In order to fully understand student learning, we science teachers need to know the ideas that students bring into the classroom. Plus, good assessment calls for ongoing evaluation of students’ progress and difficulties with learning on an everyday basis. Cartoons are one tool that has been used successfully as a means of assessing student learning in science (Perales-Palacios and Vilchez-Gonzalez 2005). The alternative assessment strategies presented here uses cartoons to help science teachers assess students’ ideas, old and new, and difficulties they experience as they learn force and motion concepts.