Anecdote; The Story of Nasruddin

Anecdotes is to tell an unusual and funny event. Anecdote is similar with Recount intended to show views of an event or events of the past. The main difference is that Anecdote usually tells an unusual occurrence for the purpose of entertaining or amusing. Because of these differences, so the structure of the Anecdote generic is so different with structure of the Recount generic.

This text is an important part in daily life because it can be easily found in various mass media, electronic and print, in the language learning books (textbook), etc.. Therefore, mastering this kind of text can also be used as the benchmark level of literacy. Learning of this type will not only influential the affect of the development of literacy skills in English, but also in Indonesian, and even though the mother tongue.

The story of Nasruddin is one of Anecdote. Here is his story:

Nasruddin put two big baskets of grapes on his donkey and went to market. At midday it was very hot, so he stopped in the shade of a big tree.

There were several other men there, and all of them had donkeys and baskets of grapes too. After their lunch they went to sleep.

After some time, Nasruddin began to take grapes out of the other men’s baskets and put them in his.

Suddenly one of the men woke up and saw him. “What are you doing ?” he said angrily.

“Oh,” said Nasruddin. “Don’t worry about me. I am half mad, and I do a lot of strange things”.

“Oh, really?” said the other man. “Then why don’t you sometimes take grapes out of your baskets and put them in somebody else’s baskets?”

“You did not understand me,” said Nasruddin. “I said that I was half mad, not quite mad”