PAO - FOR BETTER MEMORY AND GRAMMAR

Memory experts have a type of pegging list called PAO. The letters stand for Person Action Object. Memory champions use PAO like any pegging list be it a list of locations or a list inspired by the alphabet or some other recognized order. I sometimes use the names of the forty-four U.S. presidents as a pegging list. Most people would probably prefer PAO. It is more memorable.

Creating a PAO list is fun and easy. First write a list of people’s names. These can be actors, historical figures, cartoon characters, fictional characters or friends and relatives. Let’s start with ten names.

Persons:

1. Elvis Presley

2. Queen Elizabeth

3. George Washington

4. Eva De Neve (my mother) Substitute the name of your mother, aunt or teacher.

5. Mickey Mouse

6. Snoopy the beagle

7. Barack Obama

8. Justine Bieber

9. Snow White

10. Sleeping Beauty

Actions:

Now make a list of ten transient verbs. These are verbs that take an object.

Kissed, kicked, swallowed, ate, read played, broke, carried, caught, cleaned, drank. paid, stopped, helped.

That is more than ten, but we don’t have to use them all. Feel free to look up more transitive verbs online.

Objects:

Now make a list of nouns that name people or things.

fiddlestick, cow, donkey, dog, drums, book, spaghetti, Bugs Bunny, cat, paycheck, lamp, sofa, door, bedroom, bumblebee.

These are just examples. Use them or your own list.

Now let’s make sentences.

Elvis Presley kissed a cow.

Queen Elizabeth swallowed bumblebees.

Greorge Washington kicked Bugs Bunny.

Go on make your own sentences. Comeback when you are finished.

Finished?

Now memorize the list of PAO’s. Add more than ten if you like. Why? Because we often have more than ten new items to memorize. Memory exercises are great exercises to grow the brain. Also a pegging list can be used to more easily memorize something else.

Say I want to memorize ta few state capitals.

To memorize Montgomery, Alabama I see Elvis Presley kiss a cow while actress Elizabeth Montgomery. I connect the two images in my mind, so I can remember the new material easier.

Also you just got a grammar lesson.

The people in your first list are here being used as sentence subjects. An easy way to determine what the subject of the sentence is, us to ask who or what the sentence is about.

Those action words were all verbs.

The last list is a group of words used here as objects. Nouns usually function in sentences as either subjects or objects. There are three kinds of objects. Object of a preposition, direct object and indirect object.

In the examples given the cow, the bumblebees and Bugs Bunny are direct objects; they get the action right from the verb.

Let’s save the lesson on indirect objects and objects of prepositions for tomorrow or the next day.

LEARNING HACK OF THE DAY: USE YOUR MEMORY MORE

What is the name of the actor who played Speed in “CSI Miami?” What is the capital of Montana? What is the name of the cat who was the “Napoleon of cats” in the musical “Cats”?

We used to have to try to get the answer from our memories when a questions like that came up. The question might bug us until we could look it up. Nowadays the Internet lets us look up these answers instantly. How will the Internet change our memories? A good way to keep your memory sharp is to review school or recent learning in your mind. I do this when I'm walking the dog or doing the dishes or folding laundry. And if someone comes up to you and asks who sang, “Who put the Bomp in the Bomp Bomp Bomp?”? You should try to remember before you start to google.

Who was George Bush's running mate in 1988?

What two Republican candidates ran against Bill Clinton for the presidency?

What was the name of the television program starring Johnny Depp as a young undercover police officer?

What movie won the Academy Award for best film last year?

Photos are from CBS Television Network Playing cards. From my personal collection.

