Sarcasm and Sassafrass

 

When taking an English class on Academic Argumentation I wrote an open letter to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia regarding an opinion of the court that allowed minors to purchase violent video games (that piece can be found here). For the minor in writing gateway we had an assignment in which we were tasked with taking a previous piece of writing and turn it into a new genre or argument. When coming up with an idea for this, I thought about how to change the tone and style in a way that would challenge me. Naturally, the opposite of a serious piece is satire. 

 

I WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE MISTAKINGLY TAKE

SERIOUSLY AND POST ON FACBEOOK, BUT IT TURNS OUT SATIRE IS HARD.

 

When constructing an annotated bibliography I had the goal of seeking out academic articles that discussed the broader topic of satire. Turns out that there are not many out there. So, the only choice that I had left was to watch Jon Stewart's The Daily Show for hours on end. As a result of this I learned two things about myself, but those are not as important as the fact that Jon Stewart is awkwardly good at conveying political matters in terms hilarious manners. 

 

A key component writing satire was choosing a venue that an article like this would run in, and then mimicking the formatting of that company's website. In order to create a fake article for The Onion, I utilized an online tool known as Newsjack.  The website offers superior formatting selections for a number of different venues. HOWEVER, it is important to note that you cannot save your work on Newsjack's website. For this reason, no previous drafts of my article exist. However, below you can see an article from the Onion that I used as inspiration, and the most recent draft of my piece.