Passage
Excerpt from Interference Powder
by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Nina has just received a low grade on a social studies test. Before she can figure out what to do, the bell rings and she heads to her art class.
1 The art studio was at the end of the corridor. Its walls were splotched by years of flung paint, and pockmarked from thousands of thumbtacks. All sorts of stuff was pinned up, from kindergarten smudges to our own collage self-portraits, with papier-mâché objects dropping down from the ceilings to sway over our heads. One of my own paintings hung on the wall between two of the windows, and I smiled when I saw it. It was a picture I was kind of proud of: a study of Isobel’s face, up close, her thin smile stretching across her face and her skin very white against a purple background. Isobel called this her vampiress portrait, which wasn’t exactly a compliment. Still, I knew she liked the picture and felt proud to see it up on the wall.
2 When we got to the art room, I was surprised that Mrs. Smith, our teacher, was absent and in her place stood a tall woman with long hair in hundreds of little braids, some of them with beads and shells woven into their ends. The hair was mostly gray, but the woman’s face wasn’t really old. In fact, she looked around the same age as my mom. She grinned at us from the center of the room, with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her big, faded apron, which she wore over jeans so worn they looked buttery-soft. In one ear she wore a long, dangly earring with a feather that brushed her shoulder. Nothing was in her other ear. Her fingers were bare, but her wrists clattered with little bracelets, silver and gold and every color. I stared at those bracelets. I had never seen anything like them.
3 Our class was bunched up at the door, uncertain about whether or not to enter, given that our art teacher wasn’t there; but this different person motioned us inside, grinning all the while. “Come on!” she said gleefully. “Mrs. Smith is sick today, so I was called in. My name is Charlemagne.”
4 Charlemagne! Isobel and I exchanged a look. Only the week before, Isobel’s father had shown us a print of an old painting with a man in a chair. Four priests were standing over him, waving something that looked like palm fronds. 1
5 Her dad had laughed. “He thought he was. But no. He’s King Charlemagne of France. Charles the Great! He made war on absolutely everybody.”
6 And now, here we were, only a week later, confronted with one of Charles the Great’s actual descendants, since what else could Ms. Charlemagne be? Imagine being descended from a medieval French king! How totally thrilling! Mom always told me that her great-great-great-uncle had invented the glue they use on the back of postage stamps, but that was nothing compared to being connected to ancient royalty.
7 Ms. Charlemagne began passing out paper as we drifted to the art tables. “I don’t have any special plan today,” she said. “I think we’ll just see where our creativity takes us. Let’s see what happens on the page. After all, that’s what artists do, isn’t it?”
8 Was it? I’d always thought they planned their paintings beforehand and then tried to make the picture on the canvas match the picture in their mind. That’s what I always did, anyway.
9 The kids around me were picking through the pencil and crayon bins, looking at one another with uncertain expressions. They were used to being told by Mrs. Smith what the day’s subject was or how they were supposed to make their pictures.
10 “Let’s let the colors pick themselves!” Ms. Charlemagne chirped. “Let’s let the pictures tell us what they should look like! Let’s see what’s on your mind today!”
11 I looked down at my blank white sheet. I knew what was on my mind. My low 62 grade, my never-to-be-had singing lessons, my mom’s expression when she sees my test score tonight. I sighed and reached for a pencil. I began to draw my mother in our kitchen at home, her face pinched up in a frown. I drew her thin eyebrows and her eyes, with their pretty, curling eyelashes, looking down. I drew her hair falling forward a bit and one hand, the one that still wore my father’s wedding ring, on the table before her. Next to that hand I drew my test; and just to make myself feel even worse, I drew my ugly score—62—right there on the paper. For a long moment I glared at it, as if willing it to change.
12 Then it struck me! I could change that number, at least here if not in real life. I could turn my pencil over and rub those terrible numbers away, then write new numbers in their place. I was the lord of my own picture, wasn’t I? I could give myself a 63 on my social studies test, or a 61, or . . . why not even a perfect 100?
1fronds: branches
9
How does paragraphs 7 and 8 contribute to the development of the story?
A
by describing the way Nina usually completes art assignments
B
by introducing Nina to a new way to think about art
C
by showing that Ms. Charlemagne does not understand how artists work
D
by suggesting that Ms. Charlemagne is not qualified to teach art
1 answer
The correct answer is B: by introducing Nina to a new way to think about art.
In paragraphs 7 and 8, Ms. Charlemagne encourages the students to let their creativity flow without a predetermined plan, which contrasts with Nina's previous understanding of how art should be created. This development introduces Nina to a new and liberating approach to art-making.
