Introducing Our 2023-2024 Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellows: Carmela Martinez
This school year, the Center for the Art of Translation honors the recipients of the second annual Poetry Inside Out Teaching Fellowship, a year-long program designed to support teachers as they pursue curricular research, build skills in creative language instruction, and learn how to inspire collaborative discussions of poetry in translation in the classroom.
Teaching Fellows join a vibrant network of students, teachers, poets, translators, and academics committed to open-ended dialogue about language and literature, working together to develop culturally responsive, integrated curricula based on Poetry Inside Out’s key practices. They will deepen their understanding of classroom practices that contextualize learning, uplift student achievement, leverage and affirm students’ cultural identity, and develop critical thinking skills.
Each of our Fellows brings a unique perspective and level of dynamism to our programs, and we want to highlight their individual ideas and approaches. Over the course of this next few weeks, we’ll be publishing brief Q&A’s with the fellows to celebrate them with our CAT community.
Introducing Yaxha Ruvein
Hello! !Hola! Hallo! My name is Carmela Martinez and I am a Cuban/Colombian Bilingual
Teacher in Southside Chicago, IL. Throughout my time at UC Berkeley (where I studied Spanish
and German comparative literature and Education) I served as a literacy tutor at a dual
language elementary school, teaching K-5th graders how to read during their after school
program. After graduating I served nearly a whole Fulbright year as an English Assistant
Teacher in Germany before the pandemic sent me home early. I got my Master of Arts in
Teaching at the University of Chicago (with its former Urban Teacher Education Program –
UTEP) and have decided to stay in Southside as a bilingual teacher in CPS.
What interests you about Poetry Inside Out’s programming/curricula, and what excites you about this fellowship? What do you hope to glean from it?
PIO caught my attention because I had studied languages and literatures in college and had
been feeling disconnected to what I had been passionate about when I was studying. I also felt
this would be an incredible opportunity to integrate what I had been passionate about in college
with what I was passionate about now. Teaching K-8th grade can feel like a bubble where
intellectualism isn’t always the priority in my specific role as a Bilingual teacher where I do not
teach entire classes very often. When I do teach we focus on basic English skills and some
native language instructional support with what they’re learning in class. Which is all important
but I do miss getting a chance to explore texts and complex ideas with students. PIO has been
a great opportunity to do just that! I am excited to grow as a teacher, a thinker, a mentor, a
translator with my students who also take on these roles throughout their educational journeys.
Being the child of immigrant parents myself , I know what straddling two cultures, languages,
opposing life experiences entails and I am excited that through PIO’s translation projects,
discussions, and mentoring I can support my students through those similar experiences. And, I
can learn more about the world I do not know from the youth that bring their unique and brilliant
selves too!
Any interests in international literature/poetry or foreign languages that you’d like to mention?
I grew up learning Spanish at home and ESL, then regular English at school and with peers. In
college I took one German course on a whim that led me to study German literature and work
and live in Germany for 7 months. Reading more in Spanish and German are goals for me!
Along with learning some Persian, Pashto and Russian because of my students this year. I’ve
considered further studies in Comparative Literature (where reading poetry and literature in
translation was a focus) but that is a longer term goal. For now I like my job as a bilingual
teacher and keeping my love of languages as a side hobby. I would also like to get back into
writing and studying poetry and stories in Spanish, English and German because I haven’t done
it in years.
Giovanna Lomanto is a poet and essayist with a tendency to play the same song on repeat until she has memorized every last note. She received her BA in English at U.C. Berkeley and finished her MFA at NYU, during which time she published two poetry collections and two mixed media chapbooks.
