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