Lukas Liebermann

I am an ESL teacher and educational psychologist.

Cartoon Analysis

Language

  • You use the first person and different verbs and phrases to express your opinion in the last paragraph where you comment on the cartoon. In the rest of the comment you avoid first-person pronouns to focus on an objective analysis.

  • You use a wide range of sentence structures correctly, e.g. conditional sentences, relative clauses, and subordinate clauses.

  • You show a good command of a broad lexical repertoire. You can vary1 formulation to avoid frequent repetition2 and you find paraphrases when you do not know a word you need. You use your own words to explain what captions and speech or thought bubbles mean. You make few spelling mistakes.

  • You use the correct tenses. Use the present progressive to describe actions depicted in the cartoon. Use the present simple to describe the setting.

  • You connect ideas with different linking / transition words, including different subordinating conjunctions (e.g. although, wherever, so that, ...) and adverbial conjunctions (e.g. however, nevertheless, meanwhile, ...).

  • You use the formal register. You do not use contractions (they’ve => they have; won’t => will not; isn’t => is not) and you use no slang or colloquialisms.

Content

  • Introductory sentence:

    • Did you name the source (e.g. the newspaper in which the cartoon was published) and when it was published?

    • Did you name the cartoonist and the title of the cartoon?

    • Did you state in one sentence what the cartoon is about; what its main topic is?

  • Description:

    • Did you describe the cartoon systematically in its significant details (the details you think are relevant for your interpretation later)?

    • Did you describe what people, events or trends the cartoon refers to?

    • Did you describe labels, speech and thought bubbles, and captions?

  • Analysis and interpretation:

    • Did you explain the issue to which the cartoon refers? If the cartoon depicts well-known people, did you explain their role in connection to the topic of the cartoon?

    • Did you explain what stylistic devices (e.g. symbols, comparisons, irony or exaggeration) the cartoon uses and to what effect the cartoon uses them?

    • Did you explain what opinion or message the cartoonist presents?

  • Comment: Did you state your opinions on the topic in question an support your views with explanations and examples?

  1. to vary /ˈveəri/ - to make changes to something to make it slightly different ↩

  2. repetition /ˌrepəˈtɪʃn/ - the fact of doing or saying the same thing many times ↩