Pictures worth a thousand words.

A teacher tears an interesting editorial cartoon out of the morning paper and uses it to spark a classroom discussion. Editorial cartoons as supplemental materials in social studies and other subjects isn't new, but the tried-and-true method for finding a good cartoon is changing.

A dwindling industry for cartoonists--which means less editorial cartoons for teachers to choose from--is one reason. Joel Pett, editorial cartoonist for the Lexington Herald-Leader and winner of a 2000 Pulitzer Prize, says newspaper mergers and tightened budgets "have cut [the number of cartoonists] in hall in the last 20 years."

In addition, the cartoons themselves are undergoing a transformation with more watered-down content. In one December week, Pett points out, USA Today and the New York Times published different cartoons of someone holding Michael Jackson out of a window and shaking him. While funny and news-related, the topic had no point, Pett says. "If you look at all the great cartoons of history, most of them aren't funny.... They're not little jokes about what's going on in entertainment."

For teachers on the hunt for intelligent editorial cartoons, there is some good news. in the past year, examples of cartoons and ideas for using them in classrooms have become easier than ever to locate online. Cartoons in the Classroom for example, offers lesson plans tot Newspapers in Education participants. Although the site is mainly accessible through NIE Web sites in four cities, more than 6,200 copies of lesson plans were downloaded between the site's September launch and the first week of January, says site author Felix Grabowski. "We hope to show that the value of newspapers and political cartooning continues even in the Internet age," adds Grabowski, who is also president of Online Publications Inc., NIE Online's parent company.

Two popular classroom activities for cartoons include having students analyze their meaning, and asking students to write original captions before seeing published ones. Cartoons "often get a wide variety of interpretations," says Pett, who frequently speaks at local schools. "The intent of the cartoon is often misjudged, not just by students and teachers but by readers. But that's OK. There's nothing the matter with a discussion about ambiguity and sarcasm."

Online Tools for 'Toons

Cartoon Cornucopia: The J. Arthur Wood Jr. Collection of Cartoon Art (Library of Congress)

www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/artwood/aw-home.html

Cartoon for the Classroom (Newspapers in Education Online)

nieonline.com/niecftc/cftc.cfm

Teachers' Guide for the Professional Cartoonists Index

cagle.slate.msn.com/teacher