Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Reporting on the Commonwealth Games

25 minutes

Find Out: Cartoons in code

20 minutes

Take Action: Creating cartoons

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore political cartoon representations of the Commonwealth Games and Australian athletes
identify the literary devices and imagery used to convey context.

Success criteria

Students can:

explain literary devices and imagery present in political cartoons
create their own political cartoon portraying their opinion about an issue or event.

Prior knowledge:

For this lesson, it will be helpful for the students to have some prior knowledge of literary devices such as irony, analogy, symbolism, exaggeration and caricature.

Tune In: Reporting on the Commonwealth Games

Step 1

Explain to your students that the Commonwealth Games is a sporting event between the different nations and territories of the Commonwealth.

Literacy extension: To build student knowledge, you could use our ‘What are the Commonwealth Games?’ Factsheet and comprehension activity.

Explain that while the centre of the event is the games and the athletes, it creates opportunities for other newsworthy events and issues to be discussed. Today, we are going to explore how some of these different news items have been shared over time through 1 particular medium.

Step 2

Ask your students, ‘How can you tell if a piece of media about a newsworthy event or issue is fact or opinion?’ They may identify:

Opinions use judgement words such as ‘greatest’, ‘amazing’, and ‘worst.’
Facts are often numbers or statistics.
Opinions often rely on connotative language (words with additional meaning besides their literal or denotative meaning, eg ‘He is the underdog in this race.’ The literal meaning is that he is the lowest-ranked contender, but the connotative meaning is that he has a high chance of winning.)
Facts can be verified by a trusted source.
Opinions cannot be verified.

Ask your students, ‘If you had an opinion about a newsworthy event, what are some different formats you could use to express that opinion?’ They may suggest:

social media posts
letters to the editor
editorial pieces in a blog, magazine or newspaper
political cartoons.

Find Out: Cartoons in code

Step 1

Explain to your students that today they will focus on political cartoons about the Commonwealth Games and Australia’s athletes over time, and explore how they have represented the creators’ opinions about newsworthy events or issues. Introduce the term ‘political cartoon’ and discuss what it means. Explain to students that a political cartoon differs from a meme or a comic strip. It has specific conventions and a clear purpose.

Political cartoons are a form of visual media used to express an opinion or commentary on political events, politicians, and social issues. They combine imagery and words to convey a message, which is an opinion or commentary. Often, the message is designed to make the reader think or feel something about an issue, ie to persuade them that the issue needs to be addressed. Political cartoons are persuasive multimodal texts.

Step 2

Display the first of the political cartoons from the Political Cartoons Visual Explainer to the whole class to facilitate a class discussion. Ask your students:

What is happening in this cartoon?
Who are the main characters?
When does it take place?
Where does it take place?
If there is any dialogue, how is it indicated?
Is this cartoon meant to be funny? Why/why not?
What is the creator's opinion that is being expressed in this cartoon?
What devices have been used to convey this opinion?

Learning support: If asking your students, ‘What devices…’ is too open-ended, specifically ask them if the cartoon uses:

symbolism
exaggeration
irony
caricature
metaphor
juxtaposition
satire
labelling
analogy
parody

We have provided definitions of these terms to share with your students in the Teacher Content Information.

After this discussion, explain the following context to your students: In the 1988 Commonwealth Games, held in Kuala Lumpur, Australia sent 311 athletes and won 198 medals. England came second with 136 medals, and Canada third with 99 medals.

Ask your students, ‘Does knowing this context change your interpretation of this cartoon?’

Step 3

Divide students into pairs or groups of 3. Students choose a political cartoon in their group and decode it with their group using the questions in the Student Worksheet. They will need access to online devices to help them research the historical context of the political cartoon.

Step 4

Return as a whole class and ask 1 or 2 groups to share their political cartoon and explain the opinion that the creator is expressing.

Take Action: Creating cartoons

Step 1

Put students in groups of 3-4. Challenge groups to search online for newsworthy events or issues from the past Commonwealth Games. These could include events/issues such as:

team Australia providing equal support and representation to all athletes (including para-athletes, women, migrants, etc)
feel-good events from the Games (displays of sportsmanship, engagements, inspiring efforts from athletes)
stories of overcoming adversity
political statements at the games.

Set a timer for 5 minutes and get each individual student to note down 3 or 4 newsworthy items. In their groups, ask students to share their discoveries with each other.

Learning extension: Before they start, provide students with 1 of these overarching topics to scaffold their research about the Commonwealth Games: international relations, the economy, equity, human rights or the environment.

Step 2

Your students’ task is to select 1 of the events on their group list that appeals to them personally. Students will work independently to create their own cartoon about their chosen event. Their focus should be on sharing their opinion about a specific aspect of the event. For example, Eloise Wellings, Madeline Hills and Celia Sullohern displayed great sportsmanship in waiting for fellow athlete Lineo Chaka to cross the finishing line of the 10,000m final at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Students can use techniques such as collage, drawing and digital tools to create their cartoons.

Step 3

Once students have completed their cartoons, host a gallery of persuasion in which students' cartoons are displayed in the room or on a collaborative digital platform. Ask each student to write 2-3 sentences about their cartoon, explaining the event or issue and how their cartoon conveys their opinion. For example, ‘My cartoon is about when Cathy Freeman retired from running in 2003. My cartoon shows her walking away with her shoes over 1 shoulder and both the Australian and Aboriginal flags over her other shoulder, signalling her retirement. Behind her are her footprints, including a squashed bug (racism) she has stepped on, signalling her legacy. It shows that I think even though she has retired, she has left a lasting legacy in the sports world.”

Reflection

After viewing their peers’ cartoons, students can reflect on how the cartoons brought aspects of social and political issues to mind by responding to the questions on the Student Worksheet.

Commonwealth Cartoons

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Summary

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