z.

zines:

VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

Students will be shown samples of zines, such as

contemporary zines The Deeper They Bury Me

the Louder My Voice Becomes, Got Art?

Got Music?, and Olympus Mons

Prefatory Purpose & Rationale Statement:

Zine production, a multimodal lesson that does not have to be digital, offers students twenty-first century composition skills and opportunity to write honestly and from the heart about issues relevant to their lives. Zines are difficult to define because they can take on an infinite number of shapes and forms, based in the imaginations of their authors. However, some general comments about zines are provided by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson in Watcha Mean, What's a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics:

Zines can be by one person or many. They can be any size: Half-page, rolled up, quarter sized...

Zines are read by anyone willing to take a look, from concert-goers and the mailman to people on the train. They are sold at bookstores, thumbed through at zine libraries, exchanged at comic conventions, and mailed off to strangers.

Zines are not a new idea. They have been around under different names (Chapbooks, Pamphlets, Flyers). People with independent ideas have been getting their word out since there were printing presses.

It’s a great feeling to hold copies of your zine in your hand. Go ahead, there is no wrong way (12).

The Viva La Revolution! Zine Writing, Publishing, & Distributing assignment will allow students to experience empowerment as authors and producers. They will gain literacy skills to better understand purpose, authorship, and audience in the rhetorical situation of zine writing.

An argument that teaching zines in the classroom compromises the form of the genre can be posited. Zines inherently are an underground, urban, street form of expression. However, opening the dialogue about the differences in genre will perhaps widen a student's rhetorical understanding about context: purpose, audience, and text. The production of "authentic" zines in the classroom may prove to be a challenge riddled with complication. Nevertheless, the unit can be used to fulfill the Standard 3: Writing and Composing of the Colorado Academic Standards. Students can be taught to understand that even though what they create "inside" the classroom may not meet the standards of street credibility "outside" the classroom, the writing and composing skills are transferable. Students can be further taught that these "in-school" and "out-of-school" lines can become intermingled (Kirkland).

Introduction:

Toward the beginning of a young adult text titled Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, the reader meets a protagonist named John (who goes by a pen name of Giovanni). John is a sixteen-year-old, high school junior reminiscent of J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield who has begun writing a zine called Bananafish. John feels trapped between a mother who is on the verge of remarrying Al, who John describes as “a skinhead Mr. Rogers” (Wittlinger 11), and a book-publishing playboy father who he visits on the weekends. He finds himself confused and coming of age in the shadow of his parents’ six-year standing divorce. John’s only consolation has become his zine writing and his best (only) friend Brian. However, John later finds himself in the middle of a confused romance with another teen zine writer and lesbian named Marisol. John thinks to himself early in the novel of how his “life didn’t seem quite so yawningly empty as before” (3). In context, John does not tell Brian about the excitement of his zine writing because he thought Brian would not understand that, “reading things somebody wrote in a magazine could change you” (3).

John becomes attracted to Marisol’s zine titled Escape Velocity. The young man, feeling trapped in his situation, was looking for escape. Wittlinger’s book accounts for how young adults, like John and Marisol, can discover their identities and become transformed by writing and reading zines. John, for instance, isn’t interested in a heterosexual relationship with any of the girls at his school, doesn’t really know for sure if he is homosexual, and ultimately falls head-over-heels into heartbreak for his lesbian friend Marisol. Upon meeting Marisol, John is introduced to a publication titled Factsheet Five. In the novel, both Marisol and John get to see their zines reviewed.

Factsheet Five, in fact, is a nonfictional zine review developed by R. Seth Friedman in 1982. The zine review gives zine writers an opportunity to have their zines read and reviewed in the same fashion as John and Marisol's zines were reviewed in Wittlinger's fictional narrative. The front matter of Friedman’s The Factsheet Five Zine Reader: The Best Writing from the Underground World of Zines states the background of the publication:

...Since 1982 Factsheet Five has been documenting the ever-expanding universe of zines...

