As part of my English-Secondary Education program, student teaching was a key requirement for completion. In the spring of 2024, I completed my student teaching at Elmwood Park High School, where I taught five classes spanning freshmen to seniors. This experience was incredible, allowing me to navigate various age groups, adapt to diverse materials for each class, and fully embrace my role as a teacher.
As a student teacher, I was responsible for preparing, creating, and teaching all my own material. I rarely used department resources, aside from the occasional big final test. I graded all my students' work, provided feedback, and guided them through rewrites and resubmissions. It was definitely a challenge to develop materials that pushed my students academically while keeping things engaging and creative. But this experience taught me the importance of balance in teaching. I couldn’t just stand in front of the class and talk for forty minutes—I needed to actively engage them. Whether through reading aloud, filling out a worksheet, answering questions, or doing hands-on activities, I found that my students did their best when they were directly involved.
During my student teaching, I already knew I’d be starting my MLIS degree that summer, which was perfect timing. In May, the job posting for the Crown Instruction Intern went up, and by then, I was a licensed teacher, had started my first MLIS class, and was more than ready to be back in the library. Having the skills of my student teaching in my back pocket to prepare me for this job.
Being a Crown Instruction Intern means a lot of things. For me, it means to be a tool and support for Dominican students, meeting with professors, creating engaging and meaningful material for classes, and constantly being on the lookout for learning opportunities. On a daily basis, I am either working on materials for an upcoming class I will be teaching, working on social media posts, creating/organizing events or workshops, attending meetings, working on Research Guides or in a classroom teaching!
My student teaching experience has been a huge asset in my role at the Rebecca Crown Library, giving me the confidence to teach students across all levels. I’ve developed the skills to create—or sometimes adapt—materials for each class. When I’m in front of students, that’s where I feel most at home. I’m ready to engage, spark conversation, and get students excited to learn.
Currently, I am only about four months into this internship, and I have had the amazing opportunities to meet with professors, sit in on a department meeting, shadow other librarians while they instruct a class, and explore my own interests. Instruction has slowed down in recent weeks as the semester comes to an end. I am excited to teach next semester and have a goal of teaching one class per week.
Last November, Dominican University welcomed Mexican-American poet José Olivarez for the Caesar & Patricia Tabet Poetry Reading. The reading was co-presented by the St. Catherine of Siena Center, the English Department of Dominican University's Rosary College of Arts and Sciences, and the Rebecca Crown Library.
Dominican University English professor Maggie Andersen paid memory to Pat Tabot, the namesake of the reading. Professor Andersen expressed how the annual poetry reading provided a transformative experience for students. “When we lose a faculty member, we lose a library,” Andersen said.
In introducing the evening's guest, Dominican University English major Karen Reyes said she had taken English 266: Introduction the Literature and Language Studies with low expectations. Her lack of enthusiasm for poetry was transformed largely by reading poems by Olivarez, many of which depict the push-pull of being from Mexico and living in Chicago, i.e. “What it means to be Mexican in America.”
Ode to Tortillas
One of Olivarez' most memorable poems is Ode to Tortillas, which he read first. Olivarez was inspired to write the poem one morning while deciding what he would write for the day. Recognizing that "writing about tortillas is a little bit cliche," he wondered if he could flip it and make it new somehow. In the poem, Olivarez questions many restrictions faced by Mexican-American authors. “Can you be a Mexican writer if you never migrated?” he asks.
In I Loved the World So Much I Married It, read from his book of poems Citizen Illegal, Olivarez addressed the mixed emotions and memories brought up by both his grandmother's and uncle's deaths. He uses images of the senses even when talking about death. He mentions his “most treasured possessions: a six piece/ with lemon pepper & mild sauce on,” which he will have to give up when he divorces (dies) the world he has loved so much.
Olivarez read many poems featuring family ties, such as his last one of the night, Related : the Sky is Dope. Written by his brother in a series of texts, the poem describes the interaction between clouds and sky at day's begging and end. Written in three parts, Mexican Heaven depicts the afterlife as a bittersweet place where all do not feel welcome. “if heaven/ is real, then its gates are closed to us.” Reporting from the beyond, Olivarez' uncle declares “the party was boring…they were ditching heaven," and so they sought a spot between heaven and hell where their family could feel at home and recognize “we have always been beautiful.”
Getting Ready to Say I Love You to the Couch, It Rains
In the introduction to Promises of Gold, Olivarez explains his book of poems "is what happens when you try to write a book of love poems for the homies amid a global pandemic that has laid bare all the other pandemics that we've been living through our whole lives.” Themes of childhood longing and heartache are found in Getting Ready to Say I Love You to the Couch, It Rains. But there can be hope in desperation: while introducing the poem, Olivarez told the story of a student so thankful for a free copy of his book that he gifted the poet a bag of chips from his inventory of snacks he'd been selling.
In the Q&A following the reading, Olivarez expressed the pain of leaving his family during his days at Harvard, and the difficulties of having a background many of his classmates could not relate to. However, he expressed the joys of having a state-of-the-art library on campus which allowed him to build his own kind of curriculum. When asked about the benefits of studying poetry, Olivarez encouraged studying anything meditatively and embracing the present, in contrast to the transient nature of Twitter and the information age.
Olivarez offered many tips for aspiring writers such as setting a disciplined routine and reading as much as possible to stay inspired. He also spoke of the benefits of paying attention to what an author is trying to accomplish with their words and methods, as well as finding motivation and accountability with a peer group of other writers. With his own use of unique paragraph breaks and prescient thematic material, Oliverez has proven himself to be a poet who will inspire poets and readers for generations to come.
References
Library of America. (January 9, 2024). José Olivarez reads “Mexican American Disambiguation” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxI56Yn05Lc
Olivarez, J. (2018). Getting Ready to Say I Love You to the Couch, It Rains. Citizen Illegal. Haymarket Books.
--. (2018). I Loved the World so Much I Married It. Citizen Illegal. Haymarket Books.
--. (2023). Mexican Heaven. Promises of Gold. Henry Holt and Company.
--. (2023). Ode to Tortillas. Promises of Gold. Henry Holt and Company.
Olivarez, P. (2023). In J. Olivarez, Promises of Gold. Henry Hold and Company.