Blog #5-Shaggy Dog Stories

I enjoyed reading the Shaggy dog stories. At first I did not know what they were; I never heard of Shaggy dog stories before, but they were funny and easy to read and understand.

I have predicted that our class will rank the stories from funniest to least funniest in the manner (5 being the funniest, 1 being the least funniest):

5 (lawyer)
4 (string)
3 (dentist)
2  (Ghandi)
1

As I was reading these shaggy dog stories, I used the elements of analysis to make a prediction about what stories the class would like and what they wouldn't like. I also looked at the chart from the previous class to make my assumption.

1. I named or coded them as Shaggy dog stories. We went over some in class and everyone is familiar with what they are and how they are written. Some remind me of riddles.

2. I categorized them into short stories because they have a beginning, middle and end.

3. I looked for patterns. These are what I came up with:

• Punch line or transliteration. I know my classmates are able to understand the meanings of all of  these stories and all of  the quotes from the previous class and from the discussions we had about them.
• The personal connection or emotions to the stories. According to the class results on Tuesday it would seem that the "lawyer" story would be the funniest. Even though, it was the most violent. The class loved the story about the "panda" , but it was the most violent and the most unreal story. The least favorite was the "chess" story, because it was not relatible to us. In this series I chose "Ghandi" because if you have not seen Mary Poppins, you will never understand the meaning.
• Personal connection made to the stories. We are all familiar with all of the quotes from Tuesday's stories to these stories. We all have heard them before; however, some of us might feel differently according to the violence or silliness of the story. Our personal connection means a lot because if we are not comfortable with something, like the violent stories, we are not going to like them. On the other hand, if our comfort level reminds us of a safe place or we plainly see the fiction behind them, we will have a different attitude about the stories meaning.
• The stories are made to be jokes.

4. I created a hypothesis by the class's understanding of the quotes and making a personal connection them.

5. I tested the hypothesis by comparing and contrasting the results from Tuesday's class with the new shaggy dog stories. My findings indicate that the class will like the violent stories better because they are funny and out landish.