...Each huge 152-page issue of Factsheet Five is packed with reviews of more than 2,000 independent and unusual publications. Every issue catalogs and reviews an abundance of zines - complete with price, critical reviews, and ordering information. Additionally, it includes information articles on zine culture and tips for budding zine publishers ("About Factsheet Five," Friedman).

Up-and-coming, zine writers can visit http://www.factsheet5.org/ to submit their zines for review.

John’s inner monologue about how “reading something somebody wrote in a magazine could change you” offers an important message of hope for young writers and teachers passionate about teaching young writers to be transformers of culture. Students all too often can fall prey to a notion that the writing they do "inside the classroom” cannot be used “outside the classroom.” Zine culture continues to press against false dichotomies, such as the “in-school” and “out-of-school” distinction, discussed by Kirkland. At the core, zine writing has been conducted on the fringes of society and often serves as an outlet for rebellion or activism. Bringing zines into a secondary English classroom may problematize the traditional notion of zines.

True as it may be that zines challenge the mainstream and often go against traditional norms, English teachers can still serve as positive models for writing and composition. By arming students with the personal empowerment to become self-publishers and by teaching the necessary pragmatic skills to achieve this end will help students to learn basic composition techniques. These techniques include the consideration of rhetorical situations and how to find one’s own voice as an author as well as using software for computer layout and the physical construction of the zine artifact. Learning these skills, as well as others, might help students see the relevance and importance of possessing composing skills as they apply them in their daily lives. Many adolescents, as seen in the fictional story of John and Marisol, are hungry for venues to direct their emotions about family life, questions of sexuality, and heartbreak just to name a few.

On the surface, one may assume that zines are a contemporary happening. In the introduction of The Factsheet Five Zine Reader, Friedman said he “discovered music fanzines back in the ‘70s.” However, The S.F. Examiner provides a succinct historical summary that helps put the evolution of self-publishing into perspective:

“The name ‘zine,’ short for ‘fanzine,’ a science-fiction fan magazine, may be new, but small, self-published pamphlets and newsletters date all the way back to Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, which was launched in 1757. Dadaist manifestoes of the early 1900s continued the trend and started a design style adopted by many of today’s zine editors. Science-fiction zines proliferated in the 1920s and ‘30s, followed by punk rock zines in the 1970s. Today’s zines cover political rantings, sex and sexual politics, hobbies, music, movies and just about every other topic that’s conceivable - and many that aren’t” (Vale 4).

Zines: A LESSON PLAN

Title of the Lesson:

"Viva La Revolution!: Zine Writing, Publishing, & Distributing"

For secondary level English teachers

Rationale:

See "Prefatory Purpose & Rationale Statement"

Overview of the Lesson:

Zines are a way anyone, anywhere can express themselves, self-publish, and circulate their message to others. The Viva La Revolution!: Zine Writing, Publishing, & Distributing assignment will ask you to write about topics that are meaningful and important to your life, including life at home, life at school, life with friends, etc (See “zine” definition below).

Phase I - Imagining Your Zine:

You will determine what kind of zine you create. It’s important that we allow the content to reflect aspects of life that are most important to us and learn how to appropriately prepare messages about ourselves for a public forum. The zines done for this assignment may differ from zines seen elsewhere. There may be some limitations of what we can produce for the purposes of this assignment, which undoubtedly contradicts zine culture, but once you go your own way you'll find the skills you've gained here to be transferable.

To prepare for this assignment, we will start by reading Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, issues of Factsheet Five and keeping a journal of our experiences throughout the day. The topic will be narrowed down to something meaningful to the author and the intended audience. For instance, avid snowboarders might consider writing about their lives on and off the slopes, electric guitar players might give readers an insight into the life of being a musician, and up-and-coming models might write about what it takes to walk the catwalk.

