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Cartoon Worksheet

Use YOUR newspaper's Toons to create Custom Lessons

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Learning standard: Comprehending and evaluating the content and artistic aspects of oral and visual presentations.

Grade Level: Middle grades and up.

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07/30/07


Tooning into the Candidates: Michael Bloomberg

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07/16/07


Tooning into the candidates: Barack Obama

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07/02/07


Tooning into the Candidates: Rudy Giuliani

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06/18/07


Tooning into the candidates: Mitt Romney

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06/04/07


Tooning into the candidates: Hillary Clinton

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05/21/07


Tooning into the candidates: John Edwards

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05/07/07


Tooning into the candidates: John McCain

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04/23/07


Animations help win the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Cartooning

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04/09/07


Money & Politics: A history lesson

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03/26/07


Toon-o-matic for teachers and students debuts online

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03/12/07


Sunshine Week: Spotlighting government secrecy

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02/26/07


Taking swipes at the auto industry

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02/12/07


Tooning into a media frenzy

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01/29/07


Obama: A study in early caricatures

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01/15/07


Welcoming the new congress in cartoons

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01/01/07


Alternative approaches

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12/11/06


"If you're not doing anything wrong, you need not worry"

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11/27/06


A racist tirade spotlights the N-word

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11/13/06


Donkeys, Elephants and Elections

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10/30/06


An educated electorate (?) takes its mid-term

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10/16/06


For politicians, re-election is Job 1!

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10/02/06


Defining the Separation of Powers

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09/18/06


Conflicting Constitutional Views

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09/04/06


Liberty vs. Security

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08/21/06


Tooning into the Cosmos

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08/07/06


A parody of broken promises

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07/24/06


Drawing a familiar analogy

A useful weapon in a cartoonist's arsenal

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07/10/06


The Borgman Challenge

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07/03/06


How Matt Davies carries a toon

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06/19/06


Al Gore heats up a debate

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06/05/06


Drawing English into the spotlight

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05/22/06


Government snooping: Different views

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05/08/06


The making of an editorial cartoon

Clay Bennet's advice for aspiring editorial cartoonists

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04/24/06


May Day for Immigration debate

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04/10/06


Xenophobia

Ugly stereotypes and prejudice mark early anti-immigration cartoons

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03/27/06


The First Amendment? D'oh!

Most of us know more about the Simpsons than we do our basic freedoms

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03/13/06


The right to know vs. government secrecy

Sunshine Week spotlights the Freedom of Information Act

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02/27/06


Social issues: Taking on tobacco

Cartoonists weigh in on smoking bans

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02/13/06


Freedom of Speech vs. respect for religion

When is it ok to be offensive?

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01/30/06


Hamas and the pitfalls of democratic elections

The landslide victory of the Islamic militant group Hamas in Palestinian elections has shocked the world.

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01/16/06


Defining economics visually

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01/02/06


Celebrating Ben Franklin’s cartoon contribution

Ben Franklin’s “Join, or Die” cartoon was the first political cartoon to be published in an American newspaper.

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12/12/05


Support your LOCAL cartoonist

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11/28/05


College as concept

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11/14/05


Fat Cats living high off the hog

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10/31/05


Ebony and Ivory Revisited

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10/17/05


Unhealthy outlook

As more companies file for bankruptcy protection, employees worry about the loss of their health care insurance.

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10/03/05


Gas Pains? Been there, Done that!

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09/19/05


Constitutional Battleground: The Supreme Court

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09/05/05


Catastrophe Cartoons

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08/22/05


Strangled by Special Interests

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08/08/05


Visual cliches

Avoid them like the plague

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07/25/05


Why is Freedom of Speech a burning issue?

Protecting the flag or giving up one of our rights?

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07/11/05


Loaded with symbols

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06/27/05


Drawing on a familiar icon

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06/13/05


With apologies
to . . .

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05/30/05


Putting a face on our fears

Mr. Atom has evolved into something called Weapons of Mass Destruction

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05/16/05


Humor helps hammer a point home

Cartoonists have a field day with the President's Social Security plan

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05/02/05


Wartime censorship

What lesson does the fate of The Masses, a magazine that fell victim to wartime censorship, hold for today's cartoonists and publishers?

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04/18/05


Freedom is not universal

In February, the prime minister of Turkey sued political cartoonist Musa Kart for drawing him as a cat.

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04/04/05


Toons as tributes

Cartoonists address the death of Pope John Paul II

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03/21/05


A call to action

Exposing the world's failure to respond to the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan.

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03/07/05


Saying it without words

The Middle East just can't seem to get it together when it comes to building a lasting peace.

