Zine Genesis is founded on Dan’s Trauma-Informed, Life-Skill-building teaching model. Creative problem-solving allows participants to let go their & “outside” lives. Personal challenge builds confidence, self-worth and skill; low-intensity self-exploration encourages self-discovery and growth; play nourishes and restores. In this program we invite students to create freely in a range of mediums, collaborate deeply, on easy terms, identify as important just for being kids, and through a “Zine”, tell their future selves what not to forget about being a kid, or their younger selves & buddy class how to survive elementary school.

Pass-the paper drawing games – “Exquisite Corpse” and Dan’s “The Scribble Game”– ease us into the program. Using 11x17” printer-paper, students add to each other’s drawings as Dan introduces collaborative concepts and gives prompts around colour and fun approaches to drawing. Ie. “Choose three colours you think look good together”, “Draw the funniest face you can”, “Turn this blind scribble into something”, “Draw your friend without looking at the paper.” After a few sessions students explore potato stamping, carving into the flat surface of cut-in-half potatoes and stamping with ink.

Students test on large scrolls and incorporate stamps to their collaborative drawings. Dan briefly introduces the concept of Zines, which we will continue to make for the duration of the program. “It is very powerful to be able to share your experiences and thoughts with others by giving them a real thing you can hold and keep.” Dan asks students to reflect on young peoples’ importance to society, or to make their ‘Zines into whatever they want– comics, personal stories, abstract drawings, doodles. We celebrate in the school library, where ‘Zines are displayed for visiting classes to look through and take copies of. One copy of each stay on permanent display in the library, students take originals home.