When you study cartoons or cartoon strips, think about the following:

• Is this meant to make me laugh or to think seriously about something, or to do both?

• What do I notice about the body language of each person or animal in the frames?

• What do I notice about the font and size used for the words?

• What do I notice about the punctuation?

• What connections can I make between the words and the drawings?

To answer questions on cartoons, you need to:

• Understand the ‘message’ or point of a serious cartoon (i.e. one that is making a comment about something in society that the cartoonist is concerned about) and understand the joke in an amusing cartoon;

• Understand that the way people, animals or objects are drawn in the cartoon affects the meaning of the cartoon (for example, body language and facial expressions);

• Understand how the way words are written in the cartoon (for example, font size, use of capital letters and bold type) affects meaning; and

• Understand how punctuation is used to affect the meaning of the cartoon.

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