Making Inferences with Political Cartoons in Social Studies

December 30, 2022

Making Inferences with Political Cartoons in Social Studies

Political cartoons can be a powerful tool for teaching critical thinking and analysis skills. Making inferences is an important skill that students can use in all subject areas.

I've been working with my Social Studies students this year is how to make inferences by employing close observation and prior knowledge through political cartoon analysis. My students really struggled with this at the beginning of the year. With consistent practice, my students are getting results.

How I did it: I scaffold the skill with think-alouds and clear guidance to help students develop their ability to make inferences. By working through the process together and discussing different elements of the cartoons, students are able to build their understanding and confidence in the skill.

I project a political cartoon on my smartboard and together we "take it apart," bit by bit. For example, I ask students to share what they see (people, objects, symbols, labels, captions, etc.) We look for historical clues and discuss them. We talk about the use of symbols, exaggeration, and irony. If my students get stuck, I share my thinking process. This takes time. But the time and effort are worth it. As I mentioned earlier, the more practice, the better the results.

Below are a couple examples of cartoons I used in my last lesson on the history of voting rights and the Watergate scandal. (Notice how I make it very clear what parts of the cartoon I want my students to focus on.) This is another example of how I scaffold this skill. By the end of the year, I won't need to "magnify" the parts of a cartoon I want my students to zero in on. They will know how to do this.

Now that we're nearing the end of the first semester, I've been incorporating more political cartoon gallery walks into my Social Studies classes. My students need less help from me and I encourage students to collaborate with their peers to problem-solve should questions arise. When conducting gallery walks in my Social Studies classes, I assign students to small groups (3-4 students per group). Every student is responsible for completing their own graphic organizer which helps with accountability issues. In addition, groups are not allowed to progress to the next station until all members have completed the written task. Below you can see an example of the graphic organizer I use with this gallery walk.