Because this assignment works on a number of critical levels that encourages verbal and visual literacies, the use of qualitative research methods, and cultural and rhetorical analysis, it is important to introduce students to concepts and definitions that will help them work through the various complexities of the assignment. For example, defining subcultures, ethnographies, and zines as well as showing examples of each is a must. A preliminary exercise can have students look at different sites on the Internet and define what is and is not a subculture based on criteria developed that describe subcultural activities. Also using mainstream magazines and print zines can reinforce the generic qualities of each cultural artifact. 

Originally, this assignment was designed for a sophomore-level composition course whose aim was to develop critical media skills through writing and reading about different kinds of texts, such as film, advertisements, television, electronic environments and traditional print texts. The end of the semester project had students write a piece that could be published on the zine that they analyzed. Thus, if a student analyzed a literary zine such as Jon Williams did (see Sample Assignment), then she would submit a piece of writing to that zine for publication. Conversely, students can produce their own web page and link it to a zine they have analyzed.  In any case, this assignment should come later in the semester when students have already worked through assignments that ask them to analyze visual texts such as advertisements, films, or photographs. It should also be seen as a long-term research project, one that should take three to four weeks to complete and that may still be in process when turned in.

In the rest of this paper, I intend to provide information on topics and issues I consider essential when implementing this assignment such as a discussion of qualitative research methods, the development of multiple literacies, and recommendations for textbooks and readings. 

A challenging and often perplexing aspect of this assignment is its emphasis on students' engagement with qualitative research methods such as observation and participation, case studies, interviews and note-taking. Because students may not have used these methods before, it's a good idea to spend time in class discussing these methods, their pluses and minuses, as well as the ethical dimensions of researcher positionality. For example, instructors should encourage self-reflexivity by asking students to question their position in the study and the eventual text they will construct: What is the researcher's role in this study? As an observer, a participant, a native informant? Chapter Two from John Van Maanen's Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography and/or James Zebroski's Thinking through Theory are two helpful resources for examining the issues related to constructing ethnographic accounts. For students, Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein's textbook, Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research, introduces many important ethnographic concepts and key terms in a user-friendly manner. Providing students with examples of ethnographic studies, particularly those that study on-line communities, is also a good idea. (See Hawisher and Selfe). 

Students should somehow be linked to the subculture they are studying. This link may be a common pleasure or activity, the adulation of a particular cultural icon such as Michael Jordan, Benicio del Toro, or Princess Diana, or through gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Part of understanding qualitative research methods is to study one’s own investment in the culture she is studying. As Comstock and Addison note,  "Critical participation involves more than analyzing rhetorics and ideologies at work in these cybercultures; it also involves locating oneself both as researcher and as participant in relation to a number of online and offline subcultures or discourse communities" (253). Using a site's message board, interviewing the web master and other participants, and acknowledging through e-mail one's research intentions are essential to understanding how research can both power and disempower subjects.

Lastly, the most difficult part of this assignment asks students to take their detailed notes and observations, interviews, and other research materials and construct an ethnographic account of the subculture they have studied. Again, it is important to provide samples of previous student-ethnographers or from contemporary ethnographies to show how the process of selection and representation of details about the subculture and its participants take place. Questioning what is excluded and what is emphasized, how the student-ethnographer accounts for her own positionality, and what methods may have been overused (such as the reliance on observation) and which ones were not utilized at all can reveal the limitations of the ethnographic account. 

In his essay, "Developing Vernacular Literacies and Multidisciplinary Pedagogies," Garrett-Petts argues that teaching visual literacy as an essential component of a writing classroom engages students in "an increasingly complex cultural conversation" (84). This conversation is especially obvious when considering how zine editors appropriate images from popular and mainstream culture to construct alternative or resistant arguments to cultural assumptions. For example, the on-line zine Fat? So! For people who don't apologize for their size, as its name implies, rejects the assumption that people should attain an ideal weight in order to be seen as acceptable. Not only is this assertion found in articles that cover weight issues but it is seen in the use of visuals on the site that emphasize body sizes of all types. Thus, a way to determine differences between zines and mainstream media is to compare the different ways that visuals are used and to discuss what the underlying values of these images are. 

To focus on how issues of style are intricately connected to content, I bring in a variety of mainstream magazines and zines for students to look through and compare specific representations.  Because zines often set themselves in opposition to some aspect of mainstream culture, it is important to discuss how they do this. Even zines that appear apolitical or do not have an overt ideology such as many on-line literary zines can be seen as opposing certain aspects of mainstream publishing. For example, in his sample essay, Jon Williams argues that on-line literary e-zines provide publishing and interactive opportunities that print literary journals do not offer. Their inclusive aspects make them appealing to writers who may be just beginning or who do not want to just compete with other writers but want to befriend them. 

There are a number of good textbooks that can be used in a course that involves ethnographic research, cultural analysis, and electronic technologies. The book that I used Cultural Attractions/Cultural Distraction: Critical Literacy in Contemporary Contexts provides a good range of articles that critique media, contest pernicious representations, and engage with issues regarding electronic technology. Another textbook I would recommend that is more focused on literacy and technology issues is Literacy, Technology, and Society: Confronting the Issues. Seeing and Writing, a recent Bedford/St. Martin publication, has a strong emphasis on developing multiple literacies and includes an excerpt from John Berger's Ways of Seeing, which is good for introducing students to ideological issues surrounding visual literacy. Lastly, a rhetoric that I used, Good Reasons, was helpful on a number of levels in providing information on creating effective arguments, using qualitative research techniques, and for those who intend to have students create web sites, designing electronic documents. What is most important for this assignment in terms of reading is for basic concepts such as subcultures, zines, and ethnographic research to be defined. Articles that not only define concepts but provide good illustrations of them will increase students' understanding of what the assignment is asking them to do.

This assignment has a number of different options that allow students greater mobility in choosing a format for their evaluation. Students should have the option to create a web project depending on students' and instructor' computer abilities. At the same time, those students who feel more comfortable with traditional print essays should not feel pressured to produce an electronic text. Students may also work in groups to produce a series of evaluations around a particular subculture such as 70s fans or grrrl zines. Providing options for text production as well as specific criteria for each option will enable students to find their comfort level with technology. It will also allow students as a whole to work at their own speed and within their capacity.