Learning with a Side of Laughs: An Interview with Ms. Olmedo

by Layniese T.

Here at Franklin Academy, we have many inspirational staff members! One of which is Mrs. Eileen Olmedo. Before she was our wonderful IB Coordinator, she wrote a thesis on Native American Literature and earned her masters in The University of Puerto Rico. Fun fact: Olmedo graduated high school at age 16, and by age 23 she was already teaching high school with her completed Bachelor’s and Master’s in English Literature.

So, what is a thesis? A thesis is a long written paper, almost the size of a book, with chapters that explain what a student has learned in their time at graduate school. When the time came for Mrs. Olmedo to write her thesis, she chose three professors to be her advisors. Mrs. Olmedo and her professors decided that she was going to write about Native American literature and Puerto Rican literature by comparing the two. Once she started writing her thesis, Olmedo and her professors realized she was more interested in Native American literature and wasn't really comparing the two.

The resources she used to write about Native American literature were mainly novels, collections of short stories and poetry, as well as literary theory. She was also influenced by Sherman Alexie. Sherman Alexie is a Native American writer and poet with a fun and different style: he uses humor to describe the difficulties of growing up on a Native American reservation. Mrs. Olmedo learned a lot from this writer using his short stories, novels, and poetry based on Native American culture.

Mrs. Olmedo loves to read, and when I asked her what Native American books she would recommend to a middle school student she mentioned three. She said some of her favorite books include “Code Talker”, which had a historical baseline and was written by Joseph Bruchac, “The Lone Ranger”, which had a very raw, funny, and real baseline and was written by Alexie Sherman, and “Fools Crow”, which uses syntax to imitate the language of the called Blackfeet tribe and was written by James Welch. She also recommends these books to anyone that is writing or just learning about Native American history. In the end, it took Olmedo 6 months to complete her thesis, and she published it through the University of Puerto Rico Press, as well as through the College English Association.