Memorize That Poem! -

Memorize That Poem! -
“I was interested in things that will bring students into closer contact with the material in the class.”
Colleagues teased Mr. Jones about “how there’d be lines outside my door of students
quietly weeping or looking like they were about to vomit,” he said.
“I was interested in messing around a little with the mutual nonaggression pact between teachers and students, the one
that says, ‘As long as you don’t expect too much from us beyond a couple of papers, a midterm and a final, we’ll perform for you and we’ll all get through this,’ ” he told me.
In her book “Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem,” Catherine Robson, a professor of English at New York University, explains
that poetry recitation was an inexpensive exercise that helped even inexperienced teachers at underfunded schools impart rhetorical skills and nurture moral character.
It’s no coincidence that Mr. Snider has asked students to memorize poetry many times in his career in education.
“I’d stare at a copy of the poem to prompt them, or turn
and look away if they wanted.” In the end, he said, “their worst fears were typically not confirmed.”
Mr. Jones didn’t try to sell his students on a profound spiritual experience or practice in public speaking.
“When you memorize, you start to notice the things
that you notice, your own habits of attention, your habits of reading,” said Mr. Jones, who is now the director of educational technology at Trinity College in Hartford.
For students, who seem to have less and less patience for long reading assignments, perhaps now is the time to bring back poetry memorization.