Cartoons for the Classroom

We all know how political cartoons have been a big part of our culture since the beginning of the American Revolution.  You can look back at any major (or even minor) event in American (or World) history and there is a cartoon about it.  These cartoons are very symbolic and convey a lot of truth and meaning in just one picture.  It is good for history teachers to expect their students to be able to interpret the meaning of these cartoons.  But how?  Wonder no more!  Because while I was browsing some Educational Technology blogs, I found Cartoons for the Classroom on the Free Technology for Teachers blog.

Cartoons for the Classroom has hundreds of political cartoons on it that even have lesson plans associated with them.  Now, when you want to analyze a political cartoon, you can go to the cartoon that you want and click "download lesson."  It opens it up in a adobe reader and it gives suggestions for how to lead conversation.  It even gives you learning standards to go on.  So, it leaves the guess work out of figuring out which standards you can fit into it.

Something that I think that is cool about it is that you can print out a cartoon that does not have any words in it.  You can give your students the cartoon and ask them what to write.  You can maybe even give them a little hint or push towards what you want them to write about.  You can then show them what the cartoonist wrote and why he wrote it.

There is a Cartoon Analysis Worksheet that is also available.  This lets you analyze either the cartoon provided on the website or a cartoon that you may have gotten out of your local weekly newspaper.  The worksheet breaks it all down for the student to help them understand the use of symbles and metaphors in cartoons.