
what has been done in the past to and if everything goes as planned, then islands like the Galapagos
address the problem of invasive stand to benefit. A huge rat poisoning campaign from 2007 to 2014
rodents in the Galapagos Islands. rid the Galapagos of most of its pests, but with so much boat traffic
Evaluate: What problems are there, rodents could make their way to the islands again. Where
likely to arise with using this Darwin first made the observations that led him to understand the
method again? laws of evolution, scientists could use the technology that will try to
cheat the game.

What effect do we have What do you think of the proposed solution that the author
explains? Is it necessary, and will it work? Discuss your ideas with a
nature affect us?
partner.

Response Log.

Assessment Practice
1. What is the problem humans created on the Galapagos Islands?
A The use of poison killed too many native creatures.
B Darwin’s enthusiasm made too many people study in the Galapagos.
C Humans inadvertently brought rodents that ate too many native species.
D Genetic engineering caused too many unintended consequences.
2. Which two details support the idea that genetic engineering is still controversial?
A Gene drives may be “dangerous and unpredictable.” (paragraph 3)
B Gene drives could wipe out “mosquitoes that spread dengue” and other
diseases. (paragraph 4)
C Some conservationists express “enthusiasm and excitement” about

discussing gene drives with biologists. (paragraph 6)
D Gene drives may result in “unintended consequences.” (paragraph 8)
E The Galapagos and other islands “stand to benefit” from gene drives. (paragraph 11)
3. How does the author support the claim that the Galapagos Islands could benefit
from using gene drives to get rid of invasive species?
A The author cites many other islands that have successfully used gene drives.
B She quotes conservationists and cites research that suggests gene drives
might reduce invasive species.
C She expresses the view that gene drives will not work in the wild.
D She demonstrates that gene drives are proven to be as effective as other

methods used to eradicate invasive species.

Respond
Analyze the Text

NOTICE & NOTE

1 CAUSE/EFFECT In what ways do rodents pose a threat to species
Review what
native to the Galapagos Islands? How does a “daring plan” (paragraph 2)
you noticed and
claim to potentially solve this problem? noted as you
read the text. Your
annotations can
2 DRAW CONCLUSIONS Reread paragraph 3. Describe the reaction of help you answer
the National Academy of Sciences to the proposed “daring plan” these questions.
(paragraph 2). Why do you think the author includes this information?
3 INTERPRET What is meant by author’s observation that gene drives

“cheat evolution” (paragraph 3)?
4 ANALYZE Why is it important to ask questions about what is natural or

unnatural when debating genetic engineering (paragraph 5)?
5 SYNTHESIZE Reread paragraph 8. Use information in the text along with

background knowledge to infer why experimenting with gene drives in a
laboratory might be easier or more predictable than putting “a gene out
in the wild.”
6 EVALUATE The argument’s title asks a question: “Can genetic

engineering solve the problem we created?” How does the author use
reasons, evidence, concessions, and rebuttals to go about answering this
question? Use the graphic organizer to track the argument and complete
your response.
Gene Drive Pros Gene Drive Cons Conclusion

7 CONNECT What surprised you about either the problem or the possible
solutions described in this article?

Respond
Choices
Here are some other ways to demonstrate your understanding
of the ideas in this lesson.
Writing
Collaborative Blog
be sure to use the
Genetic engineering is a complex topic. Use ideas from the article Academic Vocabulary
and read online about other uses of genetic engineering to develop words.
your own ideas about the topic: Is genetic engineering more useful, advocate
or more dangerous? When might it help, and when might it cause
more problems? Collaborate with a partner on a blog that shares discrete
information and your own opinions on the topic.
domain
enhance
evoke

Debate
Is it a good idea to use genetic engineering
Research
in the wild? Take a position on the issue and
participate in a debate, following these steps: Problem-Solution Graphic
• Form two teams of two students each,

with one team in favor of using genetic
You’ve read about proposed solutions to the
problem of invasive species on environmentally
engineering in the wild and the other sensitive islands. Now research a different
opposed. environmental problem and potential solutions.
Use what you learn to create a graphic that
• Gather information to support your chosen
position and to oppose the arguments the
illustrates positive and negative points of at
least two possible solutions to the problem.
other team might make. Under your graphic, include a few sentences that
• Take turns presenting arguments

supporting the chosen position and then
identify which solution you prefer and why.
rebutting the other team’s arguments.
•
Ask for feedback from listeners on which

team presented the stronger case.

Respond

PRACTICE AND APPLY
Answer the questions to show your understanding of the vocabulary words.
1. Why might an invasive plant or animal be difficult to get rid of?
2. Why would people listen to the recommendations of a prestigious organization?
3. Describe a situation that would cause someone to be beset by worry.
4. Should a problem in nature be solved by a synthetic substance? Why or why not?
Vocabulary Strategy
Reference Sources Interactive Vocabulary
If you come across unfamiliar words or technical terms when reading, you Lesson: Using Reference
Sources
can look them up in print or digital resources such as these:
Reference Source Purpose
General Dictionary provides pronunciation, meaning, and etymology (origin) of a word
Technical provides meaning of words used in specialized fields such as science, engineering, or music
Dictionary
Encyclopedia offers articles on a wide range of subjects
Atlas provides geographical maps
Glossary defines difficult or specialized words used within a work; often appears at the end of a book
Thesaurus offers synonyms (words with similar meanings) and antonyms (contrasting meanings)
A dictionary entry for Galapagos Islands would help you pronounce

Galapagos (g∂-lä´p∂-g∂s) and define them as a group of volcanic islands in
the Pacific Ocean. An atlas would include a detailed map of the Galapagos.
An encyclopedia would sum up the geography and history of the islands.
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Find these terms in the text: prosaic (paragraph 1), National Academy of
Sciences (paragraph 3), and synthetic biology (paragraph 6). With a partner,
use print or digital reference sources to learn more about each term.
1. Use the chart to choose which resource(s) to use for each term.
2. Find and study each entry in the print or digital resource.
3. Reread the terms in the context of the selection. Discuss with your
partner how your understanding of the passages may have changed.

Respond

Colons, Semicolons, and Dashes
Punctuation marks bring clarity and structure
to sentences. Colons, semicolons, and dashes
are used in different ways to separate parts of
a sentence. The chart shows some of the ways
they are used in the article.
Punctuation Mark Function Example from Text
Colon introduces an idea Consider this: Gene drives may be “unnatural,”

but how natural is dropping tons of rat poison out
of the sky?
Semicolon separates parts of a compound Gene drives could also be dangerous and
sentence that are not joined unpredictable; once a manmade DNA sequence
by a coordinating conjunction
gets into a wild population, it’s hard to get back
(such as and, but, so, or, for, nor,
yet)
out again.
Dash indicates a break in thought (in The make-all-rodents-boys idea is one of seven
this case, to define an important case studies for the use of “gene drives”—
term); draws attention to the
engineered pieces of DNA that spread more
text that follows it
quickly through a wild population than any
normal gene would.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Loren Fishman/CartoonStock
Dashes may be used more than once in a sentence. Consider this example
from the text:
“But using gene drives not to benefit humans but to restore

natural habitats—like tropical islands beset with invasive rats—
forces you to answer a very basic question: What is natural?”
The first dash interrupts the sentence to offer an example, while the Interactive Grammar
second dash returns the reader to the thought that preceded the Lessons: Colons;
Semicolons; Dashes and
example. In the same sentence, the writer uses a colon to set off a Parentheses
separate, but related, idea.
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Write two paragraphs in response to any of the ideas presented in
the selection. Alternatively, write a response to the following prompt:
Should cruise ships visit the Galapagos Islands? Include at least one colon,
one semicolon, and one dash, using examples on this page and in the
text as a guide.

Collaborate ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
& Compare
nature affect us?
Compare Themes
As you read, notice how authors working in two different genres
address similar themes. What are the texts’ messages about the
world in general? How do the authors express those messages?
B
A
th Carry
The Seven
Man
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (l) © Corbis; (r) ©Miguel Lasa/Steve Bloom Images/
Poem by Lin
by da Hogan
Short Story pages 569–
571
ra k ami
Haruki Mu
5 6 1
pages 546–
After you read both texts, you will work on a final project
that explores the universal themes they express. You will
follow these steps:
• Choose an artistic medium
• Draft a statement of theme
• Present your artwork and interpretation

Alamy
542 UNIT 6 COLLABORATE & COMPARE

A Get Ready
The Seventh Man

Short Story by Haruki Murakami
Translated by Jay Rubin
Engage Your Brain

Fair Warning
If you saw a friend about to make a
connecting with the story you’re about to read.
big mistake, how far would you go
to stop the person? Would you risk
embarrassment or injury? Write a
Presidential Proverb social media post about what you
In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt consider to be the limits of friendship.
told the American people, “The only thing
we have to fear is fear itself.” What do you
think Roosevelt meant by that? Do you
agree or disagree? Why? Discuss your
thoughts with a partner. What a Disaster!
If you’ve ever seen a news report on a tornado,
hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami, you have a
sense of how devastating these events can be.
Use the space provided to sketch the effects of a
natural disaster on a community.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Ewing Galloway/Alamy
The Seventh Man 543

Get Ready A
Analyze Symbol and Theme

A symbol is a person, place, object, or activity that stands for
something beyond itself. Our culture has established common Focus on Genre
symbols, such as doves (peace), red roses (love), and flags Short Story
(countries). Writers can use these symbols to make connections • centers around characters,
among ideas without stating them explicitly. Recurring symbols conflict, and plot development
in a text make up a pattern called a motif. Symbols and motifs • usually focuses on one or very
help develop a text’s theme, the underlying message about life or few settings, moments in time,
and characters
human nature that the writer wants to communicate.
• can usually be read in one
As you read “The Seventh Man,” look for symbols and motifs like the sitting
ones shown in the chart. Write what each might represent.
Symbol or Motif What It Might Represent
wave/sea
typhoon
K.’s paintings
Analyze Plot
Stories are often told in chronological, or linear, order, meaning that the
narrator tells plot events in the order in which the characters experience
them. Within a linear plot, an author can depart from the main timeline
for effect. For example, a flashback interrupts the chronological flow of
a story with an account of a prior event relevant to the present action.
“The Seventh Man” is structured as a frame story, in which a present-
day narrator relates the main story, which happens in the past, and then
returns to the present day. Mapping plot events sequentially in a graphic
organizer will help you keep track of the actual order of events in a story.
Event 1 Event 2 Event 3 Event 4
As you read, think about how each plot event affects the plot as a whole.

