Blog 2

Shaggy Dog Stories 1 "Only you can prevent forest fires" (reference to mother nature and earth)

• story starts out rational and innocent, almost like a novel
• audience and readers may/do need a background of cultural knowledge to understand the joke
• what a friar is
• the name of the bully Hugh MacTaggart
• In America, the bullies name would most likely be Italian; something that would come out of a movie such as The Godfather, Bronx Tale & Goodfellas.
• punch line is repeated and emphasized throughout the entire story
• we see this early in the Shaggy Dog Story
• punch line sounds similar to a famous phrase
• "only you can prevent forest fires"/ "only hugh can prevent florist friars
• Set up in formal language like a narrative
• narrator telling the story to an audience (storytelling)

Shaggy Dog Stories 2 "Giant Panda or Panda"

• Must have prior background to terms in the story (NYC, Maitre'd, restaurant setting.)
• similar to the first story, needed to have prior cultural knowledge
• Has a story line like any novel
• climax - falling action - resolution/punch line
• Violence/Irony used
• Comedy/Jokes are used
• Story uses a specific location (restaurant, NYC)
• dialogue is used

Shaggy Dog Stories 3 "Nope I'm a frayed knot!"

• Common/familiar American joke
• Progressive story that builds up on the punch line
• Repetition
• "Im sorry sir we don't serve strings here"
• "Bartender, gimme a beer"
• introduce punch line with a kind of a definition
• explains the string ties himself up in a frazzled bow
• dialogue between "bartender" and "string
• specific location like the last few Shaggy Dog stories
• Bar location 
• Punch line at the end ("Nope, I'm a frayed knot")

Shaggy Dog Stories 4 "Thank God its Friday (TGIF)

• some sort of background information of religion
• friday/God
• Dialogue is used between "Friday" and Robinson Cruscoe
• Specific location
• outside/tent
• words of the common saying "TGIF" is used throughout the story
• thank/god/friday
• Irony

Shaggy Dog Stories 5 "Check the mail"

• Violence and comedy are used
• shot gun to the bear
• lawyer and friend picking berries in the field
• friend thinking he would get a freebie
• Double meaning of words that sound the same but are spelled different
• Check/Czech
• mail/male
• Dialogue between the two men/lawyer and sheriff
• Time and locations given
• summer time
• Characters with names and specific roles
• Punch line at the end
• "Would you believe a lawyer who said the czech was in the male?"

Possible Writing Studies Research Topics

Picking a topic for a research paper always seems to be difficult.  The researcher always takes on a topic of interest without knowing if there will be enough information.  While it is the first week of school, I have narrowed it down to two topics.  I am very interested in writing and lately I have been very interested in the Holocaust after taking a class about it last fall.  I sat and thought about two topics that would reflect these intrests and finally found an answer.

The first topic which I like is the effect academic writing has on creative writing.  Recently, my academic career has revolved only around academic papers that involved no creative writing.  When I had to take a creative writing class as a requirement, I struggled to create short stories with my imagination because like almost all of my classes there were no strict guidelines.  I feel this topic strikes my interest so much because I have been a victim of it.

My second topic also strikes my interest a lot too.  Throughout grammar school and high school (K-12) there seems to be a lack of Holocaust teaching within the curriculum.  After experiencing an actual class on the Holocaust, I wish I would have known more information previously.  The class was an eye opener to what I have never learned.  It most definitely showed that in grammar school and high school students are only taught the bare minimum.  This calls for a great research topic I think.