5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

Othmar's Trombone

TEACHING

The absolute curses of retention and organisation:

needlessly yawing mnemonics

MAY 24, 2015 | JAMESTHEO | 13 COMMENTS

Management Speak
@managerspeak · Follow

We're very keen to use the acronym SWIFT, so I need suggestions for the actual
words.
6:37 PM · Apr 10, 2015

9 Reply Share

Read 5 replies

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 1/7
5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

I love poetry. Actually the truth is – as I often tell my pupils – I love some poetry. Whenever a pupil
says “I hate poetry”, I usually tell them it’s like saying “I hate music” – a sweeping statement that
doesn’t really express the truth: The Cure genuinely send shivers down my neck, whereas Nickelback
make me do a little bit of sick in my mouth. Likewise, Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’
(http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html) stirs me, but I never really felt the remotest of interest in Tony
Harrison’s ‘v.’ (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/5618/)

On paper, ‘v.’ should say more to me than ‘Prufrock’. Harrison’s poem is written in and of a time con‐
temporary to my growing up and the class-laden references are entirely familiar to me, whereas Eliot
writes of manners and allusions that I have had to work at to understand. In terms of accessibility,
the directness of ‘v.’ should trump the ambiguity of ‘Prufrock’, yet for some reason the subtle, arcane
and foreign emotions expressed in the latter have a far greater pull for me.

If poetry was written as a formula, I’m sure I’d be more drawn to the formula of ‘v.’ than that of
‘Prufrock’. But poetry isn’t like that. Ultimately, it’s irreducible, perhaps because it is itself a reduc‐
tion (of language).

As teachers, we often try to reduce complex ideas to formulas. One way that we do this is to create
acronyms as mnemonics. It’s entirely well meaning, and I’m sure there are examples of memorable
and effective acronyms. But often they are clumsy attempts to reduce the irreducible.

It always surprises me to see the same comments year after year on the AQA examiner’s reports for
the poetry exam. They argue that there’s an over-reliance on these acronyms, suggesting that they are
holding pupils back. Despite this problem being noted by the exam board every year, here it is high‐
lighted again (and again) in the most recent reports:

(https://othmarstrombone.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/higher-lit-
poetry-june-14.png)
AQA Report on the Examination – GCSE English Literature, Poetry
Across Time, June 2014, Higher paper

(https://othmarstrombone.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/foundation
-lit-poetry-june-14.png)
AQA Report on the Examination – GCSE English Literature, Poetry
Across Time, June 2014, Foundation paper

And it isn’t just in poetry that these acronyms hinder pupils. The examiners’ reports for the English
Language GCSE also suggest that language analysis seems to suffer because of a reliance on acro‐
nyms too.

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 2/7
5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

(https://othmarstrombone.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/foundation
-lang-aqa-nov-14.png)
AQA Report on the Examination – GCSE English Language, November
2014, Foundation paper (note the pun at the end – even English examin‐
ers can’t help being playful with language)

That is not to say that acronyms can’t be useful. When I did closed book exams during my degree, I’d
memorise quotes that might be helpful. And to help do this, I’d initially commit to memory the first
letter of each quote. This meant that I might have 12-15 letters to remember, so I would arrange them
so that they would produce a pseudoword (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoword): a nonsense
word that followed spelling patterns of English words, despite it having no meaning. The reason for
this is that I could commit it to memory as one, pronounceable word, rather than a series of letters –
what we know as chunking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)).

Advertisement

Discover Turkmenistan

Experience the wonders of

Turkmenistan, from ancient ruins to
vibrant cities

This was perfectly serviceable for what I needed. The acronyms themselves were usually gibberish
because I’d have to be pretty lucky if what I needed to remember could actually spell out real English
words. Apropos of this, it means that I’m usually pretty sceptical about the utility of an acronym if it
happens to conveniently spell out a word. I’m even more suspicious if that word happens to link to
the topic.

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 3/7
5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

Something like this, for instance, fills me with worry.

