The same scene in two art forms

Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   Twelve Flights, in a Story and on a Comic Page (pair: a story and a graphic-novel page described panel by panel): Text A: “Twelve Flights” (a story) [1] The elevator in the Linden Street apartments broke on the Saturday the rooftop garden was finally ready, and forty seedlings in paper cups were still waiting in the lobby. [2] Milo and Ms. Ferris, who ran the garden club, looked at the sign taped to the elevator door and then at the stairwell, which went up twelve floors. [3] The two decided to carry the seedlings themselves, ten cups to a tray, and Milo counted each landing aloud to make the climb feel shorter. [4] By the sixth floor Milo’s legs ached, and the count had turned into a slow, breathless joke about how tomatoes ought to learn to climb.

   [5] On the ninth floor a neighbor named Mr. Abara opened his door, saw the trays, and without a word took one and fell in behind them. [6] Three more doors opened on the way up, so that by the top there were six people on the stairs and each tray was being carried by someone. [7] When Milo pushed open the heavy door to the roof, the wind came across the empty planters, and the whole city lay below in the late light, with the river shining at its edge. [8] The six of them planted all forty seedlings before dark, and Ms. Ferris wrote six names on the garden’s sign-up sheet instead of two.

   Text B: one page of a graphic novel (described in words, panel by panel) [9] An artist later drew the story as one page of a graphic novel, and the description below tells what each panel on that page shows. [10] Panel 1, small and square, shows a hand-lettered sign on the elevator door that reads OUT OF ORDER, with a stack of paper cups at its bottom edge. [11] Panel 2 is very tall and very thin, running down the whole left side of the page, and it shows the stairwell from below, with a child and a woman carrying trays, tiny, near the top. [12] Inside Panel 2, small numbers float beside the stairs, from 1 at the bottom to 12 at the top, like a caption counting the floors. [13] Panel 3 shows a door opening on a landing and a man’s arm reaching out to take a tray, with no speech balloon at all. [14] Panel 4 shows the stairs crowded with six people in a line, each holding a tray, and one speech balloon above the child that reads, “Tomatoes should learn to climb.” [15] Panel 5 fills the entire bottom half of the page with a wide view of the roof, its empty planters, the city below, and a bright line of river at the far edge. [16] The page ends there, on that wide view of the roof, with the planters still empty.

2. 1.

   Bo adds a reason row. What can the comic page do here that the printed story cannot, and which detail shows it?

   • It can show how long the climb is by the shape of a panel, as the very tall, thin Panel 2 in [11] does.
   • It can tell what Milo feels on each landing, as the aching legs in [4] do.
   • It can show how long the climb is by the shape of a panel, as the small, square Panel 1 in [10] does.
   • It can tell how many floors there are, as the numbers 1 to 12 in [12] do.
3. 2.

   Esme filled in the paired detail chart for this pair. Which row of the chart is wrong?

   • Left out: the broken elevator, which no panel on the page shows.
   • Reason: a page can make the roof feel huge by giving it the whole bottom half, in [15].
   • Kept: the neighbor who helps without a word, in [5] and [13].
   • Changed: the tomato joke, told on the sixth floor in [4] but on the crowded stairs in [14].
4. 3.

   Kira adds a reason row about the roof. What can the comic page do with the view from the roof that Text A cannot, and which detail shows it?

   • It can give the view a huge share of the page, as Panel 5 fills the entire bottom half in [15].
   • It can give the view a huge share of the page, as Panel 3 in [13] does.
   • It can mention the river shining at the far edge of the city, as [15] does.
   • It can go on to tell what the six people did next, as the planting in [8] does.
5. 4.

   Luz filled in a second chart for this pair. Which row of the chart is wrong?

   • Left out: the planting of the forty seedlings before dark, in [8].
   • Reason: a very tall, thin panel in [11] makes the climb look long without any words.
   • Changed: the counting aloud in [3] becomes numbers floating beside the stairs in [12].
   • Kept: Milo’s aching legs on the sixth floor, in [4] and [11].

6. The Picker, in a Poem and in Bronze (pair: a poem and a sculpture described in words)

   Text A: “The Picker” (a poem; a slash marks the end of a line) [1] At six the orchard turns to gold, / and Grandmother is on the ladder still, / one hand on the rung, one hand lost in leaves. [2] She twists each apple once, the way she taught me, / so the stem lets go without a tear, / and drops it in the canvas bag against her hip. [3] The bag grows heavy, round and red, / and the ladder sways a little in the breeze, / but she leans out farther for the highest one.

