We rely on acronyms and other mnemonic devices to rote-memorize a sequence that otherwise makes no sense.
Why is East on the right and West on the left? I don’t know. It just is. “Never Eat Sour Watermelons”.
The primary purpose of a mnemonic device is to help you remember a sequence that is void of logic (or when the logic does not matter to the task at hand). Should mnemonics be used for anything and everything?
As educators, we might have a mild case of obsession with mnemonic devices and acronyms. Mnemonics have taken over our wall space and our instructional time, spreading like a wildfire, they invaded our lesson plans and our wallets. Who can resist the polished look of those laminated mnemonics posters! And when students memorize the mnemonic, it creates the impression that they learned the concept.
That stuff on a hamburger…
My vehement dislike for the unnecessary use of ACRONYMS stems from purely empirical observation.
I was helping a 9th grader with an informational paragraph. We wrote a topic sentence together, and the student told me what details he was about to add to the paragraph to support it.
Then I waited as he sat there, doodling on a page – not writing. A few minutes later, he confessed that he couldn’t remember the order of the stuff inside the hamburger in a MEAL. As a student attempted to draw a hamburger, I Googled “hamburger for paragraphs” and there it was! I showed him the picture. The initial joy of recognition quickly turned to confusion. (Does M stand for Meat or Mayonnaise? When you assemble the burger you start from the bottom, but you write a paragraph top to bottom, so does that change the order?)
By then, we were so focused on the burger, that we completely forgot what our paragraph was about. And even after the student wrote the paragraph, he was worried, “Are you sure, Miss? Can I write like this? We are supposed to do the MEAL.”
I was sure. The information in the paragraph needed to make sense to him as an author and to me as a reader.
Logic before Label
I am not a crusader against all mnemonics. We rely on FOIL in math and use mnemonics to balance equations in chemistry. Mnemonics could be a necessary crutch to support retrieval. Sometimes that crutch becomes too much, taking the center stage instead of playing its intended supporting role.
If grasping a sequence lies at the heart of internalizing a concept, you need to understand it, not memorize it.
That’s why I am not a big fan of mnemonic devices for paragraph structure or essay writing. Students need to understand WHY we structure paragraphs/ essays a certain way. They need to be able to trace the progression from general to specific, from an assertion to the support, from the previous statement to the lead into a new thought. If there is no clear understanding of the string of logic that holds the text together – no mnemonic device will help you build a meaningful sequence. Writing is thinking.
If we start with the assumption that students are unable to understand the logic behind the paragraph/essay structure, we need to check our expectations. Good writers often follow the clear sequence intuitively, while struggling writers need to be taught- taught to see the logic, not to memorize the acronym. If we resort to acronyms, it should be in support and not in place of understanding.
Out of respect for basic human intelligence, subject every catchy phrase and flashy poster to thorough scrutiny of logic! Ask yourself if that space on your wall can be used for something more useful, like an irregular verb table.
And Never Eat Sour Watermelons…unless you absolutely have to!