Satire and Political Cartoons

Hi, class! I'm sorry that neither I nor Ms. Lowman are here today (I'm sick, she has a family emergency), but what I've got you doing is what we would have been doing anyway. Please make sure to read the Pages tab on our class on My Big Campus because it has instructions on everything you are to do today.

We are beginning a unit on satire, and political cartoons are one form of satire. Take a minute to look up the definition of satire, then look closely at the political cartoons below. In order to fully understand a political cartoon, you must understand the issue behind the image and then you can determine what/who specifically is being ridiculed or scorned. For the two political cartoons, I'd like you to answer the following questions:

1.  What is the issue the cartoonist is ridiculing (you might have to research the news from last week a bit if you didn't watch/listen then)?
2. What or who is specifically being ridiculed or scorned?
3. What is it that the cartoonist wants you, the reader, to think about with this cartoon?
4. Who is the specific audience these cartoons are targeting?

Can Protest Candidates Win?

Read this article: Charles Darwin Got 4000 Votes in Georgia

What do you think?  If you could have written anyone in for the election, who would you have put and why?

Who Should Be Our President?

Which candidate should win and why?  Give 3 substantial reasons to convince me to agree with you.

What's going on?

Go to one of these websites, pick and article that is interesting to you (it must be about politics!) and tell us about it.

It's All Politics: NPR
News and Politics- Slate