A Get Ready
Here are one reader’s notes on the use of a symbol in the story.
As you read, mark details that are repeated or emphasized.
“A huge wave nearly swept me away,” said the seventh man,

almost whispering.
“It happened one September afternoon when I was ten years
old.”
The man was the last one to tell his story that night. The hands
of the clock had moved past ten. The small group that huddled in
a circle could hear the wind tearing through the darkness outside, wind = powerful
heading west. It shook the trees, set the windows to rattling, and natural force
moved past the house with one final whistle. that passes by

frail premonition Turn to a partner and talk about the vocabulary

words you already know. Then, write a short
entranced permeate poem or a few sentences describing a natural
disaster, using as many of the vocabulary words as
delirium sentiment
you can. As you read “The Seventh Man,” use the
sociable reconciliation
definitions in the side column to help you learn
the vocabulary words you don’t already know.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Michael Cizek/Getty Images
Background
As a boy, Haruki Murakami (b. 1949) preferred reading
American paperbacks to studying traditional Japanese
literature. He went on to become a novelist and short-
story writer known for his unique and whimsical works
that break away from typical Japanese forms. Murakami
combines mystery, comedy, and fantasy in his work while
keeping his messages practical, profound, and believable.
The Seventh Man 545

A
NOTICE & NOTE
As you read, use the

The Seventh Man
Short Story by Haruki Murakami
side margins to make
notes about the text. Translated by Jay Rubin
A wise man shares what he has learned through dealing

with the trauma of a natural disaster.
2
A huge wave nearly swept me away,” said the seventh man, almost
whispering.
“It happened one September afternoon when I was ten years old.”
3 The man was the last one to tell his story that night. The hands
of the clock had moved past ten. The small group that huddled in
a circle could hear the wind tearing through the darkness outside,
heading west. It shook the trees, set the windows to rattling, and
moved past the house with one final whistle. © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: © Corbis
4 “It was the biggest wave I had ever seen in my life,” he said. “A
strange wave. An absolute giant.”
5 He paused.
6 “It just barely missed me, but in my place it swallowed everything
that mattered most to me and swept it off to another world. I took
years to find it again to recover from the experience—precious years
that can never be replaced.”
7 The seventh man appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He was a thin
man, tall, with a moustache, and next to his right eye he had a short
but deep-looking scar that could have been made by the stab of a
small blade. Stiff, bristly patches of white marked his short hair. His
face had the look you see on people when they can’t quite find the
words they need. In his case, though, the expression seemed to have
been there from long before, as though it were part of him. The man

wore a simple blue shirt under a grey tweed coat, and every now and Don’t forget to
then he would bring his hand to his collar. None of those assembled Notice & Note as you
read the text.
there knew his name or what he did for a living.
8 He cleared his throat, and for a moment or two his words were
lost in silence. The others waited for him to go on.
ANALYZE PLOT
9 “In my case, it was a wave,” he said. “There’s no way for me to
tell, of course, what it will be for each of you. But in my case it just Annotate: Mark details in
happened to take the form of a gigantic wave. It presented itself to me paragraphs 8–10 that indicate
“The Seventh Man” is a frame story
all of a sudden one day, without warning. And it was devastating.”
(a story within a story).
10 I grew up in a seaside town in the Province of S. It was such a
small town, I doubt that any of you would recognize the name if Analyze: Why do you think
the author structures his tale
I were to mention it. My father was the local doctor, and so I led
this way?
a rather comfortable childhood. Ever since I could remember, my
best friend was a boy I’ll call K. His house was close to ours, and he
was a grade behind me in school. We were like brothers, walking
to and from school together, and always playing together when we
got home. We never once fought during our long friendship. I did
have a brother, six years older, but what with the age difference and
differences in our personalities, we were never very close. My real
brotherly affection went to my friend K.
11 K. was a frail, skinny little thing, with a pale complexion and a frail
face almost pretty enough to be a girl’s. He had some kind of speech (fr∑l) adj. physically weak.
impediment,1 though, which might have made him seem retarded to
anyone who didn’t know him. And because he was so frail, I always
played his protector, whether at school or at home. I was kind of big
and athletic, and the other kids all looked up to me. But the main
reason I enjoyed spending time with K. was that he was such a sweet,
pure-hearted boy. He was not the least bit retarded, but because of
his impediment, he didn’t do too well at school. In most subjects, he
could barely keep up. In art class, though, he was great. Just give him
a pencil or paints and he would make pictures that were so full of life
that even the teacher was amazed. He won prizes in one contest after
another, and I’m sure he would have become a famous painter if he
had continued with his art into adulthood. He liked to do seascapes.
He’d go out to the shore for hours, painting. I would often sit beside
him, watching the swift, precise movements of his brush, wondering
how, in a few seconds, he could possibly create such lively shapes and
colors where, until then, there had been only blank white paper. I
realize now that it was a matter of pure talent.

12 One year, in September, a huge typhoon2 hit our area. The radio
said it was going to be the worst in ten years. The schools were closed,
and all the shops in town lowered their shutters in preparation for
the storm. Starting early in the morning, my father and brother went
around the house nailing shut all the storm doors, while my mother
spent the day in the kitchen cooking emergency provisions. We filled
1
impediment (Δm-p≈d´∂-m∂nt): an obstacle.
2
typhoon (tπ-f¬n´): a tropical storm forming in the Pacific or Indian Ocean, consisting of
violent winds and rain.
The Seventh Man 547

bottles and canteens with water, and packed our most important
possessions in rucksacks for possible evacuation. To the adults,
typhoons were an annoyance and a threat they had to face almost
annually, but to the kids, removed as we were from such practical
concerns, it was just a great big circus, a wonderful source
of excitement.
ANALYZE SYMBOL AND 13 Just after noon the color of the sky began to change all of a
THEME sudden. There was something strange and unreal about it. I stayed
Annotate: In paragraphs 13–15, outside on the porch, watching the sky, until the wind began to
mark where the weather changes howl and the rain began to beat against the house with a weird dry
drastically. sound, like handfuls of sand. Then we closed the last storm door
Analyze: How does the contrast and gathered together in one room of the darkened house, listening
in the descriptions of the weather to the radio. This particular storm did not have a great deal of rain,
change the mood of the story? it said, but the winds were doing a lot of damage, blowing roofs off
houses and capsizing 3 ships. Many people had been killed or injured
by flying debris. Over and over again, they warned people against
leaving their homes. Every once in a while, the house would creak
and shudder as if a huge hand were shaking it, and sometimes there
would be a great crash of some heavy-sounding object against a
storm door. My father guessed that these were tiles blowing off the
neighbors’ houses. For lunch we ate the rice and omelettes my mother
had cooked, waiting for the typhoon to blow past.
14 But the typhoon gave no sign of blowing past. The radio said it
had lost momentum almost as soon as it came ashore at S. Province,
and now it was moving north-east at the pace of a slow runner. The
wind kept up its savage howling as it tried to uproot everything that
stood on land.
15 Perhaps an hour had gone by with the wind at its worst like this
when a hush fell over everything. All of a sudden it was so quiet, we
could hear a bird crying in the distance. My father opened the storm
door a crack and looked outside. The wind had stopped, and the
rain had ceased to fall. Thick, grey clouds edged across the sky, and
patches of blue showed here and there. The trees in the yard were still
dripping their heavy burden of rainwater.
16 “We’re in the eye of the storm,” my father told me. “It’ll stay quiet
like this for a while, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, kind of like an
intermission. Then the wind’ll come back the way it was before.”
17 I asked him if I could go outside. He said I could walk around a
little if I didn’t go far. “But I want you to come right back here at the
first sign of wind.”
18 I went out and started to explore. It was hard to believe that
a wild storm had been blowing there until a few minutes before.
I looked up at the sky. The storm’s great “eye” seemed to be up there,
fixing its cold stare on all of us below. No such “eye” existed, of
course: we were just in that momentary quiet spot at the center of the
pool of whirling air.
3
capsizing (k√p´sπ-zΔng): flipping upside down in water.

19 While the grown-ups checked for damage to the house, I went Don’t forget to
down to the beach. The road was littered with broken tree branches, Notice & Note as you
read the text.
some of them thick pine boughs that would have been too heavy for
an adult to lift alone. There were shattered roof tiles everywhere, cars
with cracked windshields, and even a doghouse that had tumbled into
the middle of the street. A big hand might have swung down from the
sky and flattened everything in its path.
20 K. saw me walking down the road and came outside.
21 “Where are you going?” he asked.
22 “Just down to look at the beach,” I said.
23 Without a word, he came along with me. He had a little white dog
that followed after us.
24 “The minute we get any wind, though, we’re going straight back
home,” I said, and K. gave me a silent nod.
25 The shore was a 200-yard walk from my house. It was lined with ANALYZE PLOT
a concrete breakwater—a big dyke that stood as high as I was tall in Annotate: Mark details in
those days. We had to climb a short flight of steps to reach the water’s paragraphs 25 and 26 that seem
edge. This was where we came to play almost every day, so there was to foreshadow future plot events.
no part of it we didn’t know well. In the eye of the typhoon, though, Evaluate: How does
it all looked different: the color of the sky and of the sea, the sound of foreshadowing affect the mood of
the waves, the smell of the tide, the whole expanse of the shore. We this part of the story?
sat atop the breakwater for a time, taking in the view without a word
to each other. We were supposedly in the middle of a great typhoon,
and yet the waves were strangely hushed. And the point where they
washed against the beach was much farther away than usual, even at
low tide. The white sand stretched out before us as far as we could
see. The whole, huge space felt like a room without furniture, except
for the band of flotsam4 that lined the beach.
26 We stepped down to the other side of the breakwater and walked
along the broad beach, examining the things that had come to rest
there. Plastic toys, sandals, chunks of wood that had probably once
been parts of furniture, pieces of clothing, unusual bottles, broken
crates with foreign writing on them, and other, less recognizable
items: it was like a big candy store. The storm must have carried
these things from very far away. Whenever something unusual
caught our attention, we would pick it up and look at it every which
way, and when we were done, K.’s dog would come over and give it a
good sniff.
27 We couldn’t have been doing this more than five minutes when
I realized that the waves had come up right next to me. Without any
sound or other warning, the sea had suddenly stretched its long,
smooth tongue out to where I stood on the beach. I had never seen
anything like it before. Child though I was, I had grown up on the
shore and knew how frightening the ocean could be—the savagery
with which it could strike unannounced.
4
flotsam (fl≤t´s∂m): pieces of floating debris.
The Seventh Man 549

