History Homework Assignment
Roots of Government
Assignment: Analyze the historical climate of ONE political cartoon in an
essay of three to five paragraphs. Create a thesis statement in paragraph 1
that shows your understanding of the political cartoon content. Focus on one
cartoon for your written analysis.
1. Look at political cartoons 13, 14 and 15. Try to think about what the
artist’s message is to the viewer, why was this cartoon created with
the components included and was this cartoonist clear in making his
point to his audience, support your thoughts with details from the
cartoon.
2. Answer questions on the back of each cartoon. The information and
subject matter of each cartoon is about the critical period when the
13 states had to wrestle with their frustrations under the Articles of
Confederation.
3. You decide what big idea you would like to focus on and write a focus
statement, a thesis statement that states your big idea you will
support throughout your paper. Be sure to provide facts from your
answers written in step 2 above in your paper to support your idea.
4. Create an outline of your 3 to 5 paragraph essay.
5. Write a rough draft of your essay. Punctuate each sentence properly.
6. Edit your essay. Use best word choice, avoid ‘it, they, things, stuff’
7. Write a final edited draft that contains 3 to 5 five sentence
paragraphs, each with topic sentence, 3 supporting details and a
conclusion sentence.
8. Turn in final word processed draft, outline, rough draft and attach
political cartoon(s) analyzed.
Guidelines : Word choice counts always. Avoid repetitive use of
words such as he, they, it, I, things, stuff, but
Think about the steps you have used in analyzing art, what do you
see, what symbols are used by the artist, what shapes or space is
included, indicate if you think the cartoon is effective, makes a
clear point, uses symbols that are appropriate or humorous, and
share your interpretation of the meaning of the cartoon with
historical detail to support your ideas.
Title of Essay : Create a title for your essay that supports your
main idea, use phrase or title that communicates an idea avoiding
titles such as Essay, Writing Homework Assignment or Political
Cartoon. Be creative, give your essay a title!
Thesis statement examples:
The Articles of Confederation were weak yet a necessary step in
creating a constitution for America.
The Articles of Confederation made Americans realize how
important a stable powerful government is to keeping peace within a
country.
Independent states did not trust a strong central government
after the Revolutionary War.
A federal government that shares power with states was created
by Congress when they revised the Articles of Confederation.
The balance of creating a new national government that did not
threaten the states was a difficult task before the delegates at
the Constitutional Convention.
You may use one of the statement above, combine parts or create
your own which must be in first paragraph line 1 or line 5 only!