Research Question:
Do you need to understand punch-lines in order to understand the shaggy dog stories?
Codes:
Understanding the humor?
Does the story need to have animal in it to be funny?
Does the story need people in it to be funny?
Are the play on words important when reading these stories?
Does the story need a beginning, middle, and ending to make sense?
Does the reader to identify key points in the story to piece it all together?
What is the connection the reader has with the story?
Does violence make the story funny?
Data:
Through several conversations that were had in class about the shaggy dog stories we came to several conclusions about it. For example I will look at the story with the giant panda. It was a story about a giant panda who escaped from the zoo, walked into a restaurant, ate, and then shot people. As a class we all knew this couldn't ever possibly happen. However, the punch-line of the story was that in the dictionary that the maitre'd looked up the word panda and the definition stated, " Giant panda, lives in China, eats shoots and leaves." You would have to understand that shoots is a plant and in this case isn't used that way. However, we voted on this story as a class and it won. But there was violence in this story. I assume because we know this story can never happen and that its a talking panda with a gun gave the story humor. Another example we looked as was the story of Nate the Snake who had to protect a lever otherwise the world would end. When a boulder comes rolling down, Nate tries to stop it and gets run over. However, the boulder misses the lever. The punch-line at the end of the story was, "The boulder ran over Nate, but it was, in fact, deflected, leaving history to conclude that is was better Nate than lever." If you have never heard the phrase better late than never you would not understand the line at the end of the story. This would in fact make the story become less humorous because as the reader their is no real connection.
Overall:
In order to understand some of these stories a connection to the punch-line needs to be made. However, not all stories such as the panda story had a phrase that you needed understand. These stories have violence, humor, animals, people, and many other different things in them. It depends on your personal preference of what you like. As a class we found the stories with the animals in them to be the funniest. However, we could have asked another class and they could have voted on another story that they believed to the funniest. The reader needs to make a connection with the story. Also the order on which the story is told effects the understanding.
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