Against Terrible Odds

      Tell a David and Goliath-type story from your personal experience. The purpose is to show how underdogs can defeat powerful opposition. Think of a time when you entered a situation as an obvious underdog (or a seemingly no-win situation), and bring it to life for the reader. You will narrate the experience and then analyze how the outcome was achieved. First, decide on what personal experience you will narrate. (If you can’t find any suitable experiences from you own life, you may decide to tell someone else’s story, but that should be a last resort.) Once you decide on your story, spend lots of time bringing to life the details of the event. Your first goal is to make the experience come alive on the page. Obviously you’ll want to show the differences between the “David” and the “Goliath” in your story, but also spend time revealing the emotional and mental details of the experience, what it felt like to be a “David” or “Goliath.” A second element of the essay will be analyzing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Davids and Goliaths in your story. Look beyond the surface to find the hidden weaknesses and strengths in each character in your conflict. As a continuation of the strength/weakness analysis, you will have to explain how the conflict ended and why one side won. For this you will use the David and Goliath book as a primary source and make a connection between your story and one or more of the “underdog strategies” Gladwell discusses.