Questions for Study and Discussion: Walker
1. Walker’s thesis is in the last sentence of paragraph 3: “The experience Ihad had digging the potatoes, before turning them into half of a deliciousmeal, was one I wanted my daughter to know.”
2. Walker uses sentence variety in her first four paragraphs, alternatingbetween descriptive and narrative sentences of varying length. She usessubordination, passive voice, periodic sentences, and dramatically shortsentences. Her dramatically short sentences include:a. “She wasn’t sure” (1). This emphasizes the gap in experience betweenWalker and her daughter and encourages the reader to consider howpotatoes look.b. “It had been years since I planted potatoes” (2). This provides a nicepause after her description of the potato crop and tells the readerthat planting potatoes was a kind of return to herself and her past.c. “Then I remembered my potatoes!” (3). This exclamation propels thestory forward. It moves the reader from her description of the vegetablesshe wishes to bring to the city into the action required to harvestthe potatoes.
d. “We owned a beautiful handcrafted butter press” (4). This short,sweet sentence demonstrates her appreciation not just for the vegetables,but for all of the well-made objects that play a part in the farmingprocess.
3. The long sentence at the beginning of paragraph 5 emphasizes the amount of produce Walker will bring with her to the city. It also helps reinforcehow much farming she has done and what abundance it produces. Becausethe sentence is mostly a list of familiar items, most readers will find it easyto follow.
4. Walker uses longer sentences that follow one another smoothly, reemphasizingtime and the gentle handing down of something so taxing as farming.It demonstrates that something large, when done consistently, becomescasual and manageable, enabling it to be repeated year after year. She repeatsthe word “year” to give readers a sense of time. She uses such words asmagic, extraordinary, wonderment, and heroic to reemphasize the specialnature of farming and her family’s relationship to it. 5. Walker found harvesting potatoes to be one of the great joys of her lifeand one that connected her with her familial roots. Potatoes are root vegetablesand provide a symbol for teaching her daughter about her ownroots.
6. This was an activity that they both loved and shared. They both had thesame sense of wonder and astonishment. Walker successfully passed onsome of her family history to her adult daughter, showing that it is nevertoo late to find your roots. They found their common ground, and Walkerwas able to give her daughter something she could most meaningfully shareonly with her own children.
7. Her question to her daughter in paragraph 1demonstrated her own knowledge of farming. Very few people have seenpotatoes in the earth.