Learning with cartoons

Teresa Plana Vidal

USING CARTOONS AS A LEARNING STRATEGY

Humour is just another defense against the universe.

Mel Brooks

Humour is also a way of saying something serious.

T. S. Eliot Um… I think I’ll go home now

because the kids will be bathed and ready for bed.

I think I’ll stay until 10, because if I go home earlier I’ll have to

take the dog for a walk

OBJECTIVES• Help to

understand abstract contents

OBJECTIVES

• Facilate the comprehension of graphic messages in newspapers.

OBJECTIVES• Get to know the work place as part of the

social environment that the student forms part of as a citizen .

Except in Spain, where 90% of the population is allergic

… to lack of job security … to professional hate mongers (people who criticise and create bad feeling for the sake of it) … To the cost of housing … To banks… To violence … To anti-social swindlers… To Bush… Yes, and to moustache

“30% of Europeans suffer from one type of allergy or another …”

• They raise curricular contents.

CHARACTERISTICS

• They make use of legal and economic concepts.

CHARACTERISTICS

• They use subjects such as law, economy, business or taxes as some of their main arguments.

CHARACTERISTICS

• They suggest legal and/or socioeconomic questions

CHARACTERISTICS

CHARACTERISTICS • They help us to deduce concepts or

induce us to apply concepts explained in class

• They use rigorous arguments

CHARACTERISTICS

• They suggest didactic reasoning

CHARACTERISTICS

• They discuss them in an educational

context.

CHARACTERISTICS

A) They help us to: explain, search and relate.

¿Can you explain what a mayor, may and may not do?Relate: vote, democracy, people, power and mayor

ACTIVITIES

¿The public are members of a ... society?

¿Why does the man hate this situation?

¿What kind of assembly is this?

40 years of cursing the income tax I pay and I end up with no pension!

B) The students must find the logical inconsistency.

C) They discover new concepts and meanings.

I don’t believe in”No” or in abstaining, so the only option is“well, I suppose so”

1) What does the cartoon refer to?

2) What is the issue?

3) What other possibilities are there?

Conclusions 1. These jokes are not funny. Newspaper cartoons often reflect social realities that we don’t like.

Conclusions2. Many of these jokes are difficult to understand, they presuppose certain knowledge or attitudes.

Conclusions3. With explanations given in class and applying what they have learnt to the cartoon, students are able to recover specific references and apply them in different contexts. They may even relate them to and interprete quite complex ideas.

ThankThanks!s!

Teresa Plana Vidal