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More Loci

More Loci

by Mary Ann Slavcheff


In an earlier blog, I wrote about organizing items into lists using location, numbering them and attaching them to things already learned.
I often use my laundry room even though I have added other rooms over the years. When using Loci, start with one room. 
The  items in my laundry room are, 1. doorway, 2. litter pan, 3. window, 4. Dryer, 5. wall cabinets, 6. mops, 7. furnace, 8. washing machine, 9. hot water heater, 10 sink. Say I want to memorize a list of the southern states in the order in which they seceded. (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee.)
Here is how I will use Loci to memorize the  names of the states in order of secession.  You may, of course,  use other images if those will work better for you.
I see Caroline Kennedy standing in the doorway of my laundry room speaking in a strong Souther accent. (South Carolina)
I see a Mississippi river boat  sitting in my cat’s litter pan. (Mississippi)
I look out the window and there are flowers blooming everywhere in my back yard. I  pink roses, purple  lilacs and yellow dandelions.  (Florida)
I look in my dryer. Ali MacGraw and Bambi are in there. (Alabama)
Next I open the wall cabinets above my dryer. George W. Bush is dressed as a confederate general and he is leading a cavalry charge. (Georgia)
Below this are my pail of mops. My Uncle Louis is  holding a mop that perhaps he might use as a weapon in the war. With him is actress Anna Paquin who is also holding a mop.  Louis plus Anna. (Louisiana) 
I look at the furnace and there is my tax statement for last year. I must have forgotten to mail it.  (Texas)
Virginia Graham swims in my washing machine. (Virginia)
On top of my water heater is an ark and a chain saw. (Arkansas)
Caroline Kennedy is now by my sink. She keeps saying “No” to let me know that she has lost her accent. (North Carolina)
Backing away from Caroline, I bump into Tennessee Ernie Ford, who is standing in a waste paper basket.(Tennessee)
An easy technique if I have ten items in the room and eleven items to memorize, is to add either a person, an animal  or a wastepaper basket to the room. (Eleven states seceded, so I had to put Tennessee Ernie in the wastepaper basket.
Those states will now be easer to remember. I have given them order and numbers. I associated them in fun ways with locations I had already memorized.
Loci is an ancient method, but fun for modern scholars. See my earlier blog on Loci. For longer lists, I use more than one room.  Kevin Vost has one of the best explanations of Loci in his book, “Memorize the Faith.”  He has a ten commandments room, a seven deadly sins room, a seven virtues room and even a cathedral. 
Readers do not have to be Catholic to use his rooms or for Vost to  help them with Loci. His rooms work for memorizing anything and I often use his ten commandments room. 
I like to work in multitudes of ten, so I added items to some of Vost’s other rooms when they had less than ten items.  
I also have a Loci car which I copied from “O.W.” Bill Hayes’ book “Your Memory.” This last book is a 1958 edition that has been out of print for years. It is still available  at online bookstores and at rare book stores.  There are 20 items on the Loci car.
I also have a Woodward Avenue list that I created.  Woodward is main street in Detroit and runs through several Detroit suburbs. A few of the businesses I slotted onto my Woodward Loci have gone, but I remember them where they were.  There are thirty items on my Woodward Avenue List going south and  twenty-six items going north.
Many people find Loci even easier to use than fun alphabets.
I shall close this column with the loci person. We will come back to this Loci person later and see how it can help us learn code and memorize even very long numbers.
Because this list is more than just Loci, when you memorize it, please use the exact words given. Don’t change toes to foot or muscle to leg.  Also leave the numbers as they are. Zero does not follow nine, but this will make sense later when we learn this as master code. 

1. Toes, 2. knee, 3. muscle, 4. rear, 5. love handles, 6. shoulder, 7 collar, 8. face.9.pate, 0. ceiling

Your assignment is to create some Loci rooms on your own. Draw a floor plan; below that number and name each item.  You may use my laundry room or any of Vost’s rooms. I will print print Hayes’  Loci car list in a future column.
Also memorize the Loci person, we will be using that as we learn other learning techniques.

