Political cartoons

A lesson used in a Senior Authority English class to teach students how to analyse visual images in preparation for the QCS test. It allows students to practise their use of the following core skills or common curriculum elements (CCEs): CCE 5 Interpreting the meaning of pictures; CCE 33 Inferring; and CCE 43 Analysing.

This lesson provides recent political cartoons from Australian cartoonists David Pope (from The Canberra Times) and Mark Knight from The Herald Sun. Many are about the Double Dissolution election or the recent census but there are some about the great barrier reef and privatizing medicare.

This lesson provides a brief overview of the history of political cartoons in Australia. It reveals how they work and what can be learned from studying them. It revisits the concept satire and defines many of the persuasive / satirical devices they use (e.g. symbolism, caricature, labels, analogy, irony, juxtaposition, and exaggeration). It has a few example analyses and then gives the students questions to ask themselves when analyzing a political cartoon. Students then answer these questions using the cartoons provided (mostly about refugee issues).