On Monday, April 27, widely recognized young adult (YA) and picture book author Emily Jenkins, known in her YA novels by her pseudonym E Lockhart, visited Benjamin and participated in a variety of activities throughout the School. Ms. Jenkins gave a speech at assembly, held a writers’ workshops with the seventh and sixth graders, visited the first graders, and spoke at the Diversity Book Club Dinner.  Prior to her visit, the whole eighth grade and many seventh and sixth graders read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, Ms. Jenkins’ novel about a girl’s adventures in a boarding school that touches on the topic of gender equality. During the author’s visit, everyone who listened to her speeches learned more about creativity, gender equality, and how to find his or her inner voice.

Ms. Jenkins’s first stop at the School was during the middle school assembly, where she talked about how to construct an artistic narrative. One of her pieces of advice was making a “stupid” draft that gets all of one’s thoughts on the page, instead of getting frustrated about making everything perfect on the first try. Another of her tips was to write about an emotion easy to describe and full of dramatic potential, like fear, sadness, or anger. She reminded students that a story without a problem is boring. She advised conducting research through books and the Internet and doing experimental research, research based upon interviews and experiences. To explain experimental research, she made up her own story on the spot about drug runners on Mars. In that story, her protagonist ran out of ammunition and had to go to a Martian CVS store. If she were to actually write a story like this, she said she would go and visit a CVS and take in the environment. She asked the students to imagine that she saw a creepy old man wearing something that looked like a CVS uniform taking tons of deodorant off the shelves, and she would wonder, “Does he work here, or is he just a creepy old man?” She might use her experiences at the real CVS in her story about the Martian CVS. This demonstration taught students that writing is much more interesting and interactive than most people think.

“She made writing so appealing to us students and established that writing a work of literature is a long process, and it can start with a stupid idea,” noted eighth grader Sam Fox. “She was a very fun and relatable speaker, and I am really glad I had the opportunity to listen to her speak.”

After she spoke at the assembly, Ms. Jenkins held a writers’ workshop for the sixth and seventh graders. “She made us do a lot of different writing exercises which were really fun and interesting,” said seventh grader Nicolas Lama. The students were challenged by Ms. Jenkins through step-by-step writing cues to create “a character that [they] later tortured,” Lama said. His character was “a teenage boy in New York City who loved to ride the subway to get an escape from the world. Another one of the writing exercises asked students to compose original six-word memoirs, or six words that tell a story. One of the memoirs created by Lama was, “Don’t reach far but reach farther.”

Ms. Jenkins’ next stop on her trip to Benjamin was the first grade, where she read her picture book, Toys Go Out. Visiting the first graders was very different than the middle schoolers. “First graders are always awesomely cute and curious,” said Ms. Jenkins. “In particular, the Benjamin first graders were well-prepared! The teachers had shared many, many books with them, which meant that they had great questions and really paid attention,” Jenkins said. Mrs. McDonough, the first grade teacher who organized the event, said that Ms. Jenkins talked about “her writing process and how she gets ideas for books. She talked to the kids about how she is a ‘noticer,’ as most authors are.  She notices things happening in the world around her and asks herself, ‘Hmmm…could that be a book?’” Especially, Ms. Jenkins pointed how in one of her books, Water in the Park, the park in the book is the same park as the one outside her apartment. She also “showed the kids pictures of her writing space and the messiness that comes with getting into a creative flow.”

The last, but certainly not the least event at Benjamin over which Ms. Jenkins presided was the Diversity Book Club, which focused on the gender equality in her novel The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Before Ms. Jenkins gave her speech at the Barker Performing Arts Center (BPAC), there was a potluck dinner where all the dishes had gender associated names, such as “ladyfingers” or “manwiches.” In addition, there was a competition for the best named dish, which was won by seventh and eighth-grade sisters Regan and Skyler Kretz for their “male chauvinist pigs in a blanket.”

Although she is a grade older than her sister, Skyler did not take all the credit. She said, “The winning name was a group effort between my sister and I [sic].” Other top dishes were “Queenoa and Mango salad” by Nicolas Lama and “Queen of the Kingfish Dip” by Tyler Judge. After indulging in the gender-themed entrées, the attendees of the book club participated in a bake sale as an exercise to demonstrate the pay-gap between men and women. In this bake sale, the desserts cost one dollar for the men and seventy-eight cents for the women because several sources, including cnn.com, state that women make seventy-eight cents for every dollar that a man makes. This exercise helped raise awareness for women’s rights, an important topic in today’s society. Skyler Kretz had an interesting perspective on this issue: “I think the bake sale where girls’ food cost less did raise awareness, but if they are truly looking for equal pay I think all the food should have been worth the same and not discriminate the boys [because] they didn’t cause it, the [older] men did. So when I went to pay for something, Max [Jacobs] asked for some money from me, but I only had enough for mine, so I let him ‘have my discount’…Gender equality is not truly overlooked at Benjamin although the girls seem to have a lot more leeway than the guys when it comes to getting in trouble.”

After filling up on food, everyone filed into the BPAC to hear Ms. Jenkins speak about her inspirations and gender equality. She spoke about the difficulties she had socially while growing up in Seattle. Her story was similar to the plot of Frankie, where the female protagonist does not have that many friends in her first year at boarding school, but is recognized by more people in her sophomore year, especially by boys. Ms. Jenkins finds social class an issue in today’s society, and that is why it appears in many of her books.

Her next talking point was about feminism. Her personal definition for a feminist is “a person, male or female, that believes that women are people.” In Frankie, she sees many different forms of feminism demonstrated by different characters such as roommates Frankie and Trish. Frankie rebels against male power, but Trish simply avoids the men that are disrespectful to her.

Another issue that Ms. Jenkins spoke about at the book club was that girls are protected from reading more mature books, unlike boys. When asked how mature is too mature for an average middle schooler, she responded:

“I think a seventh grader has a pretty fully-developed intellect and moral compass – and that seventh grader can use books with all kinds of content to explore and evaluate the world he or she has not yet experienced… Of course,   a student can always close a book if the content is overwhelming.”

When she reflected upon her visit to Benjamin, Ms. Jenkins said, “the evening Diversity Book Club event was special. I was really impressed with the humor and enthusiasm people brought to the potluck, and the fun elements the teachers put into the slideshow and music selection.  I don’t always lecture to parents — and it was really cool to see the Benjamin parent body come out and participate, in addition to the students.” Overall, her favorite part was the writing workshops with the sixth and seventh graders and reading their six-word memoirs. To increase diversity and gender awareness at our School, Ms. Jenkins suggested adding the following books to the RAAP library collection: Proxy by Alex London, Every Day by David Levithan, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han.

Ms. Emily Jenkins taught us many important topics during her visit. She illustrated the importance of being aware of our current society and current issues, especially gender equality. Also, she showed how to be in contact with one’s inner self and create a narrative that one can develop into a story. Her visit was informative, educational, and inspirational – everything Dr. James and TBS hoped it would be.