John Langan's Seven Steps to a Better Memory

If you are looking for a good book on getting better grades, check out John Langan’s “Reading and Study Skills.” Adult learners will find it is the bible of books on how to survive in school.  Parents will find lots of help for their children.  Sixth graders and above can read the book for themselves. Struggling students might want to reread it once a year.  Now in its tenth edition, a new copy online  might cost you over a hundred dollars. College book stores will be just as expensive. Older editions are just as good and usually much cheaper.  Go with an older edition, unless assigned the latest edition.
The book discusses attendance, test taking, note taking  and all the other skills, students need.
It was a required textbook in the college classes I taught.  I drilled Langan’s seven steps to a better memory into students, so I hoped they would never forget.
Step One: Organize the material.  Using this step I could introduce Pegging. My students organized material chronologically, alphabetically, or by order of importance.  See my earlier and blog on “Pegging” and “Loci.”.  To really learn anything, you must learn the order.
Step Two: Intend to learn.  So many students think they don’t need English or math and that they can forget the information as soon as the test is over. Decide to learn the material and to keep that learning.  Review previous learning from time to time. I find a good time to review my old learning is when I am walking the dog, biking or doing dishes.
Step Three: Test yourself repeatedly.  Who says the teacher must do all  the testing? Write your own tests.  Quiz fellow students and let them quiz you.
Step Four: Use memory techniques.  Langan introduces his readers to catch words and phrases, but to learn more about memory techniques, read my blogs.  I will also be sharing a list of books that have some of these techniques. Those of you not willing to wait for me to address these topics can look for books by Harry Lorraine, Joshua Foer  or Dominic O’Brien,all of them memory champions. 
Step Five: Space out learning sessions.  Don’t cram for tests. Study everyday, but give yourself breaks. Get up, watch a television show, walk the dog, or eat a sandwich.
Step Six: Over learn. When I would give tests, I would watch the students leave the classroom, take  a deep breath and promptly forget the material.  Spend a little extra time and really learn the materials. I can rattle off the names of U.S. presidents in alphabetical or chronological order. Give me a number from 1-44, and I can tell you what president had that number. I also still know the shorthand I learned way back in high school.
Learning is something you should strive to keep.
Step seven: Study before bed time. We are more open to new learning when we are relaxed. Studies have shown that playing baroque music and relaxing comfortably increases learning.The very best time to study is just before bed time.
While Langan is a great introduction to learning, my techniques go further and show you more. I elaborate on techniques described by Langan and other scholars.  I hope you enjoy my blogs and learn from them.

Loci, A Memorization Technique


We know the layout of our homes or apartments.  We might also know the layout of homes, businesses and streets where we work, where we used to live or where friends live or work. Why not use these places to peg new information?

Pegging using location is called Loci, an ancient memory technique. Roman senators used Loci to memorize long well-organized speeches that might go on for hours. They mentally planned their speeches and pegged different parts of it to places within their homes or streets or communities.

For instance, if I want to use Loci instead of a fun alphabet, I know the order of items in my laundry room.  1. doorway  2. litter pan  3. window   4. dryer  5. wall cabinets  6. mops   7.  furnace  8. washing machine 9. hot water heater  10.  sink.

Note that I assigned each item a number.  From now on each of our pegging lists should have numbers.  The only time we won’t use numbers with our lists is when using a fun alphabet and even there numbers can be helpful.

Numbers help us keep order, and they keep us from missing any items on our list. The same items should be used over and over in a Loci list.  There are other items in my laundry room, but adding or subtract items can be confusing.

I have a pegging list of items on Woodward Avenue near my home. Since I first created and memorized that list some things have changed. The Fantastic Sam’s beauty salon is gone, but it is still an its on my loci pegging list.  The sculptor, Marshal Frederick’s study was already gone and replaced by an office building. Still I used Marshall Frederick’s studio.  A historical marker sits there, and I like to pick the most interesting places.  Just like the fun alphabet, create your own Loci list.

It is probably best to start with a room in your own home.

If you move or change furniture a lot, try to stick with one arrangement for your pegging list. A laundry room night work better than a living room because things don’t change much.

Now back to my laundry room pegging list. 

Say I wanted to memorize a list of the planets in order from the sun. I use my imagination, and my laundry room  and I peg. 

