Check It Out: Student Edition

Did you ever read an issue of Check It Out? Well, you have now.

Check It Out is West Orange High School's only K-Dot adjacent newsletter product, offering all that smoke with none of that hate since 2022. Here, we share news, espouse views, hit cruise, and try not to worry about what's in the rear view (or bouncing beneath the undercarriage).

Know what's been hanging tough from our big, craggy neural synapses lately?

Numbers!

Here in the LMC, we're big into qualitative data—true learning is all about inconvenient nuances and subtle distinctions—but every now and again, partly for love of the game, partly for funsies, your fabulous librarians like to get down with quantitative metrics.

Throughout this issue, you'll find five fascinating graphics that offer a snapshot of our year-to-date.

We celebrated Black History Month with our usual trifecta of in-person book displays, curated digital resources, and, of course, our...

Established in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English, the National African American Read-In promotes literacy and celebrates African American literature by encouraging communities to engage with works by African American authors. In our LMC, the African American Read-In aspires to center African American voices across media.

Now, it's Women's History Month! Peep our digital resources, come see our book display and bulletin board, and take the time to celebrate your foremothers' legacies and accomplishments!

Over the next few months, we're getting seedlings started in the LMC. What's that?

We hear your cry of woe! Fear not, dear one. It's pretty straightforward.

First, you'll put some dirt in a cup. Then, you'll stick some seeds in the dirt in the cup. Then, you'll carefully tend it for three to six months, bear witness to its evanescent beauty, reap its fruit, mourn its inevitable decline, and ruminate on the cyclical nature of this life.

What's a block print? In essence, it's just a big stamp. Add your design, cover it in ink, smoosh it on some paper, and voila! You've got yourself a combination of images and words coexisting in perfect harmony.

Back in the day, many creative works, especially sacred texts, were reproduced in this manner. An artisan would carve a mirror version of a work into wood or stone to create near-infinite copies of an original.

In the Makerspace, we'll be practicing the same skills, but by carving rubber, which is far easier to manipulate and far less likely to cause bodily harm. Don't miss it!

April is National Poetry Month, and we're celebrating with a litany of expressive activities. From blackout poetry ("erasure" if you're fancy) to cut-ups to AI and other forms of machine art, we'll strike a balance between whimsical and deadly serious as only the finest human artifacts can.

The West Orange High School Library Media Center is always seeking recruits for our Volunteer Program! This program offers students the opportunity to assist their learning community through the LMC; earn hours to satisfy volunteer requirements; serve as leaders among their peers; regularly visit and make use of countless library resources; and foster a love of active citizenship and lifelong learning in themselves and others.

Volunteer opportunities remain open to students enrolled for the 2024-2025 school year. The packet linked below contains everything you need to know about volunteering.

Do you love reading? Are you interested in books? Perhaps you enjoy the occasional snack?

Whether you read like a porcupine playing leapfrog (slowly and carefully) or regard literature as you would a balding porcupine (struggling to see the point), the Mountaineer Book Club welcomes you to its March meetings!

The team's assembling in the LMC Computer Lab on March twelfth and twenty-sixth—quill you join them? Literacy preferred but not mandatory; see Ms. Binns for more details!

GreenFILE is a research database covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.

GreenFILE is multidisciplinary by nature (lol) and draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health, and technology.

George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under.

But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as dis­tant wildfires begin to burn.

George tries to stay steady. When her father tells her his news and the painful memo­ries roar back to life, George turns to Calliope, the girl who has just cartwheeled into her world and shot it through with colors. And it’s here George would stay—quiet and safe—if she could. But then Tess has her baby, and the earth burns hotter, and the past just will not stay put.

A novel about the contours of friendship, family, forgiveness, trauma, and love, and about our hopeless, hopeful world, Helena Fox’s gorgeous follow-up to How It Feels to Float explores the stories we suppress and the stories we speak—and the healing that comes when we voice the things we’ve kept quiet for so long.

In 2013, film and culture critic Zeba Blay was one of the first people to coin the viral term #carefreeblackgirls on Twitter. As she says, it was “a way to carve out a space of celebration and freedom for Black women online.”

In this collection of essays, Blay expands on this initial idea by delving into the work and lasting achievements of influential Black women in American culture--writers, artists, actresses, dancers, hip-hop stars--whose contributions often come in the face of bigotry, misogyny, and stereotypes. Blay celebrates the strength and fortitude of these Black women, while also examining the many stereotypes and rigid identities that have clung to them. In writing that is both luminous and sharp, expansive and intimate, Blay seeks a path forward to a culture and society in which Black women and their art are appreciated and celebrated.