Grades 6 through 8 / Lesson Plans

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Cartoon Scavenger Hunt

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Objectives: Students will become familiar with social and political commentary as portrayed in editorial cartoons.

Materials: Computer lab with internet access-1 station per 2 students; handout

Activities: Explore the visual language of editorial cartoons to gain a better understanding of the characterization of issues in the press.

Handout: Click here for the Scavenger Hunt handout that you can print out.

Teacher Procedure

Student Activities

Set	Ask students if they were to draw an editorial cartoon about the major news story of the day [give specific example] what kinds of things they might use to illustrate the event and their point of view.	Discussion. Contribute to list of objects.
Instruct	Direct students to log onto interent & proceed to www.cagle.com & select editorial cartoons contents page from the left hand navigation column then select editorial cartoons:page 1 from the contents page. Proceed through cartoons pages. Ask what objects students see in the editorial cartoons. Certain objects are common to editorial cartooning -they are like a vocabulary list. Distribute handout and direct students to look at all the pages of editorial cartoons to complete the hunt.	Active listening & opening web pages. Discussion.
Guided Practice	Circulate to keep students on task & verify entries. (Can use the honor system, rubber stamp, signature, etc.) Act as resource.	Students will look at all editorial cartoons on all pages and search for all the items on the list. They will record them by citing the cartoonist & the event depicted.
Closure	Direct discussion. Get students to speculate on why certain objects were extremely hard to find.	Present results of search- which were easy to find, which difficult. Why?

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Homework:

Choose one of the easy to find objects from the list and propose some reasons that it appears so frequently.

Evaluation:

Completion of the list, written assignment and discussion.

Extension:

Have students generate an addendum to the list, of objects they feel are part of the visual language of commentary.

NOTE:

This activity may be used over several days or as a filler at the end of class when students are working independently in the computer lab.Could be a long term project, even extending over the course of a semester, with some type of recognition for the student(s) finding the most items off the list.