ANALYZE SYMBOL AND 28 And so I had taken care to keep well back from the waterline. In
THEME spite of that, the waves had slid up to within inches of where I stood.
Annotate: Mark details that And then, just as soundlessly, the water drew back—and stayed back.
suggest what the waves and The waves that had approached me were as unthreatening as waves
ocean symbolize in paragraphs can be—a gentle washing of the sandy beach. But something ominous
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27 and 28.
about them—something like the touch of a reptile’s skin—had sent
Analyze: What message a chill down my spine. My fear was totally groundless—and totally
about nature is the author real. I knew instinctively that they were alive. They knew I was here
communicating through this use
and they were planning to grab me. I felt as if some huge, man-
of symbolism?
eating beast were lying somewhere on a grassy plain, dreaming of the
moment it would pounce and tear me to pieces with its sharp teeth. I
had to run away.
29 “I’m getting out of here!” I yelled to K. He was maybe ten yards
down the beach, squatting with his back to me, and looking at
something. I was sure I had yelled loud enough, but my voice did
not seem to have reached him. He might have been so absorbed in
whatever it was he had found that my call made no impression on
him. K. was like that. He would get involved with things to the point
of forgetting everything else. Or possibly I had not yelled as loudly
as I had thought. I do recall that my voice sounded strange to me, as
though it belonged to someone else.
30 Then I heard a deep rumbling sound. It seemed to shake the
earth. Actually, before I heard the rumble I heard another sound,
a weird gurgling as though a lot of water was surging up through a
hole in the ground. It continued for a while, then stopped, after which
I heard the strange rumbling. Even that was not enough to make K.

Don’t forget to
Notice & Note as you
read the text.
look up. He was still squatting, looking down at something at his feet,
in deep concentration. He probably did not hear the rumbling. How
he could have missed such an earth-shaking sound, I don’t know.
This may seem odd, but it might have been a sound that only I could
hear—some special kind of sound. Not even K.’s dog seemed to notice
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it, and you know how sensitive dogs are to sound.

31 I told myself to run over to K., grab hold of him, and get out of
there. It was the only thing to do. I knew that the wave was coming,
and K. didn’t know. As clearly as I knew what I ought to be doing,
I found myself running the other way—running full speed toward
the dyke, alone. What made me do this, I’m sure, was fear, a fear
so overpowering it took my voice away and set my legs to running
on their own. I ran stumbling along the soft sand beach to the
breakwater, where I turned and shouted to K.
32 “Hurry, K.! Get out of there! The wave is coming!” This time VOCABULARY
my voice worked fine. The rumbling had stopped, I realized, and Figurative Language: Mark all
now, finally, K. heard my shouting and looked up. But it was too of the comparisons in paragraphs
late. A wave like a huge snake with its head held high, poised to 32–33 that help you understand
strike, was racing towards the shore. I had never seen anything what the narrator is experiencing.
like it in my life. It had to be as tall as a three-story building. Analyze: What is the effect of
Soundlessly (in my memory, at least, the image is soundless), it rose these comparisons on the mood
up behind K. to block out the sky. K. looked at me for a few seconds, of the story?
uncomprehending. Then, as if sensing something, he turned towards
the wave. He tried to run, but now there was no time to run. In the
next instant, the wave had swallowed him.
The Seventh Man 551

33 The wave crashed on to the beach, shattering into a million
leaping waves that flew through the air and plunged over the dyke
where I stood. I was able to dodge its impact by ducking behind the
breakwater. The spray wet my clothes, nothing more. I scrambled
back up on to the wall and scanned the shore. By then the wave had
turned and, with a wild cry, it was rushing back out to sea. It looked
like part of a gigantic rug that had been yanked by someone at the
other end of the earth. Nowhere on the shore could I find any trace of
K., or of his dog. There was only the empty beach. The receding wave
had now pulled so much water out from the shore that it seemed to
expose the entire ocean bottom. I stood along on the breakwater,
frozen in place.
34 The silence came over everything again—a desperate silence, as
though sound itself had been ripped from the earth. The wave had
swallowed K. and disappeared into the far distance. I stood there,
wondering what to do. Should I go down to the beach? K. might be
down there somewhere, buried in the sand . . . But I decided not to
leave the dyke. I knew from experience that big waves often came in
twos and threes.
35 I’m not sure how much time went by—maybe ten or twenty
seconds of eerie emptiness—when, just as I had guessed, the next
wave came. Another gigantic roar shook the beach, and again, after
the sound had faded, another huge wave raised its head to strike.
It towered before me, blocking out the sky, like a deadly cliff. This
entranced time, though, I didn’t run. I stood rooted to the sea wall, entranced,
(≈n-tr√nsd´) adj. filled with wonder. waiting for it to attack. What good would it do to run, I thought, now
that K. had been taken? Or perhaps I simply froze, overcome with
fear. I can’t be sure what it was that kept me standing there.
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36 The second wave was just as big as the first—maybe even bigger. Don’t forget to
From far above my head it began to fall, losing its shape, like a brick Notice & Note as you
read the text.
wall slowly crumbling. It was so huge that it no longer looked like
a real wave. It was like something from another, far-off world, that
just happened to assume the shape of a wave. I readied myself for the
ANALYZE SYMBOL AND
moment the darkness would take me. I didn’t even close my eyes. I
THEME
remember hearing my heart pound with incredible clarity.
37 The moment the wave came before me, however, it stopped. All Annotate: In paragraphs
36–38, mark ways in which
at once it seemed to run out of energy, to lose its forward motion and
the description of the second
simply hover there, in space, crumbling in stillness. And in its crest, huge wave differs from previous
inside its cruel, transparent tongue, what I saw was K. descriptions of waves in the story.
38 Some of you may find this impossible to believe, and if so, I
Synthesize: How does this
don’t blame you. I myself have trouble accepting it even now. I can’t description of the second huge
explain what I saw any better than you can, but I know it was no wave elaborate on the story’s
illusion, no hallucination. I am telling you as honestly as I can what motif of waves?
happened at that moment—what really happened. In the tip of the
wave, as if enclosed in some kind of transparent capsule, floated K.’s
body, reclining on its side. But that is not all. K. was looking straight
at me, smiling. There, right in front of me, so close that I could have
reached out and touched him, was my friend, my friend K. who,
only moments before, had been swallowed by the wave. And he was
smiling at me. Not with an ordinary smile—it was a big, wide-open
grin that literally stretched from ear to ear. His cold, frozen eyes were
locked on mine. He was no longer the K. I knew. And his right arm
was stretched out in my direction, as if he were trying to grab my
hand and pull me into that other world where he was now. A little
closer, and his hand would have caught mine. But, having missed, K.
then smiled at me one more time, his grin wider than ever.
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The Seventh Man 553

39 I seem to have lost consciousness at that point. The next thing
I knew, I was in bed in my father’s clinic. As soon as I awoke the
nurse went to call my father, who came running. He took my pulse,
studied my pupils, and put his hand on my forehead. I tried to move
my arm, but couldn’t lift it. I was burning with fever, and my mind
was clouded. I had been wrestling with a high fever for some time,
apparently. “You’ve been asleep for three days,” my father said to me.
A neighbor who had seen the whole thing had picked me up and
carried me home. They had not been able to find K. I wanted to say
something to my father. I had to say something to him. But my numb
and swollen tongue could not form words. I felt as if some kind of
creature had taken up residence in my mouth. My father asked me
to tell him my name, but before I could remember what it was, I lost
consciousness again, sinking into darkness.
40 Altogether, I stayed in bed for a week on a liquid diet. I vomited
delirium several times, and had bouts of delirium. My father told me
(d∆-lîr´∏-∂m) n. a state of mental afterwards that I was so bad that he had been afraid that I might
confusion. suffer permanent neurological5 damage from the shock and high
fever. One way or another, though, I managed to recover—physically,
at least. But my life would never be the same again.
41 They never found K.’s body. They never found his dog, either.
Usually when someone drowned in that area, the body would wash
up a few days later on the shore of a small inlet to the east. K.’s body
never did. The big waves probably carried it far out to sea—too far
for it to reach the shore. It must have sunk to the ocean bottom to be
eaten by the fish. The search went on for a very long time, thanks to
the cooperation of the local fishermen, but eventually it petered out.6
Without a body, there was never any funeral. Half crazed, K.’s parents
would wander up and down the beach every day, or they would shut
themselves up at home, chanting sutras.7
42 As great a blow as this had been for them, though, K.’s parents
never chided me for having taken their son down to the shore in the
midst of a typhoon. They knew how I had always loved and protected
K. as if he had been my own little brother. My parents, too, made a
point of never mentioning the incident in my presence. But I knew
the truth. I knew that I could have saved K. if I had tried. I probably
could have run over and dragged him out of the reach of the wave. It
would have been close, but as I went over the timing of the events in
my memory, it always seemed to me that I could have made it. As I

said before, though, overcome with fear, I abandoned him there and
saved only myself. It pained me all the more that K.’s parents failed to
blame me and that everyone else was so careful never to say anything
to me about what had happened. It took me a long time to recover
from the emotional shock. I stayed away from school for weeks. I
hardly ate a thing, and spent each day in bed, staring at the ceiling.
5
neurological (n¬r-∂-l≤j´ Δ-k∂l): having to do with the body’s nervous system.
6
petered out: gradually came to an end.
7
sutras (s¬´tr∂s): short Buddhist texts.

