Mrs. Murray

Mrs. Murray, Brianna Jackson’s poetry teacher at Midtown School of the Arts, is a disciplined instructor who treats both literature and her students’ work seriously. In one pivotal ACT-prep session, her rules make Brianna wait without her phone, but her attention to Brianna’s distraction turns the classroom into the first place where the teenager explains how much a rap battle matters to her.

Identity and Teaching

Mrs. Murray teaches poetry and supervises an ACT-preparation class for juniors whose parents or guardians have enrolled them. The class meets every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, and students hand over their phones while they work. Brianna resents the restriction on this particular day because she is waiting to hear whether DJ Hype will call with news about a chance to battle at Jimmy’s Boxing Ring.

The narration introduces Mrs. Murray through a quiet image of concentration: Brianna can see the teacher’s Sisterlocks above the Nikki Giovanni book that hides the rest of her. Mrs. Murray occasionally responds to a line with an appreciative hum, a habit Brianna compares to her grandmother’s response during a sermon. To Brianna, poetry is not just a subject Mrs. Murray teaches; it is the teacher’s religion. The comparison characterizes her attention to literature as personal and sincere rather than perfunctory.

Her standards are demanding. Brianna remembers that after she made little effort on an essay about Langston Hughes’s use of dreams, Mrs. Murray criticized the work so sharply that Brianna wished her mother had been the one to reprimand her. The recollection helps explain why Brianna expects Mrs. Murray to take a failure seriously: kindness does not mean indulgence, and Mrs. Murray does not pretend that a student’s work is better than it is.

The ACT-Prep Conversation

On the afternoon Brianna is waiting for DJ Hype, the clock matters more to her than the practice test. Mrs. Murray holds the students’ phones, and Brianna knows that she cannot simply take hers back and leave. When the test ends, Mrs. Murray closes her book and tells the class to submit their work as it is. Brianna has not answered a single question; she hurriedly fills in multiple-choice responses after time is called, relying on the chance of guessing correctly.

After the other students leave, Mrs. Murray sits on the edge of the desk and places Brianna’s dim-screened phone beside her. Rather than immediately return it, she asks what is going on. She points out that Brianna has been extremely distracted and has not even completed the practice test. Her question is grounded in what she has just observed, not a general rebuke: Brianna’s attention has been elsewhere throughout a class that her mother has paid for.

Brianna initially deflects, but she recognizes that Mrs. Murray will not hand back the phone until they talk. She finally explains that she is waiting for DJ Hype to tell her whether she can battle at the Ring that night, and clarifies that she submitted her name for a Thursday freestyle battle at Jimmy’s Boxing Ring. The conversation gives Mrs. Murray a concrete reason for the missed work while showing the competition’s importance to Brianna: the possibility of performing has eclipsed even a test intended to help her prepare for the future.

Relationship with Brianna

Mrs. Murray’s approach combines firm boundaries with concern. She does not treat Brianna’s uncompleted test as something to overlook, but she also does not stop at punishment or assume she already understands the cause. By asking about Brianna’s state of mind and holding the phone until she answers, she insists that the student account for her conduct. The exchange is brief, yet it makes space for Brianna to say plainly what she wants: an opportunity to rap in the Ring.

Brianna’s expectations of the teacher also reveal the relationship’s tension. She describes Mrs. Murray as sweet while immediately adding that she does not play; she remembers the essay criticism as severe and fears the teacher will see her distraction as wasted time and wasted money. At the same time, Brianna answers her instead of simply walking away. Mrs. Murray’s authority makes the conversation unavoidable, but her attention helps bring Brianna’s private anticipation into the open.

Narrative Significance

Mrs. Murray appears in a small number of scenes, but her classroom establishes a recurring conflict in Brianna’s life: the demands of school and family investment press against a young artist’s desire to be heard. The ACT test, the phone withheld on the desk, and the call Brianna hopes will come all represent competing claims on her attention. Mrs. Murray does not dismiss the dream or endorse it; she asks Brianna to recognize what it has already cost her in that class.

Her presence also provides a grounded contrast to the later public arguments over Brianna’s rap persona. Where audiences and commentators interpret lyrics as evidence of who Brianna is, Mrs. Murray first responds to observable behavior—a student distracted enough to leave an entire practice test blank—and asks her to explain it. That distinction makes her brief intervention significant: before Brianna’s artistic ambitions become a public controversy, they are a concrete, personal preoccupation in an ordinary schoolroom.