Cartooning can teach visual understanding, story-telling, writing skills, brainstorming and perhaps even a sense of humor. ;-)
This week I created an art project for a 4th grade class utilizing things I had around my house. The focus of this week's art lesson is cartooning and I first have to supply the "cultural exemplar", an example of what a cartoon looks like. So I brought in a stack of old comic books from when I was a kid, Archie, Road Runner, Richie Rich, Casper the Friendly Ghost. The kids loved getting a comic and we took some time to look at the comics and talk about them.
Some questions I asked: Do cartoons look real? Are cartoons fiction? Are cartoons always funny?
We discussed the story-telling nature of cartoons and cartoon "shorthand". You know, those marks above coffee cups that communicate heat, the speed marks made when a car whooshes by, even the tic-tack-toe pattern used to create the side of Archie's hair. By calling attention to these details, you are reminding the kids that they have already learned a sort of visual language just by reading the funny papers.
I sketched on the board as I talked to show the kids how easy it is to make a cartoon to tell a story. I also showed them how to draw a cartoon face and suggested they use the faces of their characters to communicate emotion. We discussed the importance of good handwriting so that your cartoon is communicating well. I suggested that they create a cartoon that told a story about their day and it was to start, "I got out of bed this morning". Where the story went from there was their decision, and there were also a few kids who already had a story in mind and created something different. We started by drawing a simple, quartered, 4-panel cartoon on a horizontal 8-1/2 x 11" of white paper with a pencil with eraser.
Since these kids sit in desk groups of 4, I suggested that the students brainstorm with each other if they were stuck for what to write or draw. After they were done, the kids got to read and show their cartoons to the class. Some of the kids needed a little steering to get them going in the right direction, but they mostly did really well. This assignment introduces kids to the art form of cartooning, begins to teach them visual deconstruction or analysis and encourages good writing, teamwork, and presentation. Best of all, it requires no special art supplies and the kids just love it.
