Widely defined, parody includes any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice (Dentith, 2000). In this definition, ‘polemical’ is an evaluative aspect used to allude to the contentious or ‘attacking’ mode in which parody is usually written. It is a ‘relatively’ polemical as the degree of attack can vary largely between different forms of parody and because the direction of the attack can also vary. When the direction of the attack is not the precursor text, but the parody draws on the authority of the source text that refers to elements of contemporary world, the ‘polemical’ content is often very slight (Dentith, 2000), leaving room for exploring other aspects such as the style or the structure of argumentation. We propose that parodies of short stories (crônicas and contos written in Brazil by great journalists and writers, that picture daily ordinary life and contextual situations), constitute an innovative kind of imitation that can facilitate or motivate the learning of complex and specialized knowledge. We exemplify with parodies intended to teach about philosophy, and discuss these examples on the light of the specific formal definition of parody; that is, parody as a kind of new work that resembles its source but that has an identity of its own that distinguish it from the source in some relevant way. Looking at the dialogical relations between texts (source and parody), we argue that, in despite of the contextual and cultural nature of the short stories, their parodies can have an universal instructional value that enhances self-reflexivity and creativity, making learning more pleasant and productive. DENTITH, S. (2000). Parody. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.