43 K. was always there, lying in the wave tip, grinning at me, his Don’t forget to
hand outstretched, beckoning. I couldn’t get that picture out of my Notice & Note as you
read the text.
mind. And when I managed to sleep, it was there in my dreams—
except that, in my dreams, K. would hop out of his capsule in the
wave and grab my wrist to drag me back inside with him.
44 And then there was another dream I had. I’m swimming in the ANALYZE SYMBOL AND
THEME
ocean. It’s a beautiful summer afternoon, and I’m doing an easy
breaststroke far from shore. The sun is beating down on my back, and Annotate: In paragraph 44, mark
the water feels good. Then, all of a sudden, someone grabs my right phrases from the narrator’s dream
that seem to contain symbols.
leg. I feel an ice-cold grip on my ankle. It’s strong, too strong to shake
off. I’m being dragged down under the surface. I see K.’s face there. Interpret: How would you
He has the same huge grin, split from ear to ear, his eyes locked on interpret the symbolism in the
narrator’s dream?
mine. I try to scream, but my voice will not come. I swallow water,
and my lungs start to fill.
45 I wake up in the darkness, screaming, breathless, drenched in sweat.
46 At the end of the year I pleaded with my parents to let me move
to another town. I couldn’t go on living in sight of the beach where
K. had been swept away, and my nightmares wouldn’t stop. If I didn’t
get out of there, I’d go crazy. My parents understood and made
arrangements for me to live elsewhere. I moved to Nagano Province
in January to live with my father’s family in a mountain village near
Komoro. I finished elementary school in Nagano and stayed on
through junior and senior high school there. I never went home, even
for holidays. My parents came to visit me now and then.
47 I live in Nagano to this day. I graduated from a college of
engineering in the City of Nagano and went to work for a precision
toolmaker in the area. I still work for them. I live like anybody else.
As you can see, there’s nothing unusual about me. I’m not very
sociable, but I have a few friends I go mountain climbing with. Once sociable
I got away from my hometown, I stopped having nightmares all the (s∫´sh∂-b∂l) adj. able to enjoy the
time. They remained a part of my life, though. They would come to company of others.
me now and then, like debt collectors at the door. It happened when
I was on the verge of forgetting. And it was always the same dream,
down to the smallest detail. I would wake up screaming, my sheets
soaked with sweat.
48 That is probably why I never married. I didn’t want to wake
someone sleeping next to me with my screams in the middle of the
night. I’ve been in love with several women over the years, but I never
spent a night with any of them. The terror was in my bones. It was
something I could never share with another person.
49 I stayed away from my hometown for over forty years. I never
went near that seashore—or any other. I was afraid that if I did, my
dream might happen in reality. I had always enjoyed swimming, but
after that day I never even went to swim in a pool. I wouldn’t go near
deep rivers or lakes. I avoided boats and wouldn’t take a plane to go
abroad. Despite all these precautions, I couldn’t get rid of the image of
myself drowning. Like K.’s cold hand, this dark premonition caught premonition
(pr≈m-∂-n∆sh´∂n) n. an unproven
hold of my mind and refused to let go.
feeling that something specific
will happen.
The Seventh Man 555

50 Then, last spring, I finally revisited the beach where K. had been
taken by the wave.
51 My father had died of cancer the year before, and my brother
had sold the old house. In going through the storage shed, he had
found a cardboard carton crammed with childhood things of mine,
which he sent to me in Nagano. Most of it was useless junk, but there
was one bundle of pictures that K. had painted and given to me. My
parents had probably put them away for me as a keepsake of K., but
the pictures did nothing but reawaken the old terror. They made
me feel as if K.’s spirit would spring back to life from them, and so I
quickly returned them to their paper wrapping, intending to throw
them away. I couldn’t make myself do it, though. After several days
of indecision, I opened the bundle again and forced myself to take a
long, hard look at K.’s watercolors.
52 Most of them were landscapes, pictures of the familiar stretch of
ocean and sand beach and pine woods and the town, and all done
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GmbH/Alamy

with that special clarity and coloration I knew so well from K.’s hand. ANALYZE SYMBOL AND
They were still amazingly vivid despite the years, and had been THEME
executed with even greater skill than I recalled. As I leafed through Annotate: Mark details in
the bundle, I found myself steeped in warm memories. The deep paragraphs 52 and 53 that show
feelings of the boy K. were there in his pictures—the way his eyes the narrator’s emotional response
to K.’s paintings.
were opened on the world. The things we did together, the places we
went together began to come back to me with great intensity. And Analyze: What might the
I realized that his eyes were my eyes, that I myself had looked upon paintings symbolize to the
narrator?
the world back then with the same lively, unclouded vision as the boy
who had walked by my side.
53 I made a habit after that of studying one of K.’s pictures at my
desk each day when I got home from work. I could sit there for hours
with one painting. In each I found another of those soft landscapes
of childhood that I had shut out of my memory for so long. I had a
sense, whenever I looked at one of K.’s works, that something was
permeating my very flesh. permeate
(pûr´m∏-∑t) v. to spread through
an area.
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GmbH/Alamy
The Seventh Man 557

54 Perhaps a week had gone by like this when the thought suddenly
struck me one evening: I might have been making a terrible mistake
all those years. As he lay there in the tip of the wave, surely K. had
not been looking at me with hatred or resentment; he had not been
trying to take me away with him. And that terrible grin he had fixed
me with: that, too, could have been an accident of angle or light and
shadow, not a conscious act on K.’s part. He had probably already
lost consciousness, or perhaps he had been giving me a gentle smile
of eternal parting. The intense look of hatred I thought I saw on his
face had been nothing but a reflection of the profound terror that had
taken control of me for the moment.
55 The more I studied K.’s watercolor that evening, the greater the
conviction with which I began to believe these new thoughts of mine.
For no matter how long I continued to look at the picture, I could
find nothing in it but a boy’s gentle, innocent spirit.
56 I went on sitting at my desk for a very long time. There was
nothing else I could do. The sun went down, and the pale darkness
of evening began to envelop the room. Then came the deep silence of
night, which seemed to go on forever. At last, the scales tipped, and
dark gave way to dawn. The new day’s sun tinged the sky with pink.
57 It was then I knew I must go back.
58 I threw a few things in a bag, called the company to say I would
not be in, and boarded a train for my old hometown.
59 I did not find the same quiet, little seaside town that I
remembered. An industrial city had sprung up nearby during the
rapid development of the Sixties, bringing great changes to the
landscape. The one little gift shop by the station had grown into
a mall, and the town’s only movie theater had been turned into a
supermarket. My house was no longer there. It had been demolished
some months before, leaving only a scrape on the earth. The trees in
the yard had all been cut down, and patches of weeds dotted the black
stretch of ground. K.’s old house had disappeared as well, having been
replaced by a concrete parking lot full of commuters’ cars and vans.
sentiment Not that I was overcome by sentiment. The town had ceased to be
(s≈n´t∂-m∂nt) n. the emotion mine long before.
behind something. 60 I walked down to the shore and climbed the steps of the
breakwater. On the other side, as always, the ocean stretched off into
the distance, unobstructed, huge, the horizon a single straight line.
The shoreline, too, looked the same as it had before: the long beach,
the lapping waves, people strolling at the water’s edge. The time

was after four o’clock, and the soft sun of late afternoon embraced Don’t forget to
everything below as it began its long, almost meditative descent to Notice & Note as you
read the text.
the west. I lowered my bag to the sand and sat down next to it in
silent appreciation of the gentle seascape. Looking at this scene, it was
impossible to imagine that a great typhoon had once raged here, that
a massive wave had swallowed my best friend in all the world. There
was almost no one left now, surely, who remembered those terrible
events. It began to seem as if the whole thing were an illusion that I
had dreamed up in vivid detail.
61 And then I realized that the deep darkness inside me had
vanished. Suddenly. As suddenly as it had come. I raised myself from
the sand, and, without bothering to take off my shoes or roll up my
cuffs, walked into the surf and let the waves lap at my ankles.
62 Almost in reconciliation, it seemed, the same waves that had reconciliation
washed up on the beach when I was a boy were now fondly washing (r≈k-∂n-s∆l-∏-∑´sh∂n) n. the act of
coming to an agreement.
my feet, soaking black my shoes and pant cuffs. There would be one
slow-moving wave, then a long pause, and then another wave would
come and go. The people passing by gave me odd looks, but I didn’t
care.
63 I looked up at the sky. A few grey cotton chunks of cloud hung
there, motionless. They seemed to be there for me, though I’m not
sure why I felt that way. I remembered having looked up at the sky
like this in search of the “eye” of the typhoon. And then, inside me,
the axis8 of time gave one great heave. Forty long years collapsed like a
dilapidated house, mixing old time and new time together in a single
swirling mass. All sounds faded, and the light around me shuddered. I
lost my balance and fell into the waves. My heart throbbed at the back
of my throat, and my arms and legs lost all sensation. I lay that way
for a long time, face in the water, unable to stand. But I was not afraid.
No, not at all. There was no longer anything for me to fear. Those days
were gone.
64 I stopped having my terrible nightmares. I no longer wake up ANALYZE PLOT
screaming in the middle of the night. And I am trying now to start life Annotate: Mark the shift back
over again. No, I know it’s probably too late to start again. I may not to the present day that occurs in
have much time left to live. But even if it comes too late, I am grateful paragraph 64.
that, in the end, I was able to attain a kind of salvation, to effect some Interpret: How does returning
sort of recovery. Yes, grateful: I could have come to the end of my life to the present add meaning to
unsaved, still screaming in the dark, afraid. the man’s story? Complete a plot
diagram or timeline of the story’s

events.
8
axis (√k´sΔs): a line around which other things rotate.
The Seventh Man 559

NOTICE & NOTE 65 The seventh man fell silent and turned his gaze upon each of the
WORDS OF THE WISER others. No one spoke or moved or even seemed to breathe. All were
When you notice a wiser character waiting for the rest of his story. Outside, the wind had fallen, and
giving advice about life, you’ve
nothing stirred. The seventh man brought his hand to his collar once
found a Words of the Wiser
signpost.
again, as if in search for words.
66 “They tell us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself; but
Notice & Note: Mark the advice
I don’t believe that,” he said. Then, a moment later, he added: “Oh,
the narrator gives his listeners in
paragraph 66.
the fear is there, all right. It comes to us in many different forms, at
different times, and overwhelms us. But the most frightening thing
Infer: How does this advice relate
we can do at such times is to turn our backs on it, to close our eyes.
to a theme of the story?
For then we take the most precious thing inside us and surrender it to
something else. In my case, that something was the wave.”

