Introducing editorial cartoons and cultural memory
Concept: How cartoons “speak to” a particular audience / viewer.
Objectives:
 To introduce students to visual literacy and how it relies on a common stock of
knowledge.
 To introduce students to how images communicate and with what effects.
 To examine how editorial pictures present an explicit judgement and a one-sided
reading.
Intro: Ask students about culture and what it means to them, and have them point out
things in the classroom that are culturally significant. For example, earrings may have
significance in western culture that a girl is approaching adolescence, or that boys wear
only one earring and may signify rebellion.
Review with students familiar persuasive genres, such as editorial columns and
advertising. Explain that these genres also rely on conventions, and without them we
couldn’t communicate meanings. [these genres have one point of view, are emotional,
can persuade, etc.]
Activities:
1. Distribute the handout for homework or read together in class.
A brief history of political cartoons
2. As a group answer the discussion questions.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the purpose of an editorial cartoon?
2. What would an audience then have to know to be able to interpret these cartoons?
(historical knowledge of scripture, of contemporary church politics, conventions
of portraying Jesus / Pope)
3. Would a more literate audience today find it easier or harder to interpret these
historical images? (need historical knowledge of Christian / Jewish scripture,
understanding of the Reformation politics and issues, conventions of portrayal)
4. Why are political cartoons so effective? (Answers might include because they are
humorous, a picture is worth a 1000 words, emotional impact, etc).
5. Would editorial cartoons today be as effective with a more literate audience?
What about a less literate audience?
3. Print the cartoons or transfer them to an overhead.
4. Distribute the visual allusion worksheet. As a group, ask students to identify literary
allusions (keep count). In small groups, have students complete the worksheet and report
back to the class.
Conclusion
Remind students that all genres of communication use certain recognizable conventions.
Cartoonists draw on a rich pool of historical, literary, and cultural references. Lacking an
understanding of these conventions, certain people are excluded from the message. Ask
which audiences may not understand the cartoons (include young people who aren’t
widely read!).
Visual literacy is important because images have rhetorical power; that is, images have
consequences in the world and ideas have results. Images figure centrally in today’s
environment, and the goal of this unit is to examine how images can be used to
communicate.