7. People Learn Best from Examples

In the previous topic, I wrote about Aristotle’s model of the structure of a story. What if I had just told you the facts and left it at that?

Aristotle identified the basic structure of stories, and many people have since expounded on his ideas. One model is the basic three-act structure: beginning, middle, and end. This may not sound very unusual, but when Aristotle came up with it over two thousand years ago it was probably pretty radical.

You may or may not have processed that information, and you might not remember it. Instead of just giving you the facts, I also gave you an example. I walked you through how Aristotle’s outline applied to my story.

According to Aristotle’s model, in the beginning you introduce your audience to the setting, the characters, and the situation or conflict. In my story, I introduced you to the setting (I had to give a class), the characters (me and students), and the conflict (the students don’t want to be there).

My story was very short, so the middle part was short too. In the middle part of a story, there are typically obstacles and conflicts that the main character has to overcome. These are usually somewhat, but not completely, resolved. In my story, the main character tried her usual opening and it failed. Then she started to panic.

At the end of a story, the conflict comes to a climax and is then resolved. In my story, I thought of what to do (tell a story to the class), I did it, and it succeeded.

The example provides more information, it helps you process the information more deeply, and it makes the information more likely to be retained in memory and recalled later.