What effect do we have Do you agree with the narrator that fear must be faced, not
avoided? Why or why not? Does your choice depend on the
nature affect us?
situation? Share your thoughts with a partner.

Response Log.

Assessment Practice
1. What has troubled the narrator for most of his life?
A He is unable to find his lost friend’s artwork.
B He feels guilty about not saving his friend from the wave.
C He worries that he will never marry because of his nightmares.
D He is sad at having missed out on a strong relationship with his parents.
Part A
What advice does the narrator give his listeners?
A Don’t let fear control your life.
B Do everything you can to help your friends.
C Heed warnings about dangerous natural conditions.
D Follow your dreams, even if they lead you far from home.
Part B
Select the quotation that best supports the answer to Part A.
A “And because he was so frail, I always played his protector, whether at school
or at home.” (paragraph 11)
B “He said I could walk around a little if I didn’t go far. ‘But I want you to come
right back here at the first sign of wind.’ ” (paragraph 17)
C “I live in Nagano to this day. I graduated from a college of engineering in

the City of Nagano and went to work for a precision toolmaker in the area.”
(paragraph 47)
D “ ‘Oh, the fear is there. . . . But the most frightening thing we can do at such
times is to turn our backs on it. . . .’ ” (paragraph 66)
The Seventh Man 561

Respond A
Analyze the Text

NOTICE & NOTE
1 EVALUATE Complete the graphic organizer. Why is the frame story an effective Review what
way to tell this story? What effect would using a strictly chronological order of you noticed and
events have on the story’s impact? noted as you read
the text. Your
annotations can
Event 1 Event 2 Event 3 Event 4 help you answer
these questions.
2 ANALYZE What are some ways in which the author personifies forces of nature, such as
the storm and the wave? What effect does this personification have on the story’s mood?
3 INTERPRET In paragraph 9, the narrator says, “In my case, it was a wave. . . . There’s no
way for me to tell, of course, what it will be for each of you.” What does he mean by this?
4 INFER What might the huge wave symbolize? Support your response with evidence
from the story and your own experience.
5 ANALYZE In the last paragraph, the narrator says he disagrees with the saying that “the
only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” How does the author develop this message about
fear?
6 PREDICT Think about the advice the narrator shares with his listeners. If someone had
told him these Words of the Wiser when he was younger, how do you think he would
have responded? Why?

A Respond
Choices
Writing
Research Report
Typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes are all the same kind be sure to use the
of storm. Think of some questions you have about these Academic Vocabulary
powerful storms—for example, historically significant storms, words.
the damage these storms can cause, how people can prepare advocate
for them, or how people rebuild in the storm’s aftermath.
Choose the question you find most interesting, and locate a discrete
few authoritative sources that can provide answers. Use the
domain
information you find to write a report in which you
• clearly introduce your topic or research question enhance
• organize the information you have found in a logical

sequence, using transitions to link key ideas
evoke
• cite your sources of information using the method your

teacher prefers
• conclude by reflecting on what you have learned through

research
Social & Emotional Learning

Advice Podcast
The narrator describes often waking up
screaming in response to his childhood loss
and avoiding situations that remind him of
the event. What are some better ways that he
Media could deal with this traumatic experience? With
Video Scrapbook a small group, do some research into methods
of stress management and self-motivation that

In the story, K.’s artwork provides the narrator might help someone move beyond a difficult
with a powerful reflection of who K. is as a event. Share what you learn in a short podcast
person. Think of either a person you miss or a that provides useful advice.
person you consider a good friend. Compile a
short video sequence that represents who this
person is and what you think is important about
him or her. Include a voiceover or onscreen text
to explain how the images relate to the person
you choose.
The Seventh Man 563

Respond A

PRACTICE AND APPLY
Answer each question using the boldfaced vocabulary word in a sentence.
1. How could you help a frail person at the grocery store?
2. What is one scene that has entranced you?
3. During what situations do you feel the most sociable?
4. What kind of event might cause a strong sentiment?
5. How could you help two friends reach a reconciliation?
6. What signs would tell you that a person was experiencing delirium?
7. How might a premonition affect someone’s plans?
8. How could you change a room to make light permeate it?
Vocabulary Strategy
Figurative Language
A writer’s use of figurative language, or imaginative comparisons, can be
subtle. To catch the full impact of figurative language in a text
• watch for clue words, such as like or as, and striking comparisons
• note what two things or ideas are being compared
• identify what they have in common to understand the writer’s point
PRACTICE AND APPLY

With a partner, analyze these examples of figurative language in the story.
• . . . to the kids, . . . it was just a great big circus . . . (paragraph 12)

• The whole, huge space felt like a room without furniture . . . (paragraph 25)
• And in its crest, inside its cruel, transparent tongue, what I saw was K. (paragraph 37)
1. Is the figurative language an example of simile, metaphor, or

personification? Picture the two things being compared. Determine their
similar and different qualities.
2. Discuss the effect of the comparison. Does it help you to visualize a scene
or idea?
3. Find and discuss three other examples of figurative language in the story.

A Respond

Complex Sentences
Interactive Grammar
A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb. A complex sentence Lesson: Sentence Structure
combines an independent clause, which can stand by itself as a sentence,
with one or more dependent clauses, which cannot. Dependent clauses
add meaning to independent clauses by acting as modifiers. Dependent
clauses often begin with words or phrases called subordinating conjunctions,
such as as if, as, since, than, that, though, until, whenever, where, while, because,
who, and why. Subordinating conjunctions clarify the connection between
clauses. A comma follows a dependent clause when it begins the sentence.
Look at these examples of complex sentences from “The Seventh Man.” The
dependent clauses (double underlined) add information to the independent
clauses (single underlined):
Whenever something unusual caught our attention, we would

pick it up and look at it every which way. . . . (paragraph 26)
I did not find the same quiet, little seaside town that I
remembered. (paragraph 59)
Reread paragraph 13 of “The Seventh Man.” Notice how the author uses
a variety of sentences. There are short, simple sentences such as “There
was something strange and unreal about it.” The sentence right after that
example—“I stayed outside on the porch . . .”—is a complex sentence with
multiple clauses. Sentence variety enhances the rhythm of a story’s language
and adds interest for the reader.
PRACTICE AND APPLY

Choose a paragraph from “The Seventh Man.” How do the sentences
vary? Are there simple, complex, and compound sentences within it? Try
rewriting several of the sentences, keeping the meaning of the text but
changing the structure of the sentences.
The Seventh Man 565

Get Ready B
Carry
Poem by Linda Hogan
Engage Your Brain

Surprise!
connecting with the poem you’re about to read. Can you recall a time when you were doing
something ordinary or routine and something
really unexpected happened? Use the space
provided to sketch or make notes about what
Water World happened and why it was so surprising.
Water is so basic and essential to us that
we often don’t even think about it. What
qualities does water have? What forms
can it take? When is it weak and when is
it strong? Write a paragraph discussing
everything you know about water.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Six Dun/Shutterstock
Nature Reflection
Whether you live in a city, a rural area, or the suburbs,
you have opportunities to observe the natural world.
Moments when you consider the night sky, a body of
water, or windblown leaves might trigger thoughts
about your place in the world. Talk with a partner
about a time when you observed an aspect of the
natural world. Describe what you noticed and what it
made you think about.

B Get Ready
Analyze Symbol and Theme

The theme of a work is the message about life that the writer wants
to communicate. Because readers make inferences in order to Focus on Genre
determine a theme, a text may reveal different meanings to different Poetry
readers. Your interpretation of theme will be valid if you base it • uses figurative language or
closely on evidence from the text. symbolism
To determine a theme in “Carry,” look for clues in the poem’s images

• includes poetic elements, such
as rhythm and rhyme
and descriptive details, and think about the writer’s use of symbols.
• may or may not be structured
A symbol is a person, place, object, or activity that stands for in stanzas
something beyond itself. • includes imagery that appeals
to the senses
As you read “Carry,” pay attention to how the writer uses details to
shape and refine particular themes. Complete the chart as you read • expresses a theme, or message
about life
to help guide your analysis.
Text Evidence to Consider Examples What It Means
water We take water for granted.
images or ideas that

are repeated
descriptive details
that create a mood
or feeling
an ordinary object
given unusual
importance
title
Carry 567
Get Ready B
Analyze Figurative Language

In poetry, writers use language that gives intensity to the expression of
their feelings and ideas. When poets want to communicate ideas beyond
the literal meaning of the words, they may use figurative language,
such as similes, metaphors, and personification. Similes and metaphors
express the poet’s feelings or insights about a topic through imaginative
comparisons. Personification gives human qualities or characteristics to
objects or animals to emphasize significant ideas or to contribute to the
overall meaning.
Poets might use figurative language in a purposeful way to develop the

poem’s tone, or attitude toward the subject of the poem. For example,
similes and metaphors that make comical comparisons might create a
whimsical or humorous tone. In contrast, similes and metaphors that
make serious or sad comparisons can produce a tragic or mournful tone.
As you read “Carry,” notice how Hogan uses figurative language to develop
an intended tone in the poem.
Here are one reader’s notes on figurative language in the poem. As you
read, mark comparisons that help develop a theme.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Christopher Felver/Premium Archive/Getty Images
From water’s broken mirror Metaphor; captures the image but is
we pulled it, also dangerous
alive and shining,
gasping the painful other element of air.
It was not just fish.
There was more.
Background
Linda Hogan (b. 1947) grew up in Oklahoma and Colorado.
A member of the Chickasaw Nation, Hogan has received many
awards and honors for her writing. She is a strong advocate for
preserving endangered species, and her work reflects her deep
interest in environmental issues, native cultures, and spirituality.
Hogan says of her writing, “It takes perseverance. I will do it over
and over again until I get it right.” Her poetry collections include
The Book of Medicines and Rounding the Human Corners. Her first
novel, Mean Spirit, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

B
Carry NOTICE & NOTE

As you read, use the
Poem by Linda Hogan side margins to make
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Miguel Lasa/Steve Bloom Images/Alamy
notes about the text.
Water is beautiful, essential—and dangerous.
From water’s broken mirror

we pulled it,
alive and shining,
gasping the painful other element of air.
5 It was not just fish.
There was more.
It was hawk, once wild with
hunger, sharp talons
locked into the dying twist
10 and scale of fish,
its long bones
trailing like a ghost
behind fins
through the dark, cold water.
Carry 569
ANALYZE FIGURATIVE 15 It was beautiful, that water,
LANGUAGE like a silver coin stretched thin
Annotate: Mark two similes and enough to feed us all,
the personification in lines 15–20. smooth as skin before anyone knew
Interpret: What tone does the the undertow’s1 rough hands
figurative language create in 20 lived inside it, working everything down
regard to how the scene looks and to its absence,
what happens there? and water is never lonely,
it holds so many.
It says, come close, you who want to swallow me;
25 already I am part of you.
Come near. I will shape myself around you
so soft, so calm
I will carry you
down to a world you never knew or dreamed,
30 I will gather you
into the hands of something stronger,
ANALYZE SYMBOL AND older, deeper.
THEME
Annotate: Mark an example of 1

undertow: a strong current below the surface of water.
personification in lines 26–32.
Analyze: How does this

personification develop the water
as a symbol?
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©Erik Leonsson/Maskot/Alamy

COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
What conclusion does the speaker draw about water? Do you What effect do we have
agree with this conclusion? Why or why not? Share your thoughts
nature affect us?
with a partner.