(https://othmarstrombone.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/poetry.png)

This mnemonic is suggested for pupils to use in analysing a poem. It’s awfully convenient that
it spells out the word POETIC, isn’t it? Okay, let’s look at why it might cause problems…

Purpose – This is clarified by “the meaning of the poem?” Wait, do you want me to think about the
purpose or the meaning? Those are different things, and it probably isn’t helpful to conflate them.
Now, I can work with ‘meaning’ – that’s what we do when we read poetry: interpret meaning. But
I’m not sure it’s always our place to decipher the purpose of a poem. Why did Sylvia Plath write
‘Cut’? We can read biographical information into the poem, but not sure we should be discerning
purpose.

Organisation – Okay, this is useful. What we might call ‘structure’ and ‘form’.

Emotive Tone – Again, this might be useful. But I would suggest that this isn’t isolated from
Organisation and Techniques. It is important that pupils see how tone is created through these
things.

Techniques – Okay. But I would suggest that Language is what we should look for, and if there are
specific techniques in that language we might discuss them. Feature-spotting is a common mistake
made in analysing poetry.

Individual words – Ah – this is the Language I was talking about. But why is it ‘Individual words’? It
goes on to specify ‘words and phrases’, so ‘individual’ is a misnomer.

Contrast – Right… isn’t this to do with language? At best it’s a technique, if we follow this mnemonic?
Why does it needs its own category? If only there was some sort of justification… wait – “there will
always be a contrast in a well-written poem”. Hmm. That’s a bit of a sweeping value judgement, isn’t
it?

Whilst there are arguably some useful directions for pupils in this acronym, they are often clouded by
distant synonyms which obfuscate the real meanings – Purpose actually means ‘meaning’, which is a
different thing entirely, and Individual words isn’t just asking for individual words, it’s asking for
phrases. And if it isn’t clouding meaning, it’s deviating from the utility of the mnemonic by adding in
things that don’t need to be there – Contrast is an unnecessary focus. By needlessly yawing off course
like this, we are asking pupils to store redundant information in their memories.

Here’s another example of an acronym that might actually make things harder for pupils. This is for
close reading of a text.

Advertisement

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 4/7
5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

Divine Power

Receive miraculous power and be an

effective witness. Follow Jesus and
wait on the Holy Spirit.
#BeAnEffectiveWitness

(https://othmarstrombone.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/closereadingballs.jpg)

Yet again fortune has given us the letters to spell a word linked to the topic! But if you look at the
words that CLOSE helps us remember, you’ll notice that they aren’t actually content words – they
aren’t the actual things we want pupils to remember. Check, Look, Observe, Study and Examine do
not only arguably operate as function words in the sentences they are in, they are also almost syn‐
onyms of each other (making it even more difficult to discern them from one another). What we
would want pupils to remember in each of these sections would be unknown words, ideas and
details, book and text features, sentence structures and author’s message or theme. How CLOSE helps us re‐
member those is really a leap of faith.

I absolutely understand the intentions behind using these – they are utterly well meaning. We desper‐
ately want to break down information for our pupils, and acronyms seem a good way of doing this.
However, in breaking it down this way we often make common mistakes.

If we must use mnemonics like this, perhaps it is best to first ask the following question:

Am I trying to reduce the irreducible? For example, can this topic really be studied effectively us‐
ing a formulaic approach? Or better still, should it be studied this way?
https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 5/7
 g PM
5/5/24, 7:08 pp The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing y
mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

And if we then decide to use an acronym as a memory aide, it is important that every word repre‐
sented in that acronym counts. Avoid deferring to a synonym because its initial fits the acronym more
neatly – synonyms carry with them different meanings and so confuse what is needed. And then we
should make sure that we don’t add extra information just so that we have letters that neatly spell out
a word. This is unnecessarily deviating from the purpose of the acronym. Why would we want some‐
one to remember something they don’t need to?

