The Story of a Young Artist

Suzie goes to her art class Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She always looks ____1____down onup toforward to those days when she can do creative things all afternoon. She loves making bowls and cups out of clay. Last month she learned to put pottery into a hot ____2____ovenkitchencooker , called a kiln, to make it hard and strong. After the pottery has cooled down from the kiln, sometimes she paints it with all different colors. Bright colors are her favorites, ____3____howeverbutalthough sometimes she likes to paint in "earth colors," like brown and dark green. What Suzie likes best about art is the good feeling she gets when she has finished ____4____to workworkworking on a piece of art. And then when she takes it home to show her parents she feels so proud of what she has made. On Wednesdays Suzie does something else that she really enjoys. On Wednesday afternoons she writes articles for the school newspaper. When she first moved to her school, she wrote an article about how it feels to be a new student in a new school. Her second article in the newspaper was about a teacher at her school who had just finished writing a book. Suzie asked the teacher what it feels like to be a published author. And then she shared what she ____5____found outturned upcame up with the rest of the school. Another time she wrote an article about why she thought the school should have two short recesses a day rather than one long recess. Lots of her friends thought that this would be a good idea too. Many teachers also agreed with Suzie's suggestion. Would you believe the principal of the school asked everyone in the school to come to a school assembly to have a vote about Suzie's suggestion? The principal at this school always felt that students should help decide how the school should be run. During the vote, each person in the school had one vote. Each of the teachers had one vote. And each of the students had one vote. Together, the school decided that two short recesses would be better than one long recess. And all of that happened because Suzie wrote about her idea in the school newspaper. On the day the newspaper ____6____comes downcomes incomes out , the first thing Suzie does is to check where her article is in the newspaper. And each month, at the beginning of her article, are the words: By Suzanne Jefferson. ____7____InOnAt the way home from school yesterday, Suzie got to thinking about how much art and writing are the same. In art class she thinks of creative things to make, and then spends a lot of time making it look just right. And when she writes articles for the school newspaper, she thinks of creative things to say, and then spends a lot of time making it sound just right. And when she has finished writing a really good sentence, she feels almost ____8____as ifhowas like she has made a beautiful piece of art. Suzie rushed home ____9____becausesoconsequently she could write something short before dinner. She already had lots of ideas for next month's newspaper. And she wanted to make sure that ____10____nonenono one of her creative ideas floated away before she wrote them down permanently on paper. Adapted from "The Story of a Young Artist" by Phil Shapiro. Reproduced with the author's permission.