1. The document provides a teacher's guide for two transparencies about point-symbol maps that depict graffiti used by gangs to mark territory in Los Angeles. 2. It explains that the graffiti code involved gang tags, symbols like X's and asterisks to deny or threaten rival gangs' claims to an area, and letter codes to respond in kind. 3. Over 90% of graffiti had no special meaning and served as a microcosm of landscapes, where most features carry no message, demonstrating why geography teaches us to discern meaningful landscape features.

1. From Teaching Geography, Second Edition, by Phil Gersmehl. Copyright 2008 by The Guilford Press.
Permission to photocopy is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright
page for details).
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2. Teacher ’s Guide for Transparencies Intro-A and Intro-B
A point-symbol map is a simple and straightforward kind of map. To make it, someone identi-
fies a feature in the real world and puts a symbol on the map to show its location.
In this transparency, the feature is a particular kind of graffiti painted on a wall or bridge
abutment. The map is adapted from one I saw in a Los Angeles police station in the mid-1990s
(letters and some details are changed).
At that time in that particular part of Los Angeles, graffiti on walls and bridges often were
territorial markers – they indicated which gang claimed control of a specific area. The graffiti
“code” had three parts:
1. A member of one group “signs its name” to a wall or bridge by painting a symbol or some
letters that the gang used as its “tag.”
2. A member of a group writes over another group’s tag with a symbol to indicate disagree-
ment. In this part of Los Angeles and at the time of the creation of this particular map,
one gang drew an X over a rival gang’s tag if they wanted to show that they denied the
other gang’s claim to the area. An asterisk goes one step further, announcing that anyone
who strays over the line risks being beaten or even killed. An infinity sign was the stron-
gest statement – it basically extends the threat to include families of rival gang members.
3. A special letter code returns the challenge (saying, basically, “same to you”). An intriguing
example was the sign in front of a police station in East Los Angeles. This sign had an
engraved “C/s” in one corner; that was local gang code for “same to you.” It was, presum-
ably, written by a cop and warned gangs not to deface the police sign because, as one cop
said to me, “I suppose you could say we’re the biggest and baddest gang around.”
In that neighborhood, graffiti were so common that meaningful signs were often hidden in a
mass of what could fairly be described as run-of-the-mill wall-writing. Over 90 percent of the
graffiti had no special significance. That makes my graffiti example even better as a microcosm
of the real world, where some landscape features may be very revealing but most have no spe-
cial message.
That, by the way, is a good reason to study geography: to learn what landscape features
carry messages that are worth knowing.
Activity: Have each student make a point-symbol map. The topic can be practically anything –
fire hydrants, pizza restaurants, pickup trucks, eagle sightings, swings on a playground, dust
bunnies under a bed, cups on a table, and so on. Start with a base map, a sketch that has some
key features, such as major roads, buildings, walls, the edges of the table. Then add point sym-
bols (dots, X’s, circles, triangles, etc.) in the proper locations to represent the feature(s) you
want to map.
You can then follow up with a simple test of whether the point-symbol map is well made:
Have another student read the map, go to a place indicated on it, and check whether the fea-
ture the map says is there is really there. As a test, this can be remarkably difficult, because a
graphic “language” that makes sense to a map maker does not always communicate a clear mes-
sage to a map reader.
That is why the National Geography Standards and most state geography or social studies
standards have a large section on map skills. Map making and map reading are essential skills
that help us understand places, but students have to “learn the code” in order to use the skills.
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