Wood_cover.qxd (Page 1) - National Council of Teachers of English

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Interdisciplinary Connections 77struggle to understand how his memory works and ultimately to rememberhis father.In this lesson, students learn about memory by doing a memorywriting exercise, studying the brain to understand how it affectsmemory, reading Lee’s poem “Mnemonic,” and creating projects todemonstrate their new understanding of memory.Prereading: Memory ListsStart by writing words on the board that will spark students’ memories,and ask them to start making a memory list as soon as they see aword that reminds them of something. Explain that the list does not haveto make sense and all the words do not have to relate to one another.For example, the words roller coaster can lead to cotton candy, which canlead to pink tongue and headache and sleeping in the car and seat belts andpillows and twinkling stars and so on. The point is to allow one thing tolead to another and see where it goes.Once students have the opportunity to brainstorm a good memorylist, ask them to read through it and circle the five most importantor interesting words or phrases in the list. On a separate piece of paper,have students incorporate those words or phrases into a larger piece ofwriting. It can be either a poem or story, but ultimately it should usetheir memories to bring an experience closer to them and to the reader.Give volunteers a chance to share their writing and discuss what theirmemories mean to them and why they used the words and phrases theydid to bring the memories to life.CameronThe five words/phrases I used are snowball fight, Kansas, fort,pain, and hiding.Winter in KansasCrisp frozen air beat us downsix of us working togetherin the snow, a Kansas wintergifted us enough of the solid white stuffto make a fort, a refuge from the warwe were planning.“Snowball fight!”The signal was yelledand we all went into hiding,three on a side with steam engines pumpingout of our noses and mouths.Ice bullets flew from every direction.“Bam! Bam! Bam!” My brother screamed,
78 Chapter 4throwing a snowball from each hand.I was hit, shot with a cold pain that broke throughthree layers of clothes.Our war lasted for hours.Brothers, sister, and neighborhood friendsrecruited to die on the field beforegoing inside for hot chocolate and cartoons.Classroom Snapshot: When I asked students to share their memorypieces, I was most interested in helping them understand how theirmemories developed. How did Cameron, the student who wrote“Winter in Kansas,” remember details about the day she had a snowballfight in Kansas? What kinds of memories were most vivid tothem? Most of the students in my class said that they rememberedthings best that affected them emotionally. For example, one of mystudents wrote about the day he broke his arm, while someone elsewrote about the best birthday present she ever received. I wanted mystudents to think about why they might be more apt to remembersomething like what it was like getting their first pets rather than whatthey learned in one of their classes in elementary school. This discussioneasily led to the next activity—learning about how memoryworks in the brain.Research: Learning about the BrainStart by showing students the following Web site—www.exploratorium.edu/memory/—and giving them a few minutes to click aroundand learn a little bit about the brain in relation to memory. Once theyhave had a chance to look at the Web site freely, put the questions inFigure 4.2 on an overhead and have students work in groups of threeor four to answer the questions on paper. Most of the answers can befound in the section of the Web site called “Sheep Brain Dissection” andother parts of the Exploratorium Web site, but students may have tosearch other sites to learn about mnemonic devices.Once the class has compiled as much as they can about howmemory works in the brain, they are ready to read the poem “Mnemonic.”Reading: Filling in the GapsIn Li-Young Lee’s poem “Mnemonic,” the speaker remembers a momentwhen his father gave him a blue sweater to keep him warm. He remem-
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Wood_cover.qxd (Page 1) - National Council of Teachers of English

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