Page 289 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIVITy 4.3
continued
Classifying Comedy
my Notes
Analyzing Humorous Texts
5. Brainstorm what you already know about comic strips and political cartoons. Think about format, audience, topics, descriptions of humor, intended effects, etc.
Comic Strips:
Political Cartoons:
6. Read and mark the text of the following definitions for information that is new to you:
Comic strips are meant primarily to entertain. They have a beginning and middle that lead to a humorous ending. They tend to be a low-level comedy that is easily understood by a wide audience.
Political cartoons deal with larger issues and are often meant to communicate a particular political or social message. They often have a single panel with a powerful statement to reinforce humor displayed through a picture (characters or symbols). They tend to be high-level comedy, appealing to a smaller population that is well-informed about a specific topic.
Introducing the Strategy: RAFT
RAFT is an acronym that stands for role, audience, format, and topic. RAFT is a strategy that can be used for responding to and analyzing a text by identifying and examining its role, audience, format, and topic.
7. Use the graphic organizer and the RAFT strategy on the next page to analyze the humor in comics and political cartoons based on the previous definitions.
INdepeNdeNT
readING lINk
Read and Respond
Analyze one of the humorous texts you are reading. Does the text reflect high comedy or low comedy? Cite specific examples from the text to support your answer, and record your responses in your Reader/ Writer Notebook.
262 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
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