Creating a Visual Narrative
4th Grade Lesson about personal narratives and the accessibility of art through creating zines.
What is a Zine?
Brainstorming
We start the lesson discussing our key vocabulary with a focus on how something like a zine makes art more accessible to everyone. Art is not just created to hang in museums and galleries. Art is about self-expression and voicing your ideas and experiences to the world. Students are given a series of guided questions to answer and help them think about what is important to them in their unique lives and how they could visually depict their ideas.
Crafting Zines
Next I show zine exemplars and provide templates for how the zine layout will look and we practice folding and making our mock-ups.
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Illustrating Zines
Students will next illustrate their zines with their personal narrative. The last day of the project is set aside for a zine exchange. I make photocopies of the students zines so they can trade their artwork with their classmates. They are not allowed to ask for a copy of classmate's zine without being willing to give them one of their own.
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The criteria for their zine is:
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Neat craftsmanship, paper is folded carefully
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Pencil lines must be outlined with a sharpie
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There must be a title on the cover page
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There must be content on every page
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