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Studying cartoons can be an engaging experience for students but it can also present students with considerable difficulties. Cartoons are typically highly complex texts that are often very hard to interpret and students need to develop appropriate reading strategies to interpret cartoons effectively. In this article Ulrich Schnakenberg explores ways of scaffolding cartoon analysis and exemplifies cartoon analysis by interpreting cartoons relating to key watersheds in German history. Schnakenberg also shows how cartoon analysis can be used to explore multiple perspectives in history.
The pros (and cons) of cartoon analysis
Students love cartoons - just as they love pictures and films in general. This is already a good starting point. What makes cartoons particularly attractive as a teaching medium, however, is the fact that they not only motivate and invite the students to think: one can argue fftey almost force them to think and to think critically.
Cartoons are by definition riddles that ask to be deciphered, an activity that can be enjoyed by students of all age groups and all abilities. Cartoons can be used as initial stimulus material (ISM) to motivate learners and to stimulate student thinking.1 While this holds true mainly for rather straightforward drawings which can be described and interpreted in a few minutes, other, more difficult cartoons could serve as the central piece of evidence to be analysed during one or even more lessons. Additionally, cartoons can be used to recapitulate subject matter already learned and to transfer as well as link existing knowledge to new contexts.2
Undeniably, working with cartoons in the history classroom brings many advantages. Nevertheless, as with any teaching materials, one has to be careful of certain specific dangers which should not be ignored here (see Figure 2).
Far from being an easy eye-catcher, cartoons are often rather difficult to understand and interpret. As Joseph O'Neill reminds us:
[M]any teachers continue to underestimate the difficulties of the cartoon, assuming that it is a sop to the illiterate and easy meat for the able. Consequently there is a danger that cartoons will not be taught with that rigour which is invariably applied to other types of sources.3
A particular difficulty consists usually of the decoding of symbols, personifications and other stylistic devices frequently used by...