In the Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies courses I teach, I have replaced the final essay with a final zine. This assignment asks learners to analyze a media text using course concepts. Throughout the course, we engage many kinds of media and learners give presentations that require them to think about what they communicate visually through images, the organizations of their thoughts, choices of font, color, images, etc., in addition to their words. The zine is a chance for them to apply this skill in analog form. It is also a great community builder and celebration at the end of a semester.
If you are unfamiliar with zines,
“A zine (pronounced “zeen,” like “magazine”) is a self-published, small circulation, non-commercial booklet or magazine, usually produced by one person or a few individuals. Zines come in all shapes, sizes, topics, and formats. Most zines are photocopied, but they can also be printed offset, like a magazine or newspaper. Zines range from handwritten and sloppy to cut-and-paste (text pasted on top of background images) to artsy with handmade touches to produced on a computer with a professional-looking layout.” (Zines 101)
Zine creation became widely popular in the 1990s with the surge of the punk Riot Grrrl movement. Constructing zines provided a space of reflection and active engagement with personal and political issues that were often suppressed in the dominant culture. “Zines can play an important role in alerting, educating, and mobilizing people to collectively take actions against the system in power. Grrrl zines, in particular, can be powerful tools to mobilize feminist cultural and political resistance” (Zobl, 2004, p. 169). In this course zines engage creative activism, teach about history, and allow learners to produce their own resources, in addition to ending the semester in a fun way.
I teach a unit on art and activism and this comes in as part of it. In this google slides presentation of the assignment, I start with a brief lecture and embedded videos/links. Then we review the assignment and I show an example I made. At the end is some additional information that is useful, but not necessary.
Some helpful notes.
- There are lots of different kinds of zines. I found it useful to limit learners to the minizine because it allowed for clear guidelines and grading criteria but, more importantly, it made it easy for them to reproduce copies of their original to share with classmates.
- I have devoted several days to in-class workshops. We spend one 75 minute class period laying out zines in class based on draft reviews learners have written. They then complete the zines at home. For our second 75 minute workshop day, students bring in 30 copies of their zines and together we cut and fold zines. These have been really fruitful times where students get to engage one another. We create a class playlist and listen to music and help one another with zines. It also serves as a lesson in the actual time it takes to create something like this – often more than an essay, but the time passes differently.
- On the last day of class, we exchange zines. I have folders where learners can submit a copy of their zine if they would like it included in the BMCC zine library and another if they would like it included in the archives. Most end up proud of their work and want it included.
2 thoughts on “ZINES!”
Thanks for posting this Brianne! I’m in the middle of putting together the instructions for online zines we will make in my online Soc 100 class and this was helpful. I am trying to figure out the best way for students to share their process with one another in an online class.
This is excellent, Brianne! Thanks for sharing indeed. I LOVE zines and have been a huge fan and maker for many years. Especially in the classroom! My entry into zine culture was via Graffiti art in the mid 1980’s (tons of great resources out there). I always have a zine assignment each semester and like to collaborate in a cross CUNY campus kind of project. The final outcome(s) live online via the academic commons as well as the NYPL’s public Zine archive! (This particular zine is also a part of the BMCC libraries zine collection) I documented the whole process in this example using the commons, I hope that this helps expand the potentials! Here is the link:
https://bmccmma100.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2018/05/07/cross-cuny-bmcc-york-college-zine-collaboration/