   [4] Below her, I hold the basket in both arms / and count the apples as they thump down into it, / twenty, thirty, forty, losing track at dusk. [5] When the last light leaves the hill, she climbs down slowly, / rubs one apple on her sleeve until it shines, / and hands it to me, warm still from the sun. [6] Years later I can feel that apple in my palm / whenever I pass an orchard in the evening, / round and smooth and heavy as a promise.

   Text B: “The Picker” in Kerr Park (a bronze sculpture, described in words) [7] A few years ago the town of Kerr placed a bronze sculpture called “The Picker” in its park, and the sculptor said that the poem above had given her the idea. [8] The sculpture is a life-size woman on a ladder, cast entirely in dark bronze, with one arm stretched up into a cluster of bronze leaves. [9] Her other hand reaches down, holding a single apple just above the basket of a small figure who stands at the foot of the ladder. [10] Visitors can walk all the way around the sculpture, and only from the back can they see the canvas bag at her hip, its bronze folds pulled tight by the weight of apples. [11] The whole sculpture is one dark color, from the leaves to the ladder to the apples in the bag. [12] The single apple in her lowered hand is the only bright spot, rubbed to a pale shine by the thousands of visitors who have touched it. [13] A plaque at the base gives the last line of the poem, “round and smooth and heavy as a promise,” in raised letters. [14] On windy days the leaves of the real trees around the park move, but the bronze ladder stands perfectly still.

7. 5.

   Milo tests a claim: the sculpture keeps the apple rubbed until it shines in [5] but changes the ladder that sways in [3]. Which two sentences of Text B prove both parts?

   • [10], the bag seen from the back, and [13], the plaque at the base.
   • [12], the apple rubbed to a pale shine, and [8], the woman on the ladder in the leaves.
   • [14], the ladder standing perfectly still, and [11], the one dark color.
   • [12], the apple rubbed to a pale shine, and [14], the ladder standing perfectly still.
8. 6.

   Noah adds a reason row. What can the sculpture do that the printed poem cannot, and which detail shows it?

   • It can give the last line of the poem, as the plaque in [13] does.
   • It can follow the picking from six o’clock until dusk, as [1] and [5] do.
   • It can be touched by visitors, so the apple’s shine comes from real hands, as [12] says.
   • It can be touched by visitors, so the leaves move on windy days and the ladder sways, as [14] says.
9. 7.

   Pia filled in the paired detail chart for the poem and the sculpture. Which row of the chart is wrong?

   • Changed: the canvas bag, which hangs empty in [10] instead of heavy.
   • Reason: one dark bronze color cannot carry the gold evening and the red apples, as [11] shows.
   • Kept: the last line of the poem, which the plaque gives in [13].
   • Left out: the counting of the apples, twenty, thirty, forty, in [4].
10. 8.

    Ren tests a claim: the sculpture keeps the heavy bag from [3] but leaves out the red of the apples and the gold of the evening. Which two sentences of Text B prove both parts?

    • [12], the apple rubbed to a pale shine, and [13], the plaque at the base.
    • [10], the bag pulled tight by the apples, and [11], the one dark color.
    • [11], the one dark color, and [14], the ladder standing still.
    • [10], the bag pulled tight by the apples, and [9], the small figure with the basket.
11. 9.

    Tala adds a second reason row. What else can the sculpture do that the poem cannot, and which detail shows it?

    • It can show a small figure holding up a basket, as [9] does.
    • It can be seen from every side, so a visitor finds the heavy bag only from the back, as [10] says.
    • It can be seen from every side, so a visitor can read the plaque in raised letters at the base, as [13] says.
    • It can tell what the speaker feels years later, as [6] does.
12. 10.

    Zee filled in a second chart for the poem and the sculpture. Which row of the chart is wrong?

    • Reason: the sculpture leaves out the ladder because bronze cannot be shaped into one, as [8] shows.
    • Kept: the arm stretched up into the leaves, in [1] and [8].
    • Left out: the apples thumping down into the basket, in [4].
    • Changed: the ladder that sways in [3] stands perfectly still in [14].