An anecdote is an example disguised as a story. Anecdotes are
usually true narratives, but they can be composites or even totally
fictitious accounts.
The following anecdote example is almost a short narrative essay.
The anecdote is about 335 words. It is preceded by a single sentence
introduction and followed by three paragraphs to explain the significance
of the anecdote.
As writing teachers, we have to be careful not to get so enamored
of our strategies for writing that we forget the purpose of the
strategies is to enable writers to accomplish their writing
objectives.
A student I'll call John came to my office to discuss his first
major writing assignment, which required going through a series
of strategies associated with preparing a 5-paragraph essay.
John was ex-military, a few years older than most of his classmates.
John said the 5 paragraph essay was not going to work. He was very
polite, but I could tell he was angry.
I said, "Well, why don't you tell me what you did and I'll
see if there's something I can suggest to help."
John described the strategies he had used to get his thesis statement
and to figure out what evidence was available. He told how he determined
what evidence would be persuasive with his readers.
He concluded with, "I just don't think a 5-paragraph essay
is going to work."
"What do you think would work?" I asked.
John had an answer ready.
"I think it would be better to tell one story instead of having
three body paragraphs with three pieces of evidence."
"That sounds reasonable," I said. "Why don't you
do that?"
John looked at me in bewilderment.
"Can I do that?"
"John, do you remember my saying one of the first days of
the semester that what I would teach you would probably work 9 out
of 10 times as a way to structure a paper, but that even the 10th
time when it didn't work, it would still tell you what to do instead?"
He nodded.
"Well, this is that tenth time. You did what you were supposed
to do. You went through the process and the process said, 'This
content won't work in a traditional 5 paragraph essay format.'
"John, if you know this content won't work in a traditional
5 paragraph essay format and you've convinced me it won't work in
traditional 5 paragraph essay format, don't you think we'd be awfully
stupid to insist you write it as a traditional 5 paragraph essay?"
He broke into a big grin.
"Yeah," he said. "That would pretty stupid."
I cannot recall John having another situation that year in which
he couldn't use the 5 paragraph essay strategies for both planning
and writing his essay. As I told him, and tell all my students,
it works most of the time.
I remind myself of that incident whenever I find myself confusing
my strategies for my objective.
As writing teachers, you and I should work to get all students
to write clearly and effectively. When the strategies we teach enable
students to write clearly and effectively, that is marvelous. When
those strategies interfere with their writing clearly and effectively,
then we ought not insist on students using them.
