Developing Assignments in the Etta Hulme Political Cartoon Archive

The first step for a successful lesson plan based on the Hulme Cartoons is to curate a set of cartoons for the students to work with. See the "Searching the Collection" tab for more information on how to do this. 

In Person vs. Virtual

If you are able to bring a class in to Special Collections, please reach out to Evan Spencer (evan.spencer@uta.edu) as early as possible with your ideas, and preferably a list of cartoons you would like to work with.

If you are unable to bring a class to Special Collections, you can also download and/or print any cartoons from the Hulme Archive, totally free of charge!

Example Cartoon Set

For Dr. Alma Garza's Latinos and the American Narrative class in 2022 and 2023, we selected Hulme cartoons based on their representations of Latino/a identity. We searched the collection based on subtopics like: immigration, criminalization of immigration, and Latinos in media, politics, education, religion, and family. We identified 75 cartoons that fit this topical area. Since this was an in-person activity, the Public Services Archivist then worked to pull and sleeve each cartoon for use in the class session.

1. To engage with primary sources in Special Collections and learn valuable critical thinking skills through experiential learning
2. To engage in sociological analysis methods by identifying specific and broad themes within individual cartoons and across multiple cartoons and decades
3. To connect class discussions with historical primary sources

For this activity, we chose to set up the cartoons on four tables, split up into decades. 

Step One: 

• Students walk around the four tables, getting an idea of the overall themes and messages presents
• After 5 minutes, students choose one cartoon to conduct their analysis activity

Step Two: 

• Students are given a worksheet and work together in groups of two to analyze their chosen cartoon. The analysis portion was 10-15 minutes for this class session.
• The worksheet contained the following questions:
  • Cartoon Title:
  • Provide a one-two sentence statement describing the cartoon's takeaway message:
  • What actions, characters, or statements in the cartoon help support the takeaway message?
  • What major socio-political, cultural, and/or racial issues does the cartoon engage?
  • What widespread Latino narrative is the cartoon reinforcing or challenging?
  • After analyzing the cartoon with your partner, select two or three classroom concepts and discuss how they relate to the issues raised in the cartoons:
  • Based on the issues raised in the selected cartoons, how do historical narratives about Latinos compare to present-day ones?

After their class visit, students continued to work on their cartoon-based research by further connecting the cartoon to class discussions and broader conversations around Latino representation in Hulme's Cartoons. 

For their final project in the class, students had to present their findings... along with a political cartoon of their OWN design!