English CAT

This is your Continuous Assessment Task please note the following dates:

  1. Complete your research and be ready for a class discussion on Friday 5 June (We will focus on the issues raised under the heading “Overarching Questions” in the CAT document and I expect you to refer to some of the sources and the cartoons you have chosen to research as illustrative materials to support your views.) 
  2. Prepare your oral presentation for Wednesday 10 June (Read the brief carefully.)
  3. We will write the controlled essay on Monday 15 June

Click on the link below to open an electronic copy of the CAT document

English HL CAT 2020

Here is a presentation about discursive essays which I think will be worth looking at as preparation for the controlled writing task.

How to teach discursive essay

When analysing a cartoon you can look especially for the following techniques:

Context – What happened that led to the cartoon and what is it about?

Caricature – Distorting an image or portraying something in an exaggerated or unnatural way

Exaggeration- Hyperbole or enlargement to draw attention to the target or message or to create humour

Symbolism – Use of typical symbols e.g. hammer and sickle for communists, face mask for COVID etc.

Association – Linking a person, organization or idea to another by placing in proximity e.g. positioning a politician with  criminals

Labeling – Can either be direct or via an element in the cartoon e.g. logo on a truck or words on a placard carried by a character

Non-verbal cues e.g. movement, facial expressions, reactions of figures in the cartoon, body language or body posture and position

Contrasts – Balancing opposites against each other to emphasize a difference

Bathos – Building up intensity over several frames then making the point by anti-climax in the final frame

Verbal script – Look at how the verbal and non-verbal elements support each other

Pallette – Use of colour for emotional or symbolic effect

 

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