Teaching Critical Cartography in the Introductory Geography Classroom

Map literacy is a key goal of geographic education learning outcomes. Geography classrooms develop map literacy through practicing map skills (Sandford 1986; Hanus and Havelková 2019). One area where map skills pedagogy is deficient is in teaching the analysis and interpretation of maps as inherently political objects, with bias and latent meaning about the places they depict. The subfield of critical cartography recognizes maps as sites of power, and critical cartographers deconstruct maps to reveal their latent meanings and destabilize the notion that maps are neutral representations of the world (Harley 1989; Wood 1992, 2010; Crampton and Krygier 2018; Monmonier 2019). The authors suggest the fundamental lessons of critical cartography--that maps are "authored collections of information […] subject to distortion arising from ignorance, greed, ideological blindness, or malice"--may be incorporated into any introductory geography classroom that examines maps (Monmonier 2019, 2). This lesson plan outlines one possible approach toward achieving this task. In addition to reinforcing fundamental cartographic literacy by exposing students to a wide variety of map types and reviewing map elements, the lesson deepens students' map skills through introducing them to critical cartography's basic tenets and methodology. The lesson plan also proposes a group activity designed to have students apply perspectives from critical cartography to case study maps. The lesson is suitable for introductory college-level courses and is transferrable to advanced placement (AP) human geography courses.