The first planet is Mercury, so I imagine a Mercury automobile sitting in the doorway.  (That is a ridiculous image, but because it is silly, I will be more likely to remember it.) What is a Mercury car doing inside my house, blocking entrance to my laundry room.  What color is the car? What year? 

I imagine this in as much detail as I can.

I might also imagine Mercury, the Greek messenger of the gods, that we see so often in the florist’s commercials.  What you imagine to help you remember is up to you.  I picked a silver 2014 Mercury Grand Marquis.  Beautiful.

Next in my laundry room I have a litter pan. The second planet is Venus. I might picture Venus from the famous Botticelli painting “The Birth of Venus.”  There she is standing in my cat’s litter pan.

Next I look out my window and see Earth, the third planet from the sun. I see the actress Eartha Kitt sitting there. What is she wearing?  A  green robe. She holds a globe. She waves and smiles. I might also see giant  earth worms, hear them singing the song, “Earth Angel” while an earthquake shakes my back yard. There are always different images I can create.

Number four  is Mars. Mars candy bars are in my dryer.  The chocolate is going to melt. I will have a mess to clean up unless I eat all those candy bars.  I start taking the wrappers off. I taste the creamy chocolate of a Mars bar.  Maybe the television detective Veronica Mars is helping me.  We eat those Mars bars together. I see us clearly standing by my dryer.

Next comes the wall cabinets and Jupiter.  I might have a map of Jupiter, Florida or a picture of the Roman God Jupiter on the cabinet doors. I might have copies of “Joup” magazine inside.  I might have bottles of juice and piles of tar paper. Any of these items will help me remember the fifth planet from the sun is Jupiter.

Below  my wall cabinet I have a pail full of mops. The sixth planet to remember is Saturn.  Is that another automobile sitting there beside the dryer with mops hanging out of all the windows?  The car is even being driven by a mop. It’s a good thing GM named so many cars after planets.  It helps with my pegging.  My imaginary Saturn is red.

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is next?  I have a funny little roadrunner  running around in circles  on my furnace screaming, “You ran us.” 

Neptune is  the eighth planet reminds me of Nipper, the RCA Victor dog who hears his master’s voice. Neptune would make a great name for a dog.  He is swimming in my washing machine.  In there with him might be some Neptune High School cheer leader outfits. I like that image, but remember Veronica Mars went to Neptune High School.  I picture Veronica Mars standing by my washer wearing a neptune High School cheer leader costume.

Pluto is easier.  The dog Pluto from all those Walt Disney movies is on top of my hot water heater.  Another dog? Why not? We had two cars. The dog characters, Nipper and Pluto,  are very different.

Try Loci on some lists of your own. Draw the room. List  and memorize the items and then use the room to memorize something else like the capitals of U.S. states.  You will need several different rooms for that

But as learning is important and we learn better if we use more than one powerful memory technique, let me share another way to learn the planets in order from the sun.

Memorize this sentence.  

My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.

Note the first letter of each word. M as in Mercury;  V as in Venus; E as in Earth; etc.

There are lots of ways to make learning easier. We are just getting started.

Pegging: The Alphabet Is a Simple  Pegging List

Last week, we created fun alphabets. I asked all my readers to come up with a fun alphabet of their own. I suggested a list of favorite actors, singers or Facebook friends.  We could now use these alphabets which are forms of pegging lists to learn new material. 

Alphabets are easier to learn than most other lists because they already have an easily recognized order. After you have memorized the items in your fun alphabet, we can use them to memorize other lists.  Remember my fun alphabet of singers circa 1960:

Paul Anka, Pat Boone,  Chubby Checker, Bobby Darin, Everly Brothers, Fabian, Leslie Gore, Johnny Horton, Burl Ives, Stonewall Jackson, Kingston Trio, Brenda Lee, Johnny Maestro, Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Que Sara Sara,  Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson, Leslie Uggams, Bobby Vinton, Andy Williams, X-Ray , Kathy Young and Zippidy Doo Dah

I  can now use this list to help me memorize another list. Say I want to memorize the first  26 American presidents in order.  A simple  way would be to attach or peg each president to a singer in the fun alphabet. 

