EditorialCartoonists.com, Cartoons (AAEC - The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists)

Downloadable lesson for 05/12/08

Draw your own conclusions

Download blank cartoon here for students to try writing their own captions.

This week's lesson

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Cartoon Evaluation Worksheet
For use with these lessons or with cartoons from your newspaper

Comparing democracies: Election in Zimbabwe

Teachers: Download the lesson and print it out for use in your classroom. (PDF format)

Learning standard: Comprehending and evaluating the content and artistic aspects of oral and visual presentations.
Grade Level: Middle grades and up.

NOTE: You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to use these files. If you don't already have it, click here to download it.

Cartoonists talk cartooning

Political Cartoonist Jeff Danzinger describes the craft.

There are now 121 lessons in our online library

Click here to download any lessons you might have missed at no charge

Election-year resources from our library:

Tooning into the Candidates:

John McCain: Lesson Blank toon

John Edwards: Lesson Blank toon

Hillary Clinton: Lesson Blank toon

Mitt Romney: Lesson Blank toon

Rudy Giuliani: Lesson Blank toon

Barack Obama: Lesson Blank toon

Michael Bloomberg: Lesson Blank toon

Fred Thompson: Lesson Blank toon

Tooning into the Campaign:

Epic battle rages on: Lesson Blank

Invasion of the Superdelegates: Lesson Blank

How do YOU judge a candidate?: Lesson Blank

Politics of Change: Lesson Blank

All eyes on Iowa: Lesson Blank

Fund raising: Lesson Blank

Tooning into the Issues:

Entitlements: Lesson Blank toon

Political dynasties: Lesson Blank toon

Campaigns and gas pains: Lesson Blank toon

Upcoming Lessons

New lessons are posted for download every other week.

Archived lessons

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State of the Art

Editorial Cartoons: The Impact and Issues of an Evolving Craft

In their December 2004 issue, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism published a series of articles looking at political cartooning and its position in journalism today. The issue is available for download as a pdf file.

Download the issue here

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Stay tooned!

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Email us at cftc@nieonline.com

More Cartoon Resources

Stop laughing, this is serious*

Association of American Editorial Cartoonists:

What you'll find: Collection of political cartoons, articles dealing with cartooning and cartoonists.

Where you'll find it: Click here

Ohio State University has launched a project that uses editorial cartoons to teach history. You'll find lesson plans, downloadable toons and much more.

Click here for the Opper Project

Daryl Cagle's
Cartoon Index:

What you'll find: Huge selection of Political Cartoons updated daily. Collections categorized by topic.

Where you'll find it: Click here

CartoonArts International:

What you'll find: Major political cartoonists from the world press in over 75 countries.

Where you'll find it: Click here

*How far do Toons reach? The cartoon Australians consider the best and most famous in the world features two workmen hanging in the air from a steel girder, one by the pants of the other, pulling them down. The caption words, "For gorsake, stop laughing, this is serious," have since become a byword in Australian culture. See the cartoon and read more about it at Witty World

Toons in books!

New, noteworthy and the editor's suggestions

Get details

Tooning into history

They were there

Are you studying Reconstruction? The McCarthy era? World War II? View history through the eyes of the political cartoonists.
Check the online resources here.