Analyzing Political Cartoons

LINK PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: the teacher will ask students if they have ever seen political cartoons in the paper. They will also ask them if they have ever tried to analyze the cartoon and find the meaning.
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES.

• Go over the strategies to analyze a political cartoon by using the “elements of a political cartoon” as well as the “How to analyze a political cartoon” table.
  • This example will be done with the technology political ad (allows students to get used to the elements of analyzing a cartoon with material they are familiar with).  
• Discuss the main ideas and help scaffold off each other to learn the overall message of the political cartoon.
• Next, break the students up in groups and pass out a blank version of the “elements of a political cartoon”. They will discuss with members of their groups to label all of the elements found and uncover the overall message. (Literacy tests, Andrew Johnson)
• After, they will combine with the other groups that had the same cartoon and compare/ contrast their answers.
• Finally, students will share as a group their political cartoon and the elements about their cartoon.
  • They will also tell their overall message of their political cartoon.
• Students will then create their own political cartoon using a topic that has been discussed during the Reconstruction Unit.
• After they have finished creating their political cartoon, they will be given a peer’s cartoon (split students up in pairs and give opposite cartoon) and will have to try to analyze the meaning.
  • Students will then group up with their partner and discuss is the intended overall meaning matches the overall meaning the student analyzing was able to discover.

The teacher can check the poltical cartoon drawing as well as the charts that students fill out in order to see if they can properly analyze a poltical cartoon/ understand what the purpose of a poltical cartoon is.