I might picture Paul Anka washing a ton of clothes. I even see a scale that weighs piles of clothing and “By George,” says Anka as he is washing a ton of clothes.  I see the picture clearly in my mind.  Anka might be washing dollar bills with Washington’s picture on them.  By associating Washington with the first item in my fun alphabet, it is easier to learn.

If Paul Anka is too much ancient history, use another celebrity whose name beings with A.  Take Christine Aguilera, for instance. 

John Adams is second just like the letter “B.” I use my fun alphabet. Pat Boone (or Justine Beiber)  is singing the theme of the “Addams Family.”  I get a clear picture of my mind and even hear Boone working on those lyrics.  Watch the spellings if you are using this as a school project. John Adams not John Addams.

Thomas Jefferson, our third president,  I will peg to Chubby Checker who  is signing the Declaration of Independence as he does the twist.  It is a fun image, and after all our Civil Rights battles, I like the idea of Checker who is a Black singer signing the Declaration.  With Chubby is George Jefferson and his son or someone named Tom.

James Madison, our fourth president, is pegged to Bobby Darin.  Perhaps Darin is  is  taking a bath on Madison Avenue as he sings  “Splish Splash.”  Maybe Darin is in the cast of the television program “Mad Men.”

The next 21 presidents in order are:

5. James Monroe  6. John Quincy Addams  7. Andrew Jackson  8. Martin Ban Buran  9. William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe)  10. John Tyler  11. James K. Polk  12. Zachary Taylor  13. Millard Fillmore  14. Franklin Pierce  15. James Buchanan  16. Abraham Lincoln 17. Andrew Johnson  18.Ulysses S. Grant  19. Rutherford B. Haynes  20. James Garfield  21. Chester Arthur  22. Grover Cleveland  23. Benjamin Harrison  24. Grover Cleveland (who served two nonconsecutive terms as president thus he gets the number  22 and number 24 slot.)

25. William McKinley 26. Teddy Roosevelt.

I will let you find your own associations for these presidents.  Use the items on your own fun alphabet or use mine.

Pegging lists can be used over and over. After I memorize the presidents in order, I can use the fun alphabet to memorize the Confederate States in the order they seceded, the state capitals or a list of Plantagenet  rulers in order. 

Alphabets can be used in many different ways. For instance, I might find it easier to memorize the presidents in alphabetical order. Three presidents had names that started with “A.” Two presidents named Adams, John and John Quincy, Chester Arthur.  

Under “B”  we have the two Bushes, and Buchanan.

Under “C” we have Carter, Cleveland (who we have to count twice because of his non consecutive terms) Clinton and Coolidge.

No presidents have names that started with “D” .  President Eisenhower was the only “E”.

I could add numbers later.  For the letter “J”, Andrew Jackson 7, Thomas Jefferson 3, Andrew Johnson 17, Lyndon Johnson 36. We will get to simple ways to memorize numbers in another column.  Usually U.S. presidents are memorized in chronological order, but I like over learning things.  And it is fun to use different orders.

So now we have at least one good pegging list - the alphabet.   If we can memorize all the presidents in any order, we have two pegging lists.   Any list you have already learned, can be used as a new pegging list.

A last note about alphabets. Our alphabet is not the only one. There are hundreds of alphabets and they come in handy in memorizing globs of information. Memory experts use Master Code and Dominic Code, both based on the alphabet to convert numbers into letters and vice versa. 

But alphabets are not the most popular or even the most used pegging list. Believe it or not there is an easier pegging list.  I will introduce you to that one and how it is used in an upcoming column.

SMART TIME MANAGEMENT AND THE ALPHABET AS A PEGGING LIST

BY MARY ANN SLAVCHEFF

       Today as I walked my dog Tiki, I decided to try something different. Instead of memorizing the license plates numbers in order as I sometimes do,  I reviewed the NATO alphabet.  

I had never put a lot of effort into memorizing this alphabet and I had not thought of it for some time. But it was time for a review; I looked at the letters on a license plate and converted them to Nato words. 

