This Smart task uses a Punch cartoon as part of a lesson on the Korean War. It carefully steers students through several thinking processes. To start with they have to raise good historical questions. They then annotate a copy using the guidelines provided. When you have checked their thinking and added any additional contextual information, students then create their own caption. The message is clear that Stalin is intimidating his satellite states to bend to his view of the USA as the aggressive force in Korea. The emphasis throughout is on blending the internal clues within the cartoon itself with knowledge of its provenance.
The PowerPoint presentation is fully animated and gives you all the answers as well as a template on which the students can write their own annotation.
The cartoon was created by Illingworth and first appeared on 21 July 1950.
Cartoon reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd.
