Mnemonic Devices

1. Mnemonic Devices Training your brain to absorb and retain information for future access.

2. Memory Check • What were the three words – in order – Mr. Gill had you repeat yesterday? • How did you picture them in your mind? • Were they a certain color? Size? What steps did your brain go through to remember them?

3. How your Brain Works • There are four steps to learning: • Take in information • Process information • Store information • Access information

4. Step One: Intake Of The Late White And Paper Mohammed Ali Light Of Skill The Own Stair Note And Rode Will Time Home Went The Book Work And Good And Start Read each word slowly, once, to yourself.

5. Now write down all the words you can remember, in order.

6. Thinking About Memory • Count the number of words you were able to write down. • Do any of these words have anything in common? • WHY did you remember some and not others? • Why was Mohammed Ali the easiest one to remember?

7. What Did You Learn? • What makes information stick? • Why were these words so hard to recall? • What is the role of relevance in memory? • What is the role of comparison and contrast? • How about familiarity?

8. Accessing Information: Retrieving and Applying • If you can’t access the information later, then you haven’t learned it! • If you can’t put the information into your own words (explain it yourself), then you won’t be able to use that information!

9. What Can I Do? To begin. . . • Paraphrase • Summarize

10. Summarizing • Summarizing is taking longer pieces of text and expressing only the main idea(s), not going into a lot of detail. • Example: The plot of the book one of Harry Potter • In the first book of the Harry Potter series, Harry finds out that his parents, who died when he was an infant, were wizards and that he is also a wizard. He is invited to attend a school for wizards and finds himself in the middle of a mystery that he and his friends must solve.

11. Paraphrasing • Paraphrasing is putting short pieces of text into your own words and is typically longer than the original passage, including the context of the quote. • Example: “To be or not to be. That is the question” • In Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, the King has just died and Hamlet suspects his Uncle of poisoning him to gain the throne. The Prince is so distraught that he contemplates suicide (should he “be”, as in live, or not? That is his question!).

12. Learning New Words • The same skills can be used when learning your Greek/Latin roots and definitions. • Example: According to American Heritage Dictionary, the word acrimony is a noun that means “Bitter, ill-natured animosity, especially in speech or behavior.” It comes from the Latin root Ac-, which means “sharp.” • BUT, if you don’t know what animosity means, what should you do?

13. Look it up! • Animosity: noun, bitter hostility or open enmity. • Eeek! Now you have two more to look up! • Maybe you can use a Thesaurus? • I scanned through the entries for the root word hostile until I found words I recognized: ill will, rude, hateful. Ok, now I got the idea and now I can return to acrimony.

14. Acrimony, Paraphrased • “Bitter, ill-natured animosity, especially in speech or behavior.” It comes from the Latin root Ac-, which means “sharp.” In my own words: Acrimony is a noun, from the Latin root Ac-, meaning sharp. Mean or hateful (sharp) words or behavior that are meant to be hurtful to another. The root sharp is not literal, so it has nothing to do with knives. Now make up a creative & memorable sentence that you can picture in your mind…

15. When the toys were late, Santa’s acrimony toward the elves grew until he exploded with rage, causing the elves to run and hide in small cupboards.

16. Words and Numbers • Read the following words with their number pairs to yourself. Then write down as many pairs as you can remember, in order. 4 leaf 5 student 9 shirt 8 pencil 1 table 3 cat 6 orange 7 car 10 poker 2 feather

17. Rate Your Memory • How many numbers did you remember? • How many words? • Were you able to write them in order? • Why do you think you couldn’t remember them all?

18. Strategies: LOGIC • Order of information: try numerical! 1 table 2 feather 3 cat 4 leaf 5 student 6 orange 7 car 8 pencil 9 shirt 10 poker

19. Now write down all the words and numbers you can remember, in numerical order.

20. Better? • Now how many did you remember? • Why did you remember more this time?

21. IMAGINE what it looks like! HEAR the rhyme! NOW ADD IMAGES! USE your senses! See Touch Taste Hear Smell FIND a connection!

22. IMAGINE!

23. Using Audio & Visual Connections 1 BUN table 2 SHOE feather 3 TREE cat 4 DOOR leaf 5 HIVE student 6 STICKS orange 7 HEAVEN car 8 SKATE pencil 9 VINE shirt 10 HEN poker

24. Results? • How many did you remember? More than before? • What helped you recall? • HOW CAN WE APPLY THIS STRATEGY TO YOUR EDUCATION?

25. Train Your Brain! • There are simple things you can do to help your brain process, store, and access NEW information. • Connect it to OLD information (Santa) • Explain it in your own words (write it down!) • Use to represent ideas • Color-codeit • Create an acrostic, a poem, a song • Use rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia graphics