For those not familiar with the NATO alphabet it is an international phonetic  alphabet. When someone in the armed forces or a police officer wants to spell out say a license plate he does it with:

Alpha, Brava, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Limo, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu

So a  license plate with the letters MAS (my initials) would read: Mike Alpha Sierra.

As I walked and reviewed, I was doing several things correctly as a learner. Time spent walking a dog or doing any mindless task like dish washing or driving a familiar route or folding laundry can also be spent testing ourselves on our knowledge.  I was using my time smartly. 

Using time for two compatible projects is called layering. It is different from multitasking which does not work because with multitasking, focus is difficult to impossible.  I can’t, for instance, give  a caller directions to my home, look up a pasta recipe  and balance my checkbook all at the same time. Each activity needs focus and they are being short changed.

What else was I doing right as a learner as Tiki and I walked? I was Pegging. One of the reasons the NATO alphabet was easy for me to memorize because it it an alphabet.  I already had the order down.  I just had to learn a list of associations.

Associating new learning with something already learned like the alphabet is called Pegging.   It has many forms, but let’s take one of its more basic forms which is a simple list like the alphabet. 

If the alphabet sounds too simplistic for those of us beyond kindergarten, then make it fun.  Create fun alphabets  or use one already created like the NATO alphabet. 

Okay, so the NATO alphabet isn’t fun.  What is a fun alphabet anyway?

I grew up in the 1950’s and early 60’s and like a lot of adolescents and teens, I loved certain recording artists. I bought their records and put the long playing records  in alphabetical order according to the singer’s name. To this day I remember that order.

Paul Anka, Pat Boone, Chubby Checker, Bobby Darin, Everly Brothers, Fabian, Leslie Gore, Johnny Horton, Burl Ives, Stonewall Jackson, Kingston Trio, Brenda Lee, Johnny Maestro, Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Que Sara Sara,  Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson, Leslie Uggams, Bobby Vinton, Andy Williams, X-Ray , Kathy Young and Zippidy Doo Dah.

Note that where I did not have a singers name I made a substitute, songs for Q and Z and then the reliable X-Ray for X.  I also selected only one singer for each letter of the alphabet.  Having too many names could confuse me.

This list was easy to learn by just imagining my record collection. Later when I had a nice collection of DVD’s I could do the same thing with titles.

I have an actors list too.  Alan Alda, Dan Blocker, Jack Cassidy, Johnny Depp, etc. We could also create lists of sports stars, fictional character, words associated with a hobby or historic period.  We can create dozens of alphabets. I suggest working with just one fun alphabet until you get more practice.

You might get stuck on some letters like I did with my singers.  For those words that start with difficult letters have something that can be unrelated nonsense ready to plug in.

X = Xena, the Warrior Princess; Xanth, a fantasy land created by author Piers Anthony;  X Men, X Box or Xmas.  Z could stand for Zorro, Zipper, Zip codes, Zoey  or Zippidy Do Dah

If you get stuck too often  often enlarge your topic. Instead of names of boats, have transportation as your main category. Then you can include cars and even airplanes. When you get to “Q” you have the Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth both legendary ships, or you can also choose an aircraft type for which there are designation codes for most letters of the alphabet. 

What a great excuse for memorizing aircraft designations. It is now a fun alphabet.

The alphabet can be a great learning tool. Too bad it is often dismissed as too simplistic.  It has an easy order and it has already been learned; it is easy to tack new information onto it.

Create your own special alphabet, use the NATO  alphabet, or my list of singers circa 1960.  Now we all have at least one pegging list. In my next blog, I will show you how to use a pegging list.  Over the next several weeks, we will create other pegging lists. 

Pegging lists are as simple as ABC. The alphabet is not the only type of pegging lists. There is even a simpler method of pegging.  We will learn that too.

Then we will learn another technique.

Chaining the Presidents

In my last blog, I discussed chaining, one of the methods that ancient scholars and today's mental athletes use to memorize long strings of numbers, decks of cards and nonsense poems. I suggested that readers practice chaining by making up short shopping lists and chaining the items together. That way they  don't have to bother with written shopping lists and they don't forget any items.  

