Literary Fanzine Part 1

While taking the course Teaching Writing Online last year, I was inspired to have my class create a literature fanzine. I used one of the original Star Trek fanzines from the 1960’s as my mentor text, which included essays, drawings, poetry, and short stories around the theme of Star Trek. I showed an example I created to my class at the beginning of the year, and told them that throughout the year there would be assignments asking them to respond in a creative way to the literature we were reading. These assignments were required, but not graded.

The first entry in our fanzine revolves around the book Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. The assignment was a choice of one of the following:

1. An original drawing or artwork. Choose an event from the book and illustrate it.
2. A poem. Using the words we listed in class, write an original poem. [The words were pulled from the book, specifically words used to describe Phileas Fogg]
3. A short story. In less than 1000 words, write a “deleted” scene for the book which takes place somewhere you have visited.

I scanned and trimmed the students’ contributions, added some graphics, and made several pages in a digital scrapbooking program. Here are the results: