My most outstanding accomplishments senior year in high school included having two dates for the same senior prom and writing racy skits for the senior assembly. Decades later, I feel completely inadequate when interviewing Ella Bryant, a senior at Murray High School who has accomplished more in her tender teenage years than most of us can claim in our dotage.
Ella is no stranger to leadership, creativity, and innovation. Her stop-motion animations have enchanted viewers since elementary school. In tenth grade, her video tribute on the hundredth anniversary of Women’s Suffrage won first place in a competition from the West Kentucky Chapter of the National Organization for Women.
In 2021 she was tapped for the Governor’s School for Entrepreneurs summer program, the first female from Murray High School to be selected. In her response to the honor, instead of basking in well-deserved glory, she credited her school and her teachers.
“I’m very grateful that the classes I’ve taken from the Murray Independent School District prepared me for this opportunity and provided the resources I needed to be able to be accepted into GSE,” she said, “along with providing me with the drive to be an entrepreneur.”
Now a senior at MHS, Ella’s initiative has taken on another challenge. After about a year of getting the appropriate approvals from school administrators, she founded Speak Up, a book club “dedicated to creating an inclusive club for students to share diverse literature in the high school environment,” in Ella’s words.
Different from the usual book group where everyone reads the same title, Speak Up chooses a theme each month and members read a book that reflects that theme. “Most highlight a single humanitarian issue,” Ella explained.
At monthly meetings, discussion centers around the theme and how it is portrayed in the different books. Sometimes enthusiasm or interest in one author or title becomes the focus. In other cases, there is back-and-forth regarding how different authors approached the same issue.
Since books related to activism run the risk of being banned or challenged when shelved in high school libraries, Ella did her homework before presenting the concept to school officials.
“About halfway through junior year,” Ella recalled, “I created a proposal for Activist Book Club.”
The original plan was to read books with diverse and/or inclusive subject matter, with a bent toward feminism. Conferring with the school principal and the librarian, discussion went back and forth and the approach began to take shape.
“We were figuring out the sweet spot,” Ella explained, adding that they sought a sense of balance between teens’ interests and potential barriers. She was also interested in ensuring that all students would be welcome so the group would generate open communication.
The school library had copies of some of the books, but the others on Ella’s list were donated by individuals and groups, based on an Amazon Wish List. The excitement of reaching that milestone was topped when Speak Up got its own cart in the school library.
To expand the group’s reach, Ella used her technical and social networking skills to establish contact with various Young Adult (YA) authors. Using Instagram, Ella tags every author’s page, and some of them reply.
“Sometimes the author replies or comments about the club and its existence,” she reported.
Through these and other networking efforts, publishers have offered to donate whole sets of a book, enough for each club member.
Currently, Speak Up has about 30 members and word is getting around. Meetings are in the morning, the bane of most teenagers, but from 7:40 to 8:10 a.m., members get involved in a creative activity and also discussion of the books and how the theme was explored in each story.
Being head of the organization is a 24/7 responsibility, so Ella has created processes to document who has borrowed which books and takes pride in collecting and analyzing data, including tracking members’ participation, popularity of individual books. “I strive for a lot of organization,” she said, “using Google Drive, Google Forms.”
Management of the group involves her artistic side too. “I am interested in how Speak Up presents itself and make sure it is clear that it is for anybody. You don’t have to be a particular kind of student.”
She designed the logo and developed a promotional slide presentation. Use of color was a crucial aspect of their appearance. Shades of purple seemed to be appropriate for visual imagery. “I wanted to make sure it was not pink,” she declared.
Since she is a senior, Ella has even given thought to succession planning, making sure that there are students able and willing to take on the task of keeping Speak Up going after she graduates.
“I want to make sure it will survive and hope an underclassman will take interest so the club will continue running,” she said.
Keeping ties with the administration and the school librarian is essential but getting more faculty and/or staff involved and securing an advisor for the club are other priorities.
The theme for the September meeting was body positivity. Next week’s October meeting examines Halloween as a theme, particularly how minority groups are represented as villains or victims in YA fiction.