Remember that chaining is telling a silly story with several items exaggerated.  Some students tell me that they aren't very good at inventing stories.  Give it a try and practice.  With Chaining students not only learn easily, but become more creative. Chaining uses more parts of the brain.

Today we will try to chain a more challenging list.   Suppose you wanted to memorize a list of U.S. Presidents in chronological order.  There were 44 presidents starting with George Washington and moving on to to Barack Obama.  Let's do the first seven now. We can get to the others later or better yet, now that you have learned the technique you can chain them on your own.

The first seven U.S. presidents were:

George Washington

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

James Monroe

John Quincy Adams

Andrew Jackson.

I will start.

I am WASHING a TON of clothes. By GEORGE, I am WASHING a TON of clothes. I hear a knock on the door. It is Gomez ADDAMS and he wants to use the JOHN. (Watch the spelling here. The Addams family on television was different from the Adams family in the history books.)  Gomez sees me WASHING a TON of clothes and he says, “By GEORGE, you need to visit JEFFERSON cleaners.. The clerk there is  a TOM cat named TOM.

I visit JEFFERSON Cleaners to see the cat clerk TOM and I tell him Gomez ADDAMs sent me when he came over to use my JOHN.

I note that JEFFERSON cleaners is on MADISON avenue. I go outside after talking to TOM, and the streets are slippery filled with strawberry JAMS and all the people are wearing CHAINS.  I slip on the  JAM and pull on someone's CHAIN  to  break my fall. Whose CHAIN was it? Marilyn MONROE.  She is wearing several CHAINS.

As Marilyn MONROE helps pull me up.  Along comes Gomez ADDAMS. “You made it,” he says. I notice he is now wearing a big “Q” on his sweater.  He is again looking for a JOHN.  Who is that with him?  He introduces me to QUINCY, the medical examiner.

“I hope you guys find a JOHN,” I say. Instead they turn around and there is  Michael JACKSON. He has a sketch pad. “What are you doing, Michael?”  He says, “I DREW a JACK.” He shows us the JACK of diamonds on his sketch pad. Is that all he DREW? “No,” he says . He DREW AND DREW AND DREW.

So now we chained the first seven presidents of the United States. We have a silly story and concrete images to help us remember the items on the list. Repeat the story several times. Imagine it is your story. You are WASHING the clothes and talking to Gomez ADDAMS and the others. Note that I use a lot of television imagery.  This worked very well for me in the classroom. My students were familiar with television characters and popular actors. You may use friends.

The eighth president was Martin Van Buren. You could use MARTIN Sheen, the actor, or a purple MARTIN bird or someone named MARTIN that you know.  For the last name use a VAN, a type of automobile or a chest of drawers BUREAU.

Let your imagination take wing. Repeat the story a few times.  You won't have to repeat it as many times as you would without the chaining. The story will help you remember the names. The story is more memorable than just a list of names. Remember the story has to be fanciful. It has to be exaggerated to make it more memorable.

Let's see how you can do chaining a list of presidents. Start out where I left off in the story. Or start your own story. Here are the names of all 44 presidents. Note Grover Cleveland is mentioned twice. That is because he was both our 22nd and our 24th president.

1. George Washington, 2. John Adams, 3. Thomas Jefferson, 4. James Madison, 5. James Monroe, 6. John Quincy Adams, 7. Andrew jackson, 8. Martin Van Buren, 9. William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe),  10. John Tyler, 11. James K. Polk, 12. John Tyler, 13. Millard Fillmore, 14. Franklin Pierce, 15. James Buchanan, 15. Abraham Lincoln, 17. Andrew Johnson, 18. U.S. Grant, 19. Rutherford B. Hayes, 20. James Garfield, 21. Chester Arthur, 22. Grover Cleveland, 23. Benjamin Harrison, 24. Grover Cleveland, 25. William McKinley, 26. Theodore Roosevelt, 27. William Howard Taft, 28. Woodrow Wilson, 29. Warren Harding, 30. Calvin Coolidge, 31. Herbert Hoover, 32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 33. Harry Truman, 34. Dwight David Eisenhower, 35. John F. Kennedy, 36. Lyndon Johnson, 37. Richard Nixon, 38. Gerald Ford, 39. Jimmy Carter, 40. Ronald Reagan, 41. George herbert Walker Bush, 42. Bill Clinton, 43. George W. (Dubya) Bush, 44. Barack Obama.

