hi there! I posted this in crafty parenting, but I thought you all could help too! I work in the library in the youth department and while the little ones are all set, I need more ideas on literacy based arts and stuff for middle schoolers and teens. Any ideas? So far we've come up with magnetic poetry, kids reading books to tape, acting out children's books, making mad libs, etc. Any ideas would be fantastic!
I personally do a lot of bookmaking with the kids, so I've got that one covered.

holly

You could have them make their own comics and graphic novels. Have them read Scott McClouds "Understanding Comics" (a great book!!)
Also you could work with scrap booking as a way of telling their own story or they can collaborate with each other on the story of the community that you live in.

What fun! How about having the kids illustrate a cover for or scene from a favorite book? I love the graphic novel idea too!

keep em coming! the ideas are great. also, this october is Teen Read Week, and the theme is poetry. I need ideas for workshops and such. maybe some sort of poetry jewelry? and the comic thing is really popular right now, I like that too. any arts/literacy stuff that would be "boy" friendly is great too....
love you all!

Writing poems on t-shirts with fabric paint is tres cool! Have them bring in a plain t-shirt, and supply them with fabric paints. Gold and silver look great on black. You can have them search the library for poems they like.

Bring blank composite notebooks which you can find for real cheap, and have them decorate the cover. They can use these journals to copy their favorite poems into, or write their own.

robots!

or even artbots!
>http://www.artbots.com or is it .org?

book thongs

the mystery journal thing is fun at that age. Use a blank journal, start off with a paragraph, (maybe take one from a book you have read together) then each day a diffrent child gets to continue the story one paragraph at a time, at the end of the year, read your book together.

what library do you work at? it's funny, b/c this is what i'll be going to school for next fall: being a YA librarian who does DIY projects involving books.
here's an idea: if you divide a sheet of paper into eighths, you can make a tiny, 32 page book. i'm all about getting kids and teens to self-publish, and it's a cheap way to start.
also, this one was done with littler ones, but you could adapt it. at the library i used to work at in pittsburgh, one of the librarians had a weekly themed storytime where the craft was a quilt. every week, the kids would make a quilt patch along a different theme by glueing (gluing?) cut out fabric scraps onto squares of fabric. after about nine weeks, they had a little quilt.
this same librarian also did a facepainting session where the kids painted themselves, where the room was all done up like backstage.

Im at the public library in Burlington, Vermont. I like making books with the kids too. During spring vacation this year, I did a week long series of bookmaking workshops, it was great. I also did a zine thing before but it kind of flopped, we are just trying to up our YA involvement, so maybe this year it would go. We'll see.

Where are you going for your MLS?

Okay ... here's my ideas before I forget! Lol. Okay, I highly suggest introducing teens to zines. I mean they can make them on anything from personal things, poetry, music, fan, or just anything else. Maybe you could even have a local zinester to come speak about zine making, the good, the bad, the profits. :o} Maybe make recycled or home made paper. I was shown this once and would love to remember how ... then tie them all up to produce a homemade journal. You can collect addresses, names, and remember ages of people looking for penpals (I would sign up even. LOVE penpalling!) and make stationary then everyone picks a name out of a hat and writes to them. This encourages learning and writing skills. Write plays. Try different theatre improvs ... like once my teacher had use pick papers out of a hat and go up on stage. On each paper was a famous quote from a play, poem, or novel ... we'd go up on stage and she'd give us a setting. To be able to sit down we had to incorporate our quote somehow, but it's all that we could say. It was quite funny. We were set at a party and one guy just went crazy dancing until he had everyone's attention before stating his quote ... it was from "Phenomenal Woman." It was one of our fave memories of the year!

zines.. are amazing for teens. I am 17 and I got introduuced to them last summer and now for a course at school we have to produce our own. then in a week or so we are going to have a zine fair in the library at our school and people can come and buy or trade them... its an amazing culture!!!