Two texts which have created humour are; 'A tour of the Cages' and 'The Beano.' A tour of the Cages was a humuorous piece written in the 1950's

There are several cartoons in the text, these add to the humour of it and relate again to the children it is meant for. The pictures include traditional, stern-looking headmasters. The lines that go with the picture give the reader the feel that the teacher is stuck in his ways, has plenty of age and experience and would not change under any circumstances. The point of the teacher not wanting any change is a key aspect of this text as it contrasts to the student's desire for change. The line;

"I have been here thirty years. I have always said that and do not intend to change now." Shows how the teacher is opposed to any change whatsoever and goes perfectly with the cartoon above it.

An important aspect of the text is the ironic persona of it's poor English quality when it talks about the subject in particular. The student contradicts himself on a few occasions but hugely when talking about poetry. The student feels the need to mock poetry as he feels it is old-fashioned and makes no sense. He tries to be very masculine and mach in trying to say that 'poetry is sissy stuff that rhymes.' He spells the word poetry wrongly and cockily tries to modernize it.

On the whole the text creates humour well, it is meant for children, but the humour aspect of it is not. The ironic persona is it's main focus, and the text mainly concentrates on exposing the student for his own need for image and his actual stupidity.

Another poem that creates humour is 'The Beano'. The text is a comic extract and explores humour in the same way the 'A tour of the Cages' does, in the sense that the humourous side of it is too mature for the children it is meant for. The theme of the text is where the 'Bash Street Kids' visit an aviary on a school trip. The title reads, 'The Bash Street Birds- Bird-brain gives Teacher pain!' The basic joke of the text is that the birds in this aviary are infact superior in terms of intelligence to the boys themselves.

The extract has much more graphological features than the last text as it is an extract from a comic strip. The text is based around the cartoons as it is a comic strip. The text contains several jokes and puns that are used to mock the boys. The main idea is that the birds are smarter than the boys, so each bird represents a boy in some way.

The first box of cartoon is the title, it includes several birds who all resemble each one of the Bash Street Kids. Each bird has a character or trait that is unique to each pupil. The general joke here is that the boys may as well be 'bird-brains'.

One of the jokes from the text is that the school organizes a trip to the aviary and the teacher explains to the children that they would be visiting the birds in their natural environment. This is of course wrong as they are cooped up inside an aviary on public display. The joke contradicts the teacher but also the educational system.

Once inside the aviary, the boys are mocked by the birds. The birds seem to play with the children, as they are superior to them. This part of the text is humourous as it includes several puns and jokes. The main idea is the irony of each bird as it lives up to its name. For example the secretary birds are found doing one of the child's homework and the humming bird smelling. The irony here is that these birds don't actually do as their names suggest but they do outsmart the boys in most cases.

Conclusively, the ironic sense of humour in this text and the first, works well in the sense that it creates humour on a sophisticated level. The connotations on words, ironic persona and literacy jokes from the first text help to create humour. The second stereotypes the boys, in saying that they are stupid, uses role reversal to show how the birds are more intelligent, and irony that the birds live up to their name. This text also uses lots of onomatopoeia when describing the sounds the birds make. All of these factors contribute to the text creating humour.