Blog #2

1. Each shaggy dog story shared a common language feature. All of the stories featured a pun.  The structure of the stories were similar as well. They all told the entire story and waited until the last line to reveal what pun was being used. 

2.  Readers of these stories would need to have know the phrases or beliefs these puns derive from. The first story's pun comes from the line, "only You can prevent forest fires."  I'm not even sure if the second story derives from a phrase but I do understand the basic meaning of the joke because the panda's definition was exactly what he did. I think the story is saying something along the lines of "I am not afraid" but I'm not exactly sure. I didn't really get this one myself. The fourth story changes "TGIF" to " thank Friday it's god."  Finally the last story is poking fun at the common belief that lawyers are liars. 

3. The Shaggy Dog stories are similar to most jokes or stories because they typically wait until the end to reveal their real punchline or meaning. 

4. The organization of these stories were all similar. They all waited until the end to reveal the pun and/or punchline. They also were all very short and easy to follow and understand as long as you understood what the joke was all about. 

Blog #1

     As long as I can remember I have been in love with performing arts. My mother was a dancer and my father is a high school choir teacher so I've been around the arts for my entire life.  If finding jobs in the performing arts industry was a little bit easier or more of a sure thing I would definitely be going to school for something in that field, but since these jobs are extremely hard to come by I've settled for a teaching degree with a concentration in English writing. Recently I've been introduced to a way that writing can become performing - spoken word poetry.  Spoken word poetry is a way to bring writing to life and this is why I would like to research this topic for the writing studies assignment. Spoken word poets like Sarah Kaye and Phil Kay are huge inspirations to me and their writing really makes me feel something. I think that I feel more and can relate more to a poem if it is performed rather than just reading a poem. On paper, poems are very complex and it is up to the reader to decipher the meaning of the poem or how it is meant to be read, but in spoken word poetry the audience can hear the poem exactly as the writer intends for it to be read which makes the experience much more powerful. I would like to examine this more closely and talk to audience members to see if spoken word poetry has more of an affect on them than just reading a poem. I would also like to speak to people who write and perform spoken word poetry to see what they enjoy about performing their poetry. 

     If for some reason I can't get all of the information I need on spoken word poetry, I would like to research the way academic writing hinders a college student's ability to write creatively. I never realized how much this impacted myself as a writer until I took a creative writing class last semester. I felt totally lost. I had to write fiction and I could barely remember what fiction was because I had spent so many years of my life in school consumed in facts and data to produce pieces of academic writing. I really struggled to write fiction, stories, poems, and even creative non fiction pieces because it had been such a long time since I was allowed to use my imagination. While I was in the creative writing class I learned that I was not the only student who was tremendously struggling to produce creative pieces. So, I think it would be interesting to interview other college students to see if they've had similar experiences. I could also potentially college professors who have taught creative writing to see if they find patterns in students finding it hard to write creatively and if their creative writing pieces still have some sort of academic structure to them.