Viva La Revolution! Zine Writing, Publishing, & Distributing will be a three to four week unit for a class meeting Monday – Friday. The unit will be broken into three phases where you will read the assigned young adult text Hard Love, start keeping a daily journal, and begin imagining your zine. By the end of the first week, you should have an idea of the focus of your zine and will be ready for phase two. The underground, anti-mainstream, culture of zines has a record of exploring any and every topic imaginable and pushing societal norms. For the sake of the assignment some content restrictions might be enforced to uphold the school’s code and conduct. You will, however, be encouraged to continue exploring any topics you decide on your own after the assignment and for future independent zine projects.

In phase two, you will begin thinking about how you intend to layout your zines after you have selected a topic or focus. For the graded aspect of the assignment, you will be asked to fulfill the minimum requirement of creating a half-size zine using two pieces of paper. If you chose you can add supplemental material, such as a quarter-size zine insert: Finally, phase three will cover matters of distribution.

Phase II- Layout and Construction of Zines:*

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Note: Having a copy of Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics by Mark Todd & Esther Pearl Watson for classroom use might be effective in aiding students during this phase of zine development.

You will have the choice to write prose articles, poems, or design visual portraits (e.g. original drawings, photographs, and/or permissible Internet images). Other alternatives to the quantity of content can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. In-class writing workshops will be held and time in the computer lab will be given. Phase three will include a final construction period and a discussion of possible venues to distribute and circulate finished zines. Assessment will be based on a check (pass/fail) system and you will be evaluated on how well you engaged the assignment.

Phase III - “Places to Leave Your Zine: For Free! For Fun!”:*

- Hide ‘em in newspapers
  - Leave ‘em at movie houses
    - Subway...On a nice park bench
      - Coffee Shops...Soda Machines
        Copy stores
        The airplane
        Bus Stops
        Farmer’s Market
        Wedge ‘em into lockers.
        Leave ‘em at the doctor’s office
        Library
        Laundry mat
        Arcades
        Thrift Stores
        Telephone booths
        Car Windshields
        Places where people sleep
        Concerts
        Tie ‘em to helium balloons
        Record Stores
        ANY PUBLIC PLACE (Todd and Watson 95)

Note: Teachers will want to carefully consider this phase of the unit because of the safety issues involved with exposing their students (minors) to the general public. It would not be a bad idea to write a disclaimer and/or get parental permission before sending a student out to distribute their zine. Often zines will have the author's name and a contact address for the reading public to communicate with the author(s). Another option might be to seek permission from the school to have all correspondence conducted through a public site, such as the school itself, and encouraging students to use pen names might be one way to foster anonymity and protect privacy. The important thing is to keep the conversation open between parents and administrators and clarify to students and parents that they have the option of not dispersing a zine into a public space.

Objectives:

Students will learn:

How to generate and compose original content

How to write and compose in multiple literacies

How to layout and produce a zine

Students will be able to:

Effectively express through writing in a popular and cultural medium

Begin to see themselves as citizens capable of producing culture

Materials:

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

A recent copy of Factsheet Five

Sample zines and zine resources, such as Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics by Mark Todd & Esther Pearl Watson

Notebooks/Sketchbook for journals

Pens/pencils to write/draw in journals

Scissors/Glue for scrapebooking

Access to a computer lab (with word processing and photo editing software)

Flashdrives or some system for student file saving and storing

Access to a 12’’ reach stapler

Students will be shown samples of zines, such as contemporary art zines The Deeper They Bury Me the Louder My Voice Becomes, Got Art? Got Music?, and Olympus Mons.

Books:

The Factsheet Five Zine Reader:

The Best Writing from the Underground World of Zines

Seth R. Friedman (1997)

Hard Love

Ellen Wittlinger (1999)

Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?: The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics

Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson (2006)

Concepts and Vocabulary:

Zine:

Zines can be by one person or many. They can be any size: Half-page, rolled up, quarter sized...

Zines are not a new idea. They have been around under different names (Chapbooks, Pamphlets, Flyers). People with independent ideas have been getting their word out since there were printing presses.

It’s a great feeling to hold copies of your zine in your hand. Go ahead, there is no wrong way (12).