What’s So Funny?
NCCSS 2015
AnneMarie Walter
Angela Johnson
Rachel Tallent

What are Primary Sources?
• An original item or record that has survived from the past and was part of a direct personal experience of a time or event.

• An original item or record that has survived from the past and was part of a direct personal experience of a time or event.
Long ago past

• An original item or record that has survived from the past and was part of a direct personal experience of a time or event.
Recent past

Persuasive
Techniques:
• Symbolism the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.
– Symbol - - something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign.

Persuasive
Techniques:
• Bias
- - a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Persuasive
Techniques:
• Irony
- - the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning; or undercuts its literal meaning.

Persuasive
Techniques:
• Caricature
- - a picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.
• Stereotype
- - A vastly oversimplified view of a group

Persuasive
Techniques:
• Exaggeration
• - - magnified beyond the limits of truth; overstated; represent disproportionately.

• Labeling
• - - a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual movement, etc.

Cartoon analysis http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsan dactivities/activities/political-cartoon/index.html

Hands-on Activity
Use the stickers to point to the persuasive techniques in your cartoon.

What’s So Funny?
• Why do students need to have a body of knowledge about a cartoon’s topic in order to be able to interpret a cartoon?

What’s So Funny?
• What are some of the ways you can support students in obtaining that knowledge?

What’s So Funny?
• Why do you think that we are looking at cartoons from recent history in this activity rather than cartoons from, say, the 18 th
Century?

What’s So Funny?
• What are some factors that you will use when choosing cartoons for use in your classroom?

Motives for Imperialism

Motives for Imperialism

Motives for Imperialism

Why Use Primary Sources?
•
– Help student relate in a personal way to events of the past
– Promote deeper understanding of history as a series of human events
– Encourage students to seek additional evidence through research
– First person accounts of events make them more real
.

Why Use Primary Sources?
•
– Requires students to be both critical & analytical
– Primary sources are often incomplete and have little context. Student must use prior knowledge and work with multiple primary sources to find patterns
– Questions of creator bias, purpose and point of view may challenge students’ assumptions
.

Why Use Primary Sources?
•
– Encourage student to wrestle with contradictions & compare multiple sources, confronting the complexity of the past.
– Form reasoned conclusions based on evidence, connect primary sources to the context, synthesizing information from multiple sources
– Integrate new knowledge with prior knowledge to deepen understanding.

Library of Congress

What’s So Funny?
•
– Summer Institute
– Online classes
– Workshops at your school
•
•
All materials are posted to www.mhu.edu/tps