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02/21/05


Even Canada toons out as NHL ices season

Big headlines but few tears, even in Canada,Big headlines but few tears, even in Canada

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02/07/05


Dark Laughter

Until his death in 1995, Oliver Harrington was considered the dean of African-American cartoonists.

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01/24/05


Explaining Social Security with a metaphor

A visual analogy can help you better understand an issue

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01/10/05


Tackling tort reform

Containing costs or giving up your rights. Those really are the two sides at issue in what’s become known as tort reform.

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12/27/04


Cartoons and Culture

To most Americans, Alen Lauzan's cartoon appears meaningless. To the rest of the world, it's an obvious indictment of U.S. policies.

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12/13/04


Seasonal Symbols

The image of Santa is a useful tool for cartoonists.

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11/29/04


The competition of ideas

A free exchange of ideas and opinions is what gives us the information to form our own opinions and not allow the government to think for us.

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11/15/04


Keep current through a cartoonist's commentary

To study political cartoons is to study history in the making.

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11/01/04


Tooning in the turnout

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10/18/04


Caricaturing a campaign's final innings

America waits as candidates trade grand slams

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10/04/04


Now that's debatable!

As candidates spar over issues like Iraq, cartoonists take note

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09/20/04


Attacking all those attack ads

Negative advertising works in political campaigns. That's why we see so much of it.

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09/06/04


Learning to interpret a convention

Now that the Democrats and Republicans have completed their nominating conventions, what exactly did we learn?

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08/23/04


Drawing attention to Sudan

Cartoons can force us to focus on issues we might otherwise ignore.

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08/09/04


Tooning into The Games

The Olympic Games generate plenty of hoopla. And that's aside from the actual sporting events.

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07/26/04


Unconventional approach

Political cartoons won't give you all the news. But they are a great way to get you thinking about the issues behind the news.

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07/12/04


Comforting the afflicted

At its best, a political cartoon can focus our attention on social issues in ways words alone can't.

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06/28/04


Fine tooning a candidate's message

In order to appreciate a cartoonist's subtle jabs, you often need some background information.

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06/14/04


Timely vs. Timeless

Politcial cartoons satirize very specific events of the day. But some move beyond the moment and explore timeless themes that remain current even decades later.

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05/31/04


The many faces of Uncle Sam

Since about 1834 a white-haired man wearing a top hat, striped pants and a goatee has personified our national identity.

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05/17/04


Drawing Inspiration

Three different eras, three different issues, one common theme: Someone else is to blame.

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05/03/04


B.D. brings the war home

As a character in the Doonesbury comic strip is gravely injured in Iraq, we examine the role of comics and commentary.

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04/19/04


Face Time

Presidents are far and away the most frequently depicted characters in political cartoons, so their caricatures change over time, evolve and often take on a life of their own.

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04/05/04


Nothing is more patriotic than social criticism

Editorial cartoonists have made a profound contribution to our democracy by pointing out the naked truths of our emperors.

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03/22/04


Taking a Stand

As persuasive art, political cartoons are really editorials -- propaganda meant to provoke a response.

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03/08/04


Draw your own conclusions

Download the discussion sheet as well as this blank version of the cartoon so your class can try out their own captions before discussing the artist's version.

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02/23/04


Don't get it? You're not alone

Political cartoonists expect a lot from you, just so they can get their message across.

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02/09/04


Symbolism: Peace

Peace is a tough concept to draw. But that's where symbols come in handy.

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01/26/04


Literary Allusion vs. Pop Culture

Fear Factor or Falstaff? It's no contest. Shakespeare, Faust and even biblical figures have pretty much been voted off the island.

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01/12/04


Primary Targets

Primary election season (January through July) is the perfect time to start a scrapbook of campaign cartoons to track the election.

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12/22/03


Drawn to Freedom

When American political cartoonists anger somebody, they might get a letter and a few phone calls. Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar gets death threats.

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12/08/03


When Women Toon In

Meet some of the women who have left their mark on political cartooning

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11/24/03


The Political Dr. Seuss

Before he became the best selling American author of all time, Theodor Seuss Geisel was a political cartoonist for a New York newspaper.

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11/10/03


Bushwacked!

Caricatures ambush even presidents. So how do political cartoonists get away with it? What happens if the president gets mad?

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10/27/03


From Toons to Icons

Artists get credit for Teddy Bears, hot dogs, Uncle Sam and even Santa. Some of it is even true!

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09/29/03


Party Animals

How did we settle on those symbols for the Republicans and Democrats?

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09/11/03


9/11 Revisited

More than half the politcal cartoonists in the nation drew the same cartoon on the same day, Sept. 11, 2001.

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09/01/03


Drawing the Line

They speak in a visual language of caricatures and symbols. And their job is to have opinions -- even if they upset somebody along the way

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