Evaluating with cartoons.

TRYING TO EVALUATE what students know, and how well they can apply what they know of general semantics "rules," seems to belong to a class of testing known as "unsatisfactory." People can understand various aspects of their behavior, but how can we devise tests about language behavior when that may vary so frequently, depending on our "filters," the environment, etc.? Actual performance, or "doing-as-I-say-I-should-do," (presenting an accurate map of the territory involved) is not as easy as the comprehension. Even the comprehension seems difficult for some of my beginning students, however.

To perceive one's inference in a conversation, to notice that words are being used on different levels, to recognize "allness" in one's own statement, for example, does not seem to be quickly accomplished, and the entire orientation puzzles my students for awhile. Consequently, we use very familiar and simple tools to help check ourselves in the classroom--cartoons and comic strips. Because these can be obtained from many sources, students apparently have little difficulty finding suitable examples. In addition to their availability, cartoons can be very clear in their focus, on the particular general semantics concept they illustrate. Consequently, they usually provide a certain degree of "success" for students, and thus are more "satisfactory" as testing material.

At times, of course, we have some difficulty identifying a particular "problem." One comic strip which recently developed a controversy was written by Ernie Bushmiller. It depicts Nancy reading a story to her friend Sluggo: "Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess.... She had eyes like stars ... raven-black hair, and a neck like a swan." The small boy listening shows a question mark, accompanied by a mental image of a girl having two ravens for hair, atop a face with stars for eyes, and a long, long feathery neck. Discussion by students involved different opinions about the focus. Was it the use of similes? Intensional orientation? The literal interpretation of words? The differences in each person's perception also led to further discussion regarding the process of symbolizing and of identification.

Depending on the individual class, and their "progress," we sometimes work in small groups with copies of out-dated New Yorker magazines. Each student searches through a variety of cartoons and selects one which she (or he) discusses with the other members of the group. Groups may have three, four, or five members, so there are a corresponding number of cartoons, all considered by everyone in the group. Students then eliminate any which duplicate ideas, and depending on the assignment, may choose just one of the three, four, or five, or they may use all that have been selected. When they have been asked to choose just one, they must all agree on the focus of the illustration. Often they have difficulty. In this process of discussion they appear to learn not only terminology, but to analyze their own language habits. One cartoon by Froden about which groups recently seemed to agree, without dissension, shows a man at a bar holding up a glass, saying, "My country right or wrong, or in any of the gray areas that lie between."

Another cartoon entitled "The Small Society," taken from a daily newspaper, seemed to illustrate to everyone the idea of self-reflexiveness, making maps about maps.

Two people are watching television. One says, "They should show more true-to-life programs on television," and the other responds, "If they did, all you would see is people watching television."

The observation (fact)-inference-confusion focus has probably been the most useful in practical experience. A Dagwood/Blondie cartoon (and there are many others) illustrates this particularly well. Dagwood smiles in his sleep, and Blondie watches him, soon inferring that he must have a girl, and is dreaming happily about her. Almost immediately she is ready to act on her inference as if it were fact, saying, "He'd better have a good explanation when he wakes up!" This kind of example led to recognition of the mischievous role of inference in real life miscommunications among students. In addition, it might be helpful to note a difficulty which arose. That is, that while we need to recognize and be aware of the probabilities of our own inferences, we do not expect to correct or inform other people of theirs. Two female students who became very excited and enthusiastic about their own awareness and what they felt was success in their own inference-making lives, apparently believed they had a messianic duty to their friends. They were quickly reeducated when they began informing students that, "That was an inference," and the quick rejoinder was, "So what!" That experience, too, was useful in learning better language behavior.

The focus in cartoons and comic strips may also be used for quiz or examination questions. Occasionally, after the small groups have all selected cartoons, I use these as "questions." Students respond to three of the four cartoons, for example, or perhaps six out of eight. They "answer" only those cartoons which have been selected by groups other than their own. Usually half the period is used to write their responses to these cartoons, and the second half allows them to organize and plan the "correction." The students in each group correct all the responses to the cartoons which they have selected at the start. Consequently, in a class of twenty students (four groups of five) each student (group) will be reading fifteen answers. Since the responses usually involve about half a page of explanation, they can be read in a period if it is a "long" one, but if the period is an hour, they finish outside, then meet for discussion in part of the next class. Students of a group must all agree on the value (grade) for each paper. Much more than focus is involved in the answers. The students also try to figure just how someone else observed something they didn't.

   ("Of course that's an example of intensional orientation, but why
   didn't he see that the judgment was the focus! It's not 'wrong,'
   but I think John missed the point.")

Sometimes I have encouraged students to keep notebooks of cartoons, especially if they seem to be having difficulty in identifying various formulations. This necessitates frequent office visits, but the results seem worthwhile.

Besides cartoons and comic strips, we use brief anecdotes or even one or two-line reprints. One, from the New Yorker reads:

A New York telephone company truck was spotted by an observant citizen we know, who reported that a printed sign on the truck's side read:

   ASK ME ABOUT BETTER
   TELEPHONE SERVICE

Just beneath the sign someone had written:

   I don't talk to no truck.

We used this in a Communications class, and found that the inferences seemed to be endless. One of the difficulties, and an important point to discover, has been the tendency to project one's own perceptions and inferences into any cartoon or comic, and respond to those. Focusing on the language itself seems very troublesome for some students. Part of their "problem" has been the is of identity or predication, which seems to appear frequently in their descriptions of what has occurred. Helping them focus on what characters are doing seems to help.

At times I have experimented with different ways of using cartoons. One method was to find some which were related to a particular formulation such as the multi-usage of words. A few days ago a comic strip showed Nancy lowering her radio by a rope from her window in response to Aunt Fritzi's saying because of excessive volume, "Lower your radio." However, finding examples of multi-usage, all at one time, has not been practical. Students can seem to find instances of stereotyping, or maps and territories, or of inference, when they are looking for those of multi-usage, and of multi-usage if they want allness statements or stereotyping. Consequently, finding clear illustrations as they happen to appear in random searching seems preferable. The primary function of the exercises lies in fostering the ability to develop reliable maps of the territories in these cartoons at the time we first see them. This is not unlike the ability to perceive accurately what we are doing with our language usage--as it happens.

EVELYN STAGG*

* Associate Professor of English and Communication at Castleton State College, Castleton, Vermont, Evelyn Stagg conducted an experimental course in composition and speech based on general semantics. From Classroom Exercises in General Semantics (available from IGS).