Response Log.
Assessment Practice
Part A
Based on the author’s use of figurative language, which statement best describes
the tone of the poem?
A still and peaceful
B lovely yet dangerous
C mournful yet hopeful
D exhilarating and inspiring
Part B
Select two passages from the poem that support the answer to Part A.
A “From water’s broken mirror / we pulled it, / alive and shining” (lines 1–3)
B “It was beautiful, that water, / like a silver coin stretched thin” (lines 15–16)
C “the undertow’s rough hands / lived inside it, working everything down”
(lines 19–20)
D “I will shape myself around you / so soft, so calm” (lines 26–27)
E “I will gather you / into the hands of something stronger, / older,

deeper.” (lines 30–32)
2. Which is personified as speaking in lines 25–32?
A the fish
B the hawk
C the poet
D the water
Carry 571
Respond B
Analyze the Text

NOTICE & NOTE
1 SUMMARIZE Review what is stated explicitly in lines 1–14 and write Review what
a brief summary of what the speaker describes. How does the image you noticed and
created in these lines affect the mood, or emotion, of the poem? noted as you read
the text. Your
annotations can
2 INFER What sequence of events probably took place before the help you answer
speaker discovered this strange sight? Complete the diagram with these questions.
what you can infer from hints in the poem.
3 ANALYZE What comparison is the poet making in the simile in lines

11–14? How does this figurative language develop the tone of the
poem?
4 INTERPRET Explain what is meant by lines 22–23: “and water is

never lonely, / it holds so many.” Support your interpretation with
evidence from other lines.
5 INTERPRET Review the descriptions of water in the poem. What

does the water symbolize?
6 CITE EVIDENCE What theme about our connection with nature

does this poem convey? Support your theme statement with
evidence from the poem.

B Respond
Choices
Here are some other ways to demonstrate your understanding
of the ideas in this lesson.
Writing
Argument
Write a one-page critique that takes a position on an idea explored be sure to use the
in “Carry.” Here are some ideas to consider: Academic Vocabulary
• Is nature always in control, or can humans control nature?

words.
• Can an element of nature be both nurturing and destructive?

advocate
• What is the role of humans in nature? discrete
In your critique, clearly state your claim, supporting it with evidence domain
from both the poem and your own observations. Conclude with a
summary of your ideas. enhance
evoke
Media
Photo Analysis
This poem describes a bizarre natural image.
Sometimes strange things happen in nature, Speaking & Listening
and photographs get spread around social Discussion
media. Of course, not every image you see Unpack this poem by discussing the poet’s
actually represents reality. Photo-editing choices in a small group. Follow these steps:
programs enable people to alter images
1. Note comparisons or descriptions of water
drastically. Look online for photographs of
that you find striking.
surprising occurrences in nature. Choose one to
evaluate using these criteria: 2. Share your example with your group, noting
feelings or ideas that the passage you
• Is the image on a reputable site, or is it on a
site where anyone can post content?
marked evoked as you read.
3. Reach a consensus about which image your

• Is the image credited to a photographer,
journalistic publication, or photo agency?
group thinks has the strongest impact on
the poem’s message or theme. Share that
• Do you notice any signs of digital alteration,
such as unnatural angles or differences in
conclusion in a poster or presentation.
focus, lighting, or color?
Create a blog post with a link to the image

sharing your evaluation.
Carry 573
Respond A B
Compare Themes
Now that you have read “The Seventh Man” and “Carry,” you can
compare how the authors developed themes in their work. The short
story and the poem explore a similar idea—the unstoppable power
of water—even though the conclusions they draw about that idea are
different. Analyzing how the authors built their themes will give you
insight into each writer’s craft.
Both authors rely on setting, events, the narrator’s or speaker’s

thoughts, and word choice to develop the idea of water as a force that
cannot be overcome. With a partner, review the texts. Use the chart
to record your thoughts about the authors’ use of narrative elements
to develop a theme. Cite specific text evidence where you can. You
will use the information from your chart to create a project about the
themes in both texts.
A B
“The Seventh Man” “Carry”
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (t) © Corbis; (b) ©Miguel Lasa/Steve Bloom Images/
Setting
Key Events
Narrator’s or
Speaker’s Thoughts
Use of Language
Alamy

A B Respond
Analyze the Texts

Discuss these questions in your group.
1 COMPARE What themes did you discover in both “The Seventh Man” and
“Carry”? How do the authors’ attitudes toward those themes differ?
2 EVALUATE Both authors use symbolism. Choose a symbol from each text and
evaluate how each author uses it to enrich the text.
3 CONNECT What mental images did you develop through each author’s use of
detail? How did these mental images help you understand both texts?
4 COMPARE Reread the biographies of Murakami and Hogan. How might

their cultural backgrounds—Japanese and Native American, respectively—or
geography have shaped their attitudes toward the topic of nature?
Create and Share

Now, you will create a project showing your understanding of how Murakami and
Hogan both use the topic of water to express themes about our world. Imagine the
“seventh man”—the narrator of the short story—and the speaker in the poem as
characters. They are both looking at powerful bodies of water. What messages about
the world would they like to pass along to an audience as they gaze at the water?
Create a two-sided piece of artwork or a two-part digital media piece expressing their
messages.
1 PLAN YOUR ARTWORK Create a two-sided piece of artwork using a medium

you are comfortable with, such as drawing or creating a collage from images
printed from a computer. Think about what each character would want to
communicate about nature.
2 WRITE THEME STATEMENTS What “universal truths” about nature and

humanity would each character want to share with an audience? Write a
statement for each character, in his or her own voice, and add it to your artwork.
3 PRESENT Present your artwork to your class. Different people may have different
interpretations of the authors’ themes. Consider how the topic of water—a major
part of the natural world—allowed two writers working in different genres to
express universal ideas about our world. Support your ideas with quotations from
both texts as you present your artwork.
The Seventh Man/Carry 575

Reader’s Choice
Continue your exploration of the Essential Question by doing some
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
independent reading on the unit topic. Read the titles and descriptions
shown. Then mark the texts that interest you. on nature, and how does
nature affect us?
Short Reads Available on
These texts are available in your eBook. Choose one or more to read
and rate. Then defend your rating to the class.
Even if you live in a Starfish

Sand’s End Poem by Lorna Dee Cervantes
Informational Text by Josh
city, you can get health
benefits from nature
Dzieza This poem explores the human
Argument by Kate Baggaley
fascination with starfish: their life
A beach may seem like the most
City dwellers don’t need to go on cycle, beauty, and ocean habitat.
natural thing in the world, but
vacation to interact with nature.
there’s much more to it. Rate It
But not all parts of a city can
experience nature equally.
Shutterstock; (tr) ©Vilainecrevette/Shutterstock; (bl) ©Steve Byland/Shutterstock; (br) ©gnagel/iStock/Getty Images

Rate It
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (tl) ©Mia2you/Shutterstock; (tc) ©Albachiaraa/
Rate It
Flying Jewels Wolves

Short Story by José Luis Zárate
Essay by Brian Doyle
A writer reflects on the tiny hearts Nature encroaches on the people

of hummingbirds, the enormous of a small village, with unexpected
Plus/Getty Images
hearts of whales, and the powerful results.

emotions that drive the human
Rate It
heart.
Rate It
576 UNIT 6 READER’S CHOICE

Reader’s Choice
Long Reads
Here are three recommended books that connect to this unit’s topic. For
additional options, ask your teacher, school librarian, or peers. Which titles
spark your interest?
Life of Pi Into the Wild Lab Girl

Novel by Yann Martel Nonfiction by Jon Krakauer Memoir by Hope Jahren
Set adrift in the Pacific Ocean after a An acclaimed journalist relates the A geobiologist shares her experiences
shipwreck, a teenager must use his true story of Christopher McCandless’s exploring plant life, fueled by curiosity
wits to survive as long as it might take impulsive journey into the unforgiving and passion, and humbled by science.
to be rescued, while sharing his raft wilderness that cost him his life.
with a hungry 400-pound tiger.
Extension
Connect & Create
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: (l) ©JFS07/Shutterstock; (c) ©Nejron Photo/
HUMAN/NATURE Think about the Essential Question for this unit:

What effect do we have on nature, and how does nature affect us? What NOTICE & NOTE
answers to the two parts of this question do you find in the text you
chose to read? Write an analysis that incorporates your own ideas as • Pick one of the texts and
annotate the Notice & Note
well as those of the author or characters.
signposts you find.
DRAWING THE LINE Where is the line between humans and nature?
• Then, use the Notice &
In the text you chose to read, identify places or situations that belong Note Writing Frames
to humans and those that belong to the natural world. How separate to help you write about
do you think these places or situations are? Discuss your thoughts the significance of the
with a partner who chose to read the same text, or write a blog post signposts.
Shutterstock; (r) ©beeboys/Shutterstock
exploring your ideas. • Compare your findings with

those of other students who
read the same text.
Notice & Note Writing

Frames
Reader’s Choice 577

Write a Short Story
Writing Prompt
Using ideas, information, and examples from multiple texts in
this unit, write a short story in which the main character faces
a struggle involving nature in some way.
Review the
Mentor Text
Manage your time carefully so that you can
• review the texts in the unit;

