Poetry Out Loud Memorization Activity

Due by midnight on Sunday (2/2/2014)

This is one of the ways I memorize poetry (or just about anything, really); it may prove useful to some of you, too! Please follow the steps exactly and write a short (3-5 sentence) blog post on your experience. Was this method useful? What did/didn't you like about it? How did this compare to other memorization techniques?

Step One: Read the poem to yourself (not out loud)

Step Two: Now read only the first line of the poem out loud. Take your eyes from the page and immediately, out loud, say the line again. Glance quickly to make sure you got it right. If you made a mistake, do it over. Now move on to the second line and repeat the procedure- one out loud reading followed by one out loud recitation of the line from memory. Do this for every line in the poem, in order.

Step Three: Once you have completed going through the poem, go back to the beginning. This time read the first two lines aloud, look away, and repeat them aloud. Check briefly that you got it right. If you make a mistake do it over. Now move on to the next two lines and so forth going through the poem two lines at a time.

Step Four: Repeat the process three lines at a time, then 4 lines at a time, then 5 and then 6. I have found that by the 6th pass, no matter how long or short the poem, you will have the whole thing committed to memory. At some point in this process you will find that you are able to recite the whole poem without hardly a glance at the poem. I recommend doing all six passes even if you already seem to have the poem down before then.

Step Five: Recite the whole poem, preferably just before you go to bed at night.

Step Six: (IMPORTANT): Stop thinking about the poem and just sleep on it. Your sleeping mind is very important for memory- it sort of saves to your brain’s hard drive the information that has been floating around in its RAM while it worked through the poem.

The next day you should find (perhaps with a little glance at the first line of the poem to kickstart your memory) that you can recite the whole poem. You have mechanically memorized the text: now is your opportunity to explore the poem, its hidden meanings and connections, without needing the text in front of you!

 Compare and contrast three pivotal choices or decisions made by Jamal and Salim.  How do their choices affect their respective paths in life or “destinies”?  Do you think that such choices we make as non-fictional characters (you know "real people") create a path of destiny? 

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress." (Frederick Douglass)

Describe how loss, chance, luck, suffering, and street smarts are also characters behind the scenes. The film explores gain and loss side by side. Triumphs are tempered with loss. Where do you see this evident?  Do you see these balances in real life?  If so, where? 

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." (Henry David Thoreau)

  Compare and contrast three pivotal choices or decisions made by Jamal and Salim.  How do their choices affect their respective paths in life or “destinies”?  Do you think that such choices we make as non-fictional characters (you know "real people") create a path of destiny? 

"There is one that makes himself rich, yet has nothing: there is one that makes himself poor, yet has great riches." Proverbs 13:7

In one exchange of dialogue in the film during the interrogation of Jamal, the police inspectors discuss the impossibility of what Jamal knows.  

Police Inspector: Doctors... Lawyers... never get past 60 thousand rupees. He's on 6 million.

[pause]

Police Inspector: What can our slumdog possibly know?

Jamal Malik: [quietly] The answers.

Discuss the irony in the film that Jamal “knows too much” and is suspected of cheating. Discuss the irony

that in the end, his poverty may make him rich. What point is the film making? What is real wealth and what is its measure?

China Does the MoonWalk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25178299

1. Do you think China's assertion into the space program will spark a response from other countries? Specifically countries like the US who had a raging space program in the 60's and 70's but since then have had much less involvement.

2. Do you think China is truly interested in advancing its scientific prowess, or is it a patriotic show of modernization towards other countries?

3. With such ambition what do you predict the Chinese government will invest in the future? 

NFL and Cheerleaders in China?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/nfl-could-find-refuge-from-controversy-in-china.html

1) Should the NFL have teams in China and/or other countries? Why or why not?

2) Since China is known to be academically focused as opposed to athletically, how would a wildly popular sport like football affect the government and the focus of the people in China?

3) Do you think football would be a successful and popular sport in China? Why or why not?