How to Run a Zine Workshop: A 60 or 90-Minute Lesson Plan

A zine workshop is one of the most reliable sessions you can run. It needs almost no budget, works across ages and subjects, and every participant walks out with something finished that they made. The trick is structure: a first zine session goes wrong when the folding takes too long or the subject is too open.

The plans below are built around the one-sheet mini zine, because it needs no staples, takes ten minutes to fold, and fits a single class period. A 90-minute version adds a photocopied, stapled booklet.

Learning goals

By the end of the session, participants can:

• Explain in one sentence what a zine is: a small, self-published booklet made for love rather than profit.
• Fold and cut a one-sheet mini zine and put eight pages in order.
• Plan a short piece across eight pages: cover, hook, middle, ending and back page.
• Share or swap their zine, and name one way to copy and distribute it.

These map neatly onto writing, art and design, media literacy and personal and social education goals, which makes zines easy to justify on a lesson plan.

Materials for 20 people

• 60 sheets of Letter or A4 copy paper (three per person, so mistakes cost nothing)
• 20 copies of a one-sheet template (free in the reader bonuses)
• 10 pairs of scissors, one between two
• Black fineliners and markers, one of each per person (black copies best)
• Pencils and erasers
• Glue sticks, one between two
• A box of old magazines, maps and printed scraps for collage
• Two or three finished example zines to pass round
• For the 90-minute plan: 2 long-reach staplers and access to a photocopier

Before the session

• Fold two example zines yourself, start to finish, the day before. Your hands need to remember the steps.
• Lay out one tray per table with paper, pens, scissors, glue and scraps, so nobody waits for materials.
• Put the eight fold steps on the board or a printed sheet everyone can see.
• Choose three prompts per table in advance; an open “make anything” brief stalls most groups.
• Check your photo permissions if you want to document the work.

Plan A: 60 minutes, one-sheet mini zine

Time	Activity	Facilitator notes
0–5 min	Welcome. Pass round examples. “A zine is a small, self-made magazine about anything you like. Today you will make one.”	Keep it short; the folding is the hook.
5–15 min	Fold a blank dummy together, step by step. Everyone numbers the pages 1–8 in pencil.	Demonstrate each fold, then wait until every sheet is done. Pair quick folders with slower ones.
15–20 min	Choose a subject. Each table picks from three prompts, then shrinks it: one day, one street, one list.	“A zine about my day” is always allowed.
20–45 min	Make the pages, on the folded dummy or flat on a template. Draw, write, collage.	Remind people that page 1 is the front cover and page 8 the back. Ask “what happens on page 4?”
45–52 min	Finish and credit. Name, date and “free” or a price on the back.	Fast finishers start a second zine or design a cover for a friend.
52–60 min	Share and swap. Trade in pairs or read one page aloud.	Sharing aloud is always optional.

Plan B: 90 minutes, half-letter booklet

Time	Activity	Facilitator notes
0–10 min	Welcome and examples; fold a two-sheet dummy in front of the group and number it 1–8.	Show how pages pair: 8 | 1 and 2 | 7 on the outer sheet.
10–20 min	Thumbnail an 8-page zine on a planner sheet.	Stress a clear cover and a back page with a name.
20–60 min	Make the pages at half-letter size, two per side of a sheet, following the page map.	Help with lettering and layout; keep text inside the safe area.
60–75 min	Photocopy double-sided (flip on short edge), fold and nest.	One helper runs the copier; test one copy first.
75–85 min	Bind with a long-reach stapler: two staples on the fold.	Two staplers keep the queue short.
85–90 min	Swap copies and tidy up.	Offer a copy to the library’s zine collection, with permission.

The page order for the booklet is in the imposition guide, and binding options are in the bindings guide.

The fold demonstration, in eight sentences

Say less than you think. Show each fold, then wait.

1. “Hold your paper wide, like a TV screen.”
2. “Fold the top down to the bottom. Corners together first, then press from the middle out. Open it.”
3. “Fold left to right, crease, open. Now you have a cross.”
4. “Fold each short edge to the middle line, crease, open. Count the boxes: eight.”
5. “Fold it in half the short way. Cut from the fold along the middle line, one box wide, and stop at the crease.”
6. “Open it. Can you see a window in the middle two boxes?”
7. “Fold it the long way with the window at the top. Push the ends together gently, like an accordion.”
8. “Fold the arms flat into a little book. Flip through it. You just made a zine.”

The full illustrated steps are in the mini zine tutorial, and the lesson plan PDF includes a photocopiable student fold sheet.

Choosing prompts that work in a room

Open briefs freeze groups; specific ones free them. Good workshop prompts are small, personal or useful, and can be done without research:

• One ordinary day, hour by hour
• How to do one thing you are good at
• Eight things in your bag
• A guide to this building or this street
• A comic with no words
• A zine for someone in this room

More are in our zine ideas guide, and the free prompt deck has 96 on cut-apart cards, including a Classroom theme.

Access, inclusion and differentiation

• Pre-folded sheets for anyone with limited hand mobility, and the option to dictate words to a helper.
• Large-print instructions: enlarge the fold sheet (129% takes Letter to Tabloid; 141% takes A4 to A3).
• Wordless routes: comics, collage and list zines suit anyone who would rather not write much.
• Stretch tasks: a secret poster on the back of the sheet, a second issue, or a group zine for the library.
• Sharing is optional. Not everyone wants to read a personal zine aloud. Swapping silently is fine.

Assessing a zine

Keep it light. Look for eight pages in order and the right way up, a cover with a title, a back page with a name, and one clear idea carried across the pages. A two-minute exit slip (what it is about, the part they are proudest of, what they would change, who they could share it with) tells you more than marking ever will.

Extending into a course

A four-session course builds naturally from here:

1. What zines are; folding and a first mini zine.
2. Booklets and bindings: staples and the pamphlet stitch.
3. Layout, lettering and collage.
4. Copying an edition, swapping, and a group zine for the library.

Get the printable plan

Download the free Zine Workshop Lesson Plan from the reader bonuses: both timed plans, the materials list, the demonstration script, a student fold sheet and exit slips, in US Letter and A4. The Complete Zine Making Handbook includes the workshop plans alongside the 25 projects you can build a longer course from.