For an example of a well-written short
story you can use as a mentor text,
• plan your short story;
review:
• write your short story; and
••“Night Garden” (pages 519–525)
• revise and edit your short story.
Review your notes and annotations
Be sure to
about this text. Think about how the
• establish a context and introduce a narrator; author uses narrative techniques to
• develop characters and a logical sequence of events; engage readers.
• use narrative techniques such as dialogue and pacing;

• include precise details and sensory language;
• use transitions to clarify sequence and connect ideas; and
• conclude in a way that logically resolves the conflict.
Consider Your Sources

Review the list of texts in the unit and choose at UNIT 6 SOURCES
least three that you may want to use as sources
of ideas or inspiration for your short story. The Great Silence
As you review selections, consult the notes Find Your Park MEDIA
you made on your Response Log and make
additional notes about any ideas that might be Night Garden
useful as you write your short story. Especially
Can Genetic Engineering Solve

consider how the writers establish a point of
the Problem We Created?
view and use narrative techniques to describe
events or experiences. The Seventh Man
MEDIA
Carry
578 UNIT 6 WRITING TASK

Writing Task
Analyze the Prompt
Review the prompt to make sure you understand the assignment. Find a Purpose
1. Mark the phrase in the prompt that identifies the general topic of your Two common purposes of a
short story. Restate the topic in your own words. short story are
2. Next, look for words that suggest the purpose and audience of your short ••to entertain readers
story, and write a sentence describing each. ••toa message
convey a theme, or
about life or
human nature
What is my topic? What is my writing task?
What is my purpose?
Who is my audience?
Review the Rubric

Your short story will be scored using a rubric. As you write, focus on the
characteristics of a high-scoring story described in the chart. You will learn
more about these characteristics as you work through the lesson.
Purpose, Focus, and Conventions of Standard

Narrative Technique
Organization English
The response includes: The response includes: The response may include:
•• An engaging introduction •• Use of descriptive details and •• Some minor errors in usage but
•• A well-developed plot structure sensory language no patterns of errors
•• Use of transitions to convey •• Effective

techniques
use of narrative •• Correct punctuation,
capitalization, sentence
sequence and connect ideas
•• Logical sequence of events •• Varied sentence structure formation, and spelling
•• Atheconclusion that follows from

•• Command of basic conventions
narrated events
Write a Short Story 579

Writing Task
1 PLAN YOUR SHORT STORY

Determine Story Elements Determine Point of View
Consider these options for your story’s
To start planning your short story, think about a central point of view:
conflict, or problem, that a main character might face
involving nature. How will you structure your plot, or •• narrator
first-person point of view: the
is a character in the story
the sequence of events, to reveal the story’s conflict and
outcome? List ideas for your story elements in the chart. •• narrator
third-person point of view: the
is an outside observer who
may focus on the thoughts and
feelings of one or more characters
Characters
Who is your main character?
Who else will your main
character interact with?
Setting
Where and when will the story
take place? How does the
setting affect the characters?
Point of View
Who will tell your story? How
will your choice of narrator
affect readers’ understanding of
characters and events?
Conflict
What conflict or problem will
your main character face? What

events will build or complicate
this conflict?
Theme
What lesson about life will your
character learn?

Writing Task
Brainstorm Details
Brainstorm descriptive details that will help bring your short story to
life. Jot down words and phrases that will help readers imagine events.
Include sensory language that appeals to the senses of sight, hearing,
touch, smell, or taste.
Event Details
Help with Planning

Organize Ideas
Consult Interactive Writing
Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Use the chart to help Lesson: Writing Narratives.
you plan your story’s structure.
BEGINNING •• Grab reader attention with an engaging detail or

dialogue.
Determine Narrative
Techniques
•• Establish context and point of view. Here are some narrative
•• Introduce characters, setting, and conflict. techniques that can add interest
to your writing:
MIDDLE •• Develop the narrative with events that create

complications.
•• events.
Use flashback to recall past
•• Build to a turning point, or moment of greatest

interest.
•• events
Use foreshadowing to hint at
that occur later.
•• Reveal how the conflict begins to resolve. •• Speed up or slow down the
END •• Follow up on the story’s events. pacing by shortening or

lengthening descriptions.
•• Reflect on the story’s meaning or importance.

Writing Task
2 DEVELOP A DRAFT
Drafting Online
Now it is time to draft your short story. Examining the work of
Check your assignment list
professional authors can help you develop your own writing skills. for a writing task from your
Read about techniques you might use as you draft your short story. teacher.
Use Sensory Language

DO NOT EDIT--Changes must be made through “File info”
EXAMINE THE MENTOR TEXT

CorrectionKey=NL-A;FL-A
Descriptive details that appeal to the senses can draw readers into
your story. Notice how the author of “Night Garden” establishes
context by appealing to the sense of hearing at the beginning of
the story.
Night Garden
I heard the barking at six thirty or seven. It had been In a standoff between a pet and a deadly snake,
humans can only watch and wait.
NOTICE & NOTE

a long, hot day, and evening was a relief. I was cooking
about the text.
I 1 heard the barking at six thirty or seven. It had been a long, hot
dinner. I knew Neela’s voice well: the bright happy barking

day, and evening was a relief. I was cooking dinner. I knew Neela’s
Details about the

voice well: the bright happy barking that he threw out in greeting,
the little yips of pleading for a treat or a good rubdown, and the rare
growl, sitting low and distrustful in his throat when the milkman
other sounds the

came around—he was a friendly dog. This sound was unlike any of
that he threw out in greeting, the little yips of pleading

those. It was high and held in it a mineral note of panic. I went over
to the kitchen window that looked out onto the yard, where we had
a garden. There was a pomegranate tree, an orange tree, and some
main character is
thick, flowering plants—jasmine and jacaranda—and some I did not
for a treat or a good rubdown, and the rare growl, sitting

know that my husband had planted years before. But I was the one
who kept them alive. Neela stood dead center, in the red earth. His
used to hearing
tail was taut and his head level with his spine, ears pinned against his
skull, so his body arrowed into a straight line, nearly gleaming with
a quality of attention. He was not a large dog, black and sweet and
taut
(tôt) adj. tightly stretched; strained
or tense.
low and distrustful in his throat when the milkman came from her dog are
foxlike, sometimes shy, with yellow paws and snout. Facing him was a
black snake—a cobra—with the head raised, the hood fanned out.
519
contrasted with what
Night Garden
around—he was a friendly dog. This sound was unlike any

10_LNLESE416432_U6AAS3.indd 519
she hears now to

9/9/2020 6:44:58 AM
of those. It was high and held in it a mineral note of panic. suggest the story’s
conflict.
APPLY TO YOUR DRAFT

Use this chart to brainstorm sensory details that can work to develop key story elements
while also drawing readers into your narrative. For example, a vivid sensory detail may
help develop a character or establish a setting. Use these ideas as you draft your story.
Sense Detail Function in Story
Sight
Hearing
Touch
Smell
Taste

Writing Task
Build Tension
EXAMINE THE MENTOR TEXT
As the conflict in a story builds, an author may use foreshadowing and
mood to create a growing sense of tension in the reader. Here, the author
of “Night Garden” establishes the story’s central conflict using details that
create tension.
I let out a cry. The cobra had lifted the front of

its body at least two feet from the ground. I had
never seen one so close, even separated by four
strong walls and a pane of glass. I could see her
This short, direct delicate tongue, darting between her black lips. Her
sentence establishes the
eyes were fixed on the dog, and his on hers. Their
intensity of the conflict.
gaze did not waver. Her body, too, was taut with This description of
setting creates an
attention, shiny back gleaming in the low evening ominous mood and
light. The sky, I saw now, was red, low and red, and seems to foreshadow
the sun a wavering orange circle in the sky. blood being spilled.
APPLY TO YOUR DRAFT

At key points in your short story’s plot, use descriptive details that will
increase the tension your reader feels about what is going to happen.
Complete the chart to help you plan.
Plot Event Detail That Creates Tension


Writing Task
3 REVISE YOUR SHORT STORY

Experienced writers rework their ideas and language during their writing Help with Revision
process. Use the guide to help you revise your short story. Find a Peer Review Guide
and Student Models online.
REVISION GUIDE
Ask Yourself Prove It Revise It
Introduction Circle key details that establish Add key details about the
Do I establish context and setting context. Underline details about context. Change any pronouns or
and introduce a narrator with a perspective and pronouns that details that are inconsistent with
clear point of view? help identify the narrator and the narrator’s point of view.
point of view.
Conflict Put a plus sign (+) next to the Add events that build the conflict
Do I introduce a clear and first appearance of the conflict to a high point.
compelling conflict and develop and next to each event that
it logically? builds or complicates it.
Plot Number (1, 2, 3…) the Rearrange plot events to use

Do story events proceed in a sequence of events. Circle a more logical sequence. Add
way that makes sense? Are they transitions between events or transitions as necessary to guide
linked with transitions to guide ideas. your readers.
the reader?
Narrative Techniques Put a check mark ( ) next to Add dialogue and vivid details
Do I use dialogue, pacing, and dialogue. Draw an up arrow ( ) if the story lacks them. Revise
descriptive details to add interest next to fast passages and a down sentences to lengthen them
and create tension? arrow ( ) next to slow ones. Put a where the pacing should slow
star ( ) next to vivid details. down or shorten them where it
should speed up.
Conclusion Underline statements that Add phrases or sentences that

Does my conclusion follow resolve the conflict or reflect on reflect on events or state a
from and reflect on the narrated the meaning of events. theme.
events?
APPLY TO YOUR DRAFT

Consider the following as you look for opportunities to improve your writing.
• If you use a flashback or flash forward, use transitions that help readers
understand the sequence of events.
• Use realistic dialogue and descriptions to help readers imagine events.
• Reread with the theme you hope to express in mind to make sure details
throughout the story hint at it.

