Handouts
English 9 Memory Work Selections
English 10 Memory Work Selections
During each of the last three grading periods, all my sophomores and freshmen will be adding memorization to their oral-communications skills.
We’ve been doing dramatic presentations, which focused on verbal and nonverbal techniques (like gestures and expression), and we’re not completely forsaking this. With Memory Work, students will still be expected to do more than merely speak the correct words correctly. Expressing those words in a way that helps listeners hear, understand, and feel them is also crucial.
Memory Work is a long-standing practice here at GWHS for all seniors, who memorize and present during each of the six grading periods, so this will be good practice for everyone for what’s to come.
Plus, memorization can open us up to new words, patterns, and modes of expression we’ve never experienced, helping us develop into better writers and readers.
Consider this excerpt from Michael Knox Beran’s piece called “In Defense of Memorization” from the Summer 2004 City Journal:
“…Memorizing poetry turns on kids’ language capability. It not only teaches them to articulate English words; it heightens their feel for the intricacies and complexities of the English language—an indispensable attainment if they are to go on to speak, write, and read English with ease. Susan Wise Bauer, author of The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had, argues that memorization ‘builds into children’s minds an ability to use complex English syntax.’ The student ‘who memorizes poetry will internalize’ the ‘rhythmic, beautiful patterns’ of the English language. These patterns then become ‘part of the student’s ‘language store,’ those wells that we all use every day in writing and speaking.’ Without memorization, the student’s ‘language store,’ Bauer says, will be limited: memorization stocks ‘the language store with a whole new set of language patterns.'”
Wow. That’s what I’m talking ’bout.
