Student writers should be encouraged to move beyond a "jargon" or "public discourse" model of writing. This can be accomplished by capitalizing on the students' knack for imitation by turning it into public parody. After being divided into small panels of three, four, or five members, students are assigned a voice and topic and asked to develop a…

In 1984, a jury awarded $200,000 to the Rev. Jerry Falwell for emotional distress intentionally inflicted by a parody depicting Falwell as a drunkard who had incestuous relations with his mother in an outhouse. In 1988, in "Hustler v. Falwell," the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the verdict on First Amendment grounds. Although the…

Satire is a genre long extant if not especially beloved in human history. Practitioners of the art claim the intent to persuade and educate through their works. Many quantitative studies have tested the persuasive effects of satire. In research on persuasion, A.D. Annis (1939) compared the effects of editorials and editorial cartoons and concluded…

This paper describes a writing assignment given in an introductory literature class at an open-admissions university. In what can be called "the paper of many parts," students write six short pieces in which they do different things with a poem. The paper begins and ends with response statements: an initial one and one at the end that…

No living American satirist has pushed the limits of satire--perhaps the most extreme form of expression that society has tolerated--further than Garry Trudeau, who draws the comic strip "Doonesbury." Newspaper editors regularly pull the strip, alter it, or accompany it with a disclaimer when they think it is unfair or libelous. And the…

The potential for computers in indexing popular fiction study materials is discussed, and specific examples of comic book indexing are provided through descriptions of projects and a bibliography. The 4-stage evolutionary development of popular fiction studies includes: (1) discovery and reading; (2) bibliography and collecting; (3) cataloging and…

The hybrid music of the group "Kid Creole and the Coconuts" shows traces of every popular music style that has aroused New York City during the past 40 years--big band swing, Latin dance music, calypso, reggae, disco, funk, soul, rock, and movie pop. The fictitious characters the members of the band assume on stage, together with their…

Because of the historical influence of religion in the national life and personal lives of many American citizens and the interplay between religious and national affairs in public discourse, it is useful to study the secular media for its portrayal of religion as news or as value system. A study describes the nature of commentary on religion by…

Familiarity with specific images or sets of images plays a role in a culture's visual heritage. Two questions can be asked about this type of visual literacy: Is this a type of knowledge that is worth building into the formal educational curriculum of our schools? What are the educational implications of visual literacy? There is a three-part…

Satirical writing offers a means of encouraging students to criticize those forms of victimization and inequality that trouble them most without that overt, dogmatic indoctrination of a political agenda that many would consider an anathema to democratic teaching. The indirect, satirical jab provides students with an intellectually challenging and…

Imitation of organizational and sentence patterns is an ancient technique for teaching rhetoric, but to be effective, imitation must be informed, deliberate, and creative. Students must first learn to recognize the characteristics of a given style and then to appreciate the connection between specific stylistic qualities and their cumulative…

This paper discuses whether outrageous parodies are and should be protected under the First Amendment. After presenting a definition and a brief history of parody humor, the paper then presents a brief description of the parties to this line of legal controversies. The paper describes the rationale of a line of separate parody cases involving Miss…

The approach of parody writing dates back to ancient Greece. Unlike traditional parody that usually develops satire of an author's work, a form of primary parody writing can be used in the classroom to help children develop connections with text as they express their own ideas. Parody writing is useful with children in grade 3 and has potential…

Discusses the failure of Joe Bob Briggs' parody of "We Are the World" in terms of the development of the communal sense that creates a set of group norms, which in turn create "phantom constraints" of which the parody's author may not be aware.(NKA)