125 Warrior Drive
Ruidoso, NM 88345
(575) 630-7930
vasquezl@ruidososchools.org
The library is a comfortable center for students of all walks of life. It is a place to relax, have lunch, visit with friends, work on computers, and of course read!
Teachers and students are encouraged and supported by the librarian to also use the library as a venue for creativity and academics of all sorts.
This pictorial is an example of one such event. Mrs. Byrd's English classes utilized the library's fiction collection in a "Spine Label Poetry" workshop.
Spine Label Poetry is a form of "Found Poetry", ...Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems....[and books!]
A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet*.
The teacher taught about this form of poetry prior to the workshop. The librarian brought examples up to the English classes to learn more about this form of poetry.
The day of the workshop, students had hundreds of fiction books available to them in the large reference room. They were encouraged to explore the titles and create their poems.
The process was a fun and interesting way to come up with original poems. The students embraced the activity and exhibited all kinds of creativity. Many of them rekindled their interest in reading and checked out books to read at home...a true bonus to the day!!!
Here are a couple of web resources to learn more about this poetry:
* the definition above was taken from this site
Resources
The Ruidoso High School Library provides a collection of over 10,000 fiction, non-fiction, and reference titles; hard copy periodicals and newspapers; audio visual materials and equipment, and various electronic resources including the O.P.A.C., El Portal, and the Ready Reference Shelf. All of these can be accessed from any workstation within the school and remotely.
O.P.A.C.
The O.P.A.C. (Online Public Access Catalog) is catalog which is used to locate all books and audio visual materials in the library.
El Portal
The InfoTrac Periodical Database is provided to Ruidoso High School free of charge thanks to the generosity of the New Mexico State Library in Santa Fe and the New Mexico State Legislature. The El Portal contains over 8,000 magazines as well as newspapers, eBooks, and other reference materials.