Learning anything new seems difficult at times, but it is not as hard as it looks.  Chain seven eight nine or ten presidents' names at a time. It will seem easier if you learn them in smaller groups.  

Also look for patterns. While teaching a class how to memorize the names of presidents, I had a silly moment and I joked that “Tyler poked Taylor.” (This would be the 10th, 11th and 12th presidents, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor.) I was surprised to discover that the students liked my little joke and later in the semester they would still say “Tyler poked Taylor.”  They used it as a fun way to remember the order of these three presidents.

I also note the initials of the first seven. WAJ M MAJ. There is a pattern.

See what you can do  with your chaining.

CPR for a Great Memory

The ancients memorized entire texts. In the days before the printing press, books were difficult if not impossible to duplicate. A scholar went home with a head full of knowledge, no textbooks. The Bible was among the early books  passed on by memory. But there were many other books in the sciences, history and genealogy that were passed down orally. Scholars memorized the material.

So how did ancient scholars do it?  They had three  techniques. I don't know what they were called then, but I call them CPR.

Chaining

Pegging

Repetition

Chaining

Say I have a list to memorize. Perhaps it is a to-do list or a grocery list. Perhaps my instructor expects me to know all 44 presidents of the United States in order or he wants me to memorize the periodic table.

If I  want to use chaining, I  tell myself a ridiculous story and chain the elements of what I need to memorize into the story.  

Say I have the following items on my errand  list.

Buy lettuce, Pepsi, paper towels, dog food and ketchup. 

Pay the light bill.

Here is one way I could chain them together and remember them.

I imagine myself  waking  up in the morning and it is snowing lettuce. Big heads of lettuce are falling out  of the sky. (Make the story as exaggerated and as ridiculous as possible so you will remember it.) The  lettuce is pounding on the roof of my home and piling up outside, so I can't even see out my bedroom window anymore.  I roll over in bed and there is a huge bottle of Pepsi lying in the bed beside me. I am so startled that I kick the bottle and break it. There is Pepsi all over. I get out the paper towels and start mopping it up.  The dog runs over to help.  But he starts eating the Pepsi- saturated paper towels.  “You need dog food,”  I tell him. “What kind should I get you?  Alpo?” The dog runs to get his bowl, but he brings back a bottle of ketchup instead.   Yuk, The ketchup is dripping. there is Pepsi and dog food and paper toweling in the ketchup.  And it is all in my bed. Disgusting. 

The lights start blinking on and off. I have to pay the light bill.

And there are hundreds of other stories I can make up with the items in the list.  After I make up my story I visualize the scene .  What color are my sheets and bedspread? How do they look soaked in Pepsi? What kind of a dog is it? I have a beagle, but when you tell your story, you will have your own details.  Specific details will make the story more memorable. 

Repetition helps so I  go over the story a few times.  It is raining heads of lettuce, the Pepsi is in my bed, I get paper towels. the dog food is in the ketchup bottle and the lights are blinking on and off.

Practice chaining for about a week. Make up a new grocery or errand list each day and memorize it.  Practice whenever you can. Perhaps you already know a list.  How would you chain a list of your five best friends?

The more you practice the easier it will be when you have to make up a more difficult list.

Pegging

Ready for something a little more challenging? And more fun.

Make yourself a longer list to memorize.  Perhaps the names of the  thirteen original colonies.  Maybe you want to memorize state capitals or the names of the kings and queens of England. 

In my next blog, we chain the U.S. presidents.

After that we will get to pegging.