Do You Wanna Recite A Verse You Don't Like

[joynone]

I will get another D,because I refuse to recite a tedious poem which was composed by a stateman.My teacher asked us to recite it for it was a important poem in the 1840~1919 literature history of Chinese when China was sinked in the wars and poorness.I agree that the poem reflect then scholar's mind,but I think knowing this is just ok.The poem isn't beautiful,and most of Chinese don't even know it.Why do we have to recite it?And friends who are reading the post,please tell me what would you do if you were me.

[Shannanigan]

Well, just like memorizing the periodic table or the capitals of all major countries, memorizing this poem may not really help you understand Chinese history better or better your education, but there are some things out there that some teachers feel need to be memorized. I agree with you that memorizing is nowhere near as important as understanding a poem, or any subject for that matter, but really memorization is a simple thing and if you are risking getting a D by not doing so, well, I think that you should reconsider. Again, if I were the teacher I'd rather you write me an essay about what you think about the poem or something like that, but just think about how many things we have to memorize to make life easier: basic multiplication, addresses, phone numbers, faces and names...at least this will help keep your memorization skills up!

[joynone]

Well, just like memorizing the periodic table or the capitals of all major countries, memorizing this poem may not really help you understand Chinese history better or better your education, but there are some things out there that some teachers feel need to be memorized. I agree with you that memorizing is nowhere near as important as understanding a poem, or any subject for that matter, but really memorization is a simple thing and if you are risking getting a D by not doing so, well, I think that you should reconsider. Again, if I were the teacher I'd rather you write me an essay about what you think about the poem or something like that, but just think about how many things we have to memorize to make life easier: basic multiplication, addresses, phone numbers, faces and names...at least this will help keep your memorization skills up!

Thank you for your advice.And I want to tell you that time is the most important thing for me.In the other word,if I recited the useless poem,I would waste time which should have been used to recite beautiful one.

[byquist]

Well, I'm sorry to disagree with you but I think memorization should be more prominent in education. In 10th grade we had to learn a Julius Caesar speech to recite in front of the class -- unbelievably difficult task at the time. Still difficult to memorize, but it demands a diff. type of thought process than our everyday -- a certain concentration and focus. Maybe you could give it another chance and see if there are hidden merits in the content of the poem after all. Think of it in terms of the "experience" and not just a string of lines of a poem that looks silly.

[mir]

No - actually, i agree with joynone. I also think it's stupid to memorize things that only take a second to look up. i think it's much more important to spend your time trying to understand them. Why don't you ask your teacher if, instead of reciting the poem, you can just prepare a couple-minutes-long speech about why the poem has meaning, and why it is important to know the ideas behind it and the impact it had?

[dramasnot6]

Very good point Mir. I think there is no point in blind memorization, everything you learn should serve some sort of function. Actors memorize lines to perform them, chefs memorize recipes to follow them. They shouldnt have to make you memorize it in the first place, but if it has to be done you should add some contextual analysis to make it more relevant and useful to what youre studying. Good luck, i hope it goes ok!

[Redzeppelin]

I will agree with byquist (to a degree). As a literature teacher, I find that students often believe that once they're read something once that they've "been there and done that" - but with literature, that's rarely true. Good literature (especially poetry) resists single readings. I've taught Macbeth for 12 years, and each time I teach it I see/understand something new. Memorizing passages is valuable for a couple of reasons. First, it allows students to "hear" the poem - one of the most undertaught and under-appreciated aspects of poetry is its sound - its rhythm and its "music." Memorizing it for oral recitation allows the student to "hear" what silent reading misses. Second, memorizing a passage allows the student of "own" the passage - because once you have memorized something you have exposed yourself to it enough times to where it "opens up" in meaning. This sounds kind of airy - but I believe its true. Helen Vendeler (sp?) is a Harvard prof who wrote a book examining each of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets. She said that, for the first task of her book, she memorized ALL 154 of the sonnets (!) . That may seem insane, but she insisted that memorizing the sonnets made her feel like she was commenting on them from the "inside."