We need pupils to remember stuff. But perhaps we should be a bit more precise when using
acronyms. In the battle to get pupils to remember, we have created these absolute curses of retention and
organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics.

Now if only there was a way I could remember that last statement…
ACRONYMS

13 thoughts on “The absolute curses of retention and

organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics”

1.  jamestheo says:
MAY 24, 2015 AT 6:30 PM
Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber.

2. Anthony Radice says:

MAY 24, 2015 AT 8:51 PM
I think English teachers also use acronyms because they want something more concrete and spe‐
cific to point to in their marking and feedback. Pupil asks, “How could I get a higher grade?” and
the teacher has a pat response, “Use more SMILE.” Then it all becomes terribly self-reinforcing, as
the pupil strives to use the acronym more and more. Using exemplar answers instead could avoid
this kind of over-simplification, as a really good answer will never be formulaic.

1.  jamestheo says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 7:02 AM
Yes, I think it’s a short cut, isn’t it? And we are so busy and teaching is difficult so I don’t
blame teachers for trying to find them. It’s just that they often create more problems than they
solve.

3. harrybackhouse says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 5:54 AM
I use a mnemonic, though not an acronym, for unseen poetry analysis, and essay structure, and
now I’m wondering about its value. I’ve been using it for too long without reflection, I think.

For the record, the mnemonic is “What’s poetry? Something I Like, perhaps.” where the initial let‐
ter of each word is taken to stand for :

What’s it about?
Perspective or voice,
Structure,
Imagery,
Language,
Personal response.

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 6/7
5/5/24, 7:08 PM The absolute curses of retention and organisation: needlessly yawing mnemonics | Othmar's Trombone

It is supposed to offer a quick essay plan and structure as much as to determine content, but I’ve
probably been guilty of relying on it too heavily.

Nice post; thanks.

1.  jamestheo says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 7:00 AM
I’ve been guilty of it too! Show me a teacher who hasn’t.
4. mathsjem says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 7:17 AM
We don’t use many acronyms in maths, but you might be interested to hear that one commonly
used mnemonic leads directly to serious misconceptions. The acronym BIDMAS helps students
remember the order of mathematical operations (brackets, indices, division, multiplication, addi‐
tion, subtraction). But it is unforgivably misleading, in that the order of the acronym suggests that
division should come before multiplication, and addition before subtraction, when in fact these
operations are equivalent so one does not take priority over the other. The acronym, which is used
in both primary and secondary classrooms throughout the world, leads directly to incorrect math‐
ematics. Our students, made to memorise a misleading mnemonic, have no chance of getting it
right. Unfortunately many teachers don’t know the correct order of operations either. This is an
excellent example of a mnemonic doing more harm than good.

1.  jamestheo says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 7:36 AM
Thanks for sharing that Jem – I’m certain that these acronyms can do damage across lots of
subjects. Yours is a great example of where we do harm when the intention is well meaning.

1.  jamestheo says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 10:22 AM
Sorry, I meant Jo!

5. costadelsolent says:
MAY 25, 2015 AT 10:16 AM
I think that like all things they have their place – as a ‘writing frame’ they are a disaster as stu‐
dents demonstrate little towards assessed skills, equally as a a way of teaching the text they limit a
students engagement with it – however I have still been using them this year.

For some students, usually capable and confident writers, exam conditions squeeze their ideas out
of them and they don’t know what to write here is an example of how I have used STAR WARS as
an acronym to help unpick the ideas in a poem if stuck. Definitely not as a way to write a response
and only as a last resort!

6. Pingback: ORRsome blogposts May 2015 | high heels and high notes
7. Pingback: 20 psychological principles for teachers #12 Goals | David Didau: The Learning Spy
8. Pingback: Poem’s title as mnemonic – a closed book conditions life-saver? Memory Strategy 6. |
teenschooling
9. Pingback: How to Play Trombone: A Guide to this Blog | Othmar's Trombone

https://othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/the-absolute-curses-of-retention-and-organisation-needlessly-yawing-mnemonics/ 7/7