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U.B. Smart School’s
Dumb Kids Pitching Cows Over Fences Get Smashed Don’t worry, no cows or kids got hurt! Mr. Skillsworth’s study skills students are learning a kind-of secret code to help them remember information, like lists of things or names, orders of steps, stages of a process, or correct spelling and word usage. The secret code is called a mnemonic device . “An acronym is a popular mnemonic device using a combination of letters. An acrostic is a sentence where the first letter of each word is a cue to an idea you need to remember. Mnemonic devices can help you recall information in any subject.” explained Mr. Skillsworth.
Today’s headline, “Dumb Kids Pitching Cows Over Fences Get Smashed,” contains a hidden message in an acrostic for the students of Ms. Pell’s science class. Can you decipher it? (The answer is at the bottom of this page.) “Mnemonic devices may take some effort to make,” Mr. Skillsworth says, “but a good mnemonic is a foolproof and long term way to recall a list of words, steps or stages of a process . I highly recommend adding acrostics, acronyms, name/trait, spelling, and rhyme/ sing mnemonics to your list of study skills and strategies.”
PRODUCT PREVIEW
Mr. Skillsworth Challenges Students to a Mnemonic Throw Down! Mr. Skillsworth has challenged students to create an acrostic , acronym , name/trait or spelling mnemonic for the information below:
1. Create an acrostic for the first six American presidents (as listed, in order of their presidency): Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________
2. Create an acrostic for the planets in order of their position in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________
THE 21st CENTURY STUDENT’S GUIDE TO STUDY SKILLS 159
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