Writing Task
Peer Review in Action

Once you have completed a first revision of your short story, you will
exchange papers with a partner in a peer review. During a peer review,
you will give suggestions to improve your partner’s draft.
Read the introduction from a student’s draft and examine the comments
made by the peer reviewer to see how it’s done.
The Storm
Draft
By Jesse Johnson, Stonecreek High School
The day started off like any other. The most significant thing about
I like your
opening, but it’s it was that there was going to be a test in geometry class. There
not clear who’s had been reports of a hurricane threatening off the coast, but it
telling the story. didn’t seem like a big deal. Breakfast was cereal as usual. But then
everything changed, and it was suddenly time to leave. Good job hinting at
the conflict, but try
adding some info
about the characters
who are involved.
Now read the revised introduction. Notice how the writer has improved the
draft by making revisions based on the reviewer’s comments.
Much better! The first-

The Storm
Revision person narrator makes
By Jesse Johnson, Stonecreek High School
me feel more connected
It was the day my life changed, but it started off like any other. to the story’s events.
Sure, I knew a hurricane had been threatening off the coast, but
I was more worried about my geometry test when I woke up that
morning. As I ate my bowl of cereal in the kitchen, I didn’t even
realize my mother and uncle were outside frantically packing the car.
Just then, my uncle walked in. He was out of breath, and beads of
sweat were trickling down his face.
“What’s going on?” I asked.

My uncle looked at me frankly and said, “It’s the storm. We’re I really like how
leaving.” you use details
and dialogue to
introduce characters
and move the story
APPLY TO YOUR DRAFT along!
During the peer review, give specific suggestions for how to make your
partner’s short story more vivid or engaging. Use the revision guide to
help you offer productive feedback.
When receiving feedback from your partner, listen attentively and ask
questions to make sure you fully understand the revision suggestions.

Writing Task
4 EDIT YOUR SHORT STORY

Edit your final draft to check for proper use of standard English
conventions and to correct any misspellings or grammatical errors.
Interactive Grammar
Watch Your Language! Lesson: Punctuation
PUNCTUATE DIALOGUE
Dialogue—the exact words spoken by characters—is an essential Punctuate Dialogue
part of a compelling story. Accurately punctuating dialogue helps
Here are some rules for
readers understand who is saying what.
punctuating dialogue:
Read this part of a conversation from “Night Garden.”
••Set off dialogue with a comma
before the quotation mark in
sentences that use dialogue
“Doctor, there’s a snake out there with my dog. A cobra. tags, or phrases that identify
In my yard.” who is talking. (For example,
“A cobra is it?” I could see him in his office, his white “Hello,” I said. He said, “Hi.”)
hair and furred ears. He had a doctor’s gruffness, casual
in the most serious of circumstances, and had seen both
••End punctuation for a spoken
sentence sits inside the
my children through countless fevers, stomach upsets, and closing quotation mark.
broken bones. “Has it bitten?”
“No, they haven’t touched each other. They’re not even
moving. Just staring each other down.”
“Don’t do anything. Just watch them. Stay inside.”
“Nothing? He’ll die,” I said. “I know it, he’ll die.”
The author sets off characters’ spoken words with quotation

marks and uses a separate paragraph for each speaker.
APPLY TO YOUR DRAFT

Apply these tips about punctuating dialogue to your own work.
1. Read your paper aloud and mark words that characters say.
2. Add paragraph breaks or dialogue tags if needed to make it
clear who is speaking.
3. Check for correct punctuation of dialogue. Ways to Share
••Create a comic strip based on

your story.
5 PUBLISH YOUR SHORT STORY
••Perform a scene from your
short story for the class.
Share It!
••Create a podcast of your story.
The prompt asks you to write a short story. You may also adapt See the next task for tips.
your short story to other formats.

Produce a Podcast
You have written a compelling story that illustrates a conflict involving

nature. Now you will share your ideas with a whole new audience by
adapting it into a podcast. You will also listen to the podcasts created by
your classmates, ask questions to better understand their goals, and help
them improve their audio stories.
Plan Your Podcast

Review your story and complete the chart to help you adapt it for a
podcast. Your podcast will spice up your story text by adding elements
such as music and sound. You might also make your story more engaging
for listeners by eliminating descriptive passages or slow parts. Use your
answers to write the script you will follow to produce your podcast.
Questions Answers and Notes
How will you capture listeners’

attention right from the beginning?
Will you tell the whole story, or

will you have classmates read the
dialogue in character?
What audio elements can create

the mood you want? Where will
background music or sound effects

add interest or emotion?
How will you pace your reading

to build tension or humor? Which
parts will you read faster or slower?
Produce a Podcast 587

Practice with a Partner

When your script is ready and you have gathered any music or
sound effects you will use, practice your podcast aloud before
recording it. Here are some techniques to practice.
Effective Presentation Techniques
Enunciation Be sure not to swallow the ends of words. Pronounce each letter, such as
a final g in going. Vary your enunciation as appropriate to reflect the way a
character speaks.
Modulation and Pitch Adjust your voice and pitch to express emotion and emphasize ideas. If you
are reading multiple characters’ dialogue yourself, give each character a
distinctive voice.
Rate Adjust how fast or slow you speak as appropriate to maintain interest. For
example, you might speed up your rate of speaking during an exciting part
of the story or slow it down to build suspense.
Microphone Skills Practice speaking into a microphone, adjusting your distance from the
microphone and your speaking volume to avoid popping, hissing, or echoing
sounds from the microphone.
As an audience member, listen closely, considering technical aspects

of the podcast and the effectiveness of the dramatic interpretation.
Take notes to give as feedback to the podcasters whose work you
Interactive Speaking &
evaluate. Listening Lesson: Using
Media in a Presentation
As a podcaster, pay attention to the feedback you receive from
listeners to help you improve your podcast. Ask for suggestions
about how to use audio elements such as music and sound effects
to add interest to your podcast.
Share It!
Listen to other classmates’ podcasts.
Then:
Record Your Podcast •• the

Create a concept map showing
most interesting or
surprising stories or ideas you
With your teacher’s help, plan how to record and share your
heard in the podcasts.
podcast. Use these tips:
• Find a quiet place to record.

•• the
Have a group discussion about
effectiveness of any music
• Adjust the positioning of your recording device as needed so
all voices and sound elements are heard.
or sound effects used in the
podcasts.
• Review the recording in segments, and edit it as needed.

•• school
Post your podcast on a class or
website.
588 UNIT 6 SPEAKING & LISTENING TASK

Reflect & Extend
Here are some other ways to show your
understanding of the ideas in Unit 6.
Reflect on the
Essential Question
What effect do we have on nature, and
how does nature affect us? Project-Based Learning
Has your answer to the question changed Create a Public Service
after reading the texts in the unit? Discuss
Advertisement
your ideas.
You’ve read about effects we have on nature
You can use these sentence starters to
and how nature affects us. Now, create a public
help you reflect on your learning.
service advertisement, or PSA, to inform people
• I think differently now because . . . about an animal and encourage its protection.
• Now that I’ve considered . . . , Here are some questions to ask yourself as you
I realize . . . get started.
• I still wonder about . . .
• What animal would make a good subject for a
PSA, and why?
• What facts will I include to inform viewers
about the animal and convince them that it
needs protection?
• How will I combine visual and sound elements
to convey my message?
Media Project
To find help with this task
online, access Create a PSA.
Writing
Write an Article
Write an article about a specific aspect of nature and humanity’s
relationship to it. How do we impact this aspect of nature, and how

does it affect us?
• Introduce a topic about nature and clearly state a controlling

idea about humanity’s relationship to it.
• Support your controlling idea with key ideas and evidence.
• Conclude the article by summarizing the most important points
and ending with a final thought or new insight.
Reflect & Extend 589

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Analyze the Image

In what ways does this image represent

© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Get hooked by the unit topic.

nature affect us?

Think About the

Build Academic Vocabulary

Why should people pay

The Great Silence Find Your Park Night Garden

Can Genetic Engineering Solve The Seventh Man Carry

undo the harm.

Think Outside the Box

The Great Silence on nature, and how does

Engage Your Brain

When a single species goes extinct, it

© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©AuntSpray/Shutterstock

500 UNIT 6 ANALYZE & APPLY

Analyze Point of View

• is a character in the story

Third Person • acts as an outside observer

• may tell the story from a broader perspective or may be

Analyze Narrative Structure

• Exposition: introduces characters, setting, and conflict or struggle

• Rising Action: presents complications, building suspense

• Falling Action: shows results of character decisions/actions

• Resolution: reveals final outcome; also called denouement (d∑-n◊-män’)

The Great Silence 501

Expand Your Vocabulary

502 UNIT 6 ANALYZE & APPLY

The Great Silence 503

8 The Fermi paradox is sometimes known as the Great Silence.

© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company • Image Credits: ©USFWS Photo/Alamy

504 UNIT 6 ANALYZE & APPLY

Earth, they will know someone is trying to get their attention.

24 Humans have lived alongside parrots for thousands of years, and

of the spheres, and chanted to draw power from them.4

The Great Silence 505

35 According to Hindu mythology, the universe was created with a

43 Human activity has brought my kind to the brink of extinction, but

506 UNIT 6 ANALYZE & APPLY

Review your notes and

A Signs of intelligent life should fill the galaxy.

B Humans have shown that they are not good listeners.

C Parrots have an urgent and important message.

D Extinctions eliminate voices humans could communicate with.

E There are many kinds of intelligence across the universe.

What inference can you make about the narrator?

A The narrator wants parrots to be as intelligent as humans.

B The narrator wants to save humans from extinction.

D The narrator believes parrots are the most advanced species.

Which detail supports the answer in Part A?

A “It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.”

B “Humans like to think they’re unique.” (paragraph 13)

D “But before we go, we are sending a message to humanity.”

The Great Silence 507

Analyze the Text

3 DRAW CONCLUSIONS In paragraph 11, the narrator introduces Alex

4 INFER Why do humans seek communication with extraterrestrials while

ignoring communication from parrots, according to the narrator?

5 ANALYZE Consider the connections the author draws between humans