Tips on Memorizing the Purpose

[djnikki1]

I am horrible at memorization, so I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to memorize it? Thanks!! I am pledging and really need help!!

[AGDee]

Learn one part per day.. so today

To gain understanding that wisdom may be vouchsafed to me.

Tomorrow:
To develop and prize health and vigor of body.

etc. If each day, you add one line and can repeat the previous lines, you'll know the whole thing in no time. Then, when you really begin to LIVE it, it will mean so much to you that you won't ever forget...

[AGDLynn]

Congratulations on being an Alpha Gam New Member!

[ΑΓΔSquirrel10]

I wrote down each line on notecards, and every day I would take them out and learn a new line. My pledge class also worked on memorization together, so it came very easily for us!

Congrats on pledging!!! Hope you have lots of fun

[AGDZO Susan]

Have your sister-mother work with you on learning it. She can share with you how she lives the Purpose each day and you can share ways you can do the same.

[GtownGirl98]

I think that learning a line a day is a great way to do it. Also do it like a song and get the rhythm stuck in your head and then just add the words in there. I know that there are sometimes that I get stuck on the first line, but then the rest just flows.

Also getting the whole group to practice is a great way, just make sure that you get a few of the older members involved to make sure that you are not inventing your own beat because that will really throw you all off when you finally join the whole chapter. Just like learning songs... it is very important that you all don't make this your own thing (a la Simon).

Good luck and congratulations!

[SydneyK]

Sorry to crash, Alpha Gams, but I wanted to share a tip that's always worked for me. I had to memorize poems throughout college (I was an English major), and I always struggled at the end since I went over that part the least. I discovered that if I started with the last line, and added a new line (the previous one) each day, by the time I got to the beginning of the poem, it was simple. So, for instance, I would've learned the Star Spangled Banner:

Day one: Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Day two: And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave...

and so on

[ΑΓΔSquirrelGirl]

Some of us made sheets of paper in red, buff, and green with a line on each and had sis-daughters paste them on their walls...it's impossible to miss them. Flashcards help as well.

[madsflash]

one of the girls in my pledge class put it as the wallpaper of her laptop and so i put it as my screensaver line by line and it really worked

[Benzgirl]

Welcome djnikki1,
I put it on my tape recorder (pre-iPod days) and played it over and over on my way to class.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

Sorry to crash, Alpha Gams, but I wanted to share a tip that's always worked for me. I had to memorize poems throughout college (I was an English major), and I always struggled at the end since I went over that part the least. I discovered that if I started with the last line, and added a new line (the previous one) each day, by the time I got to the beginning of the poem, it was simple. So, for instance, I would've learned the Star Spangled Banner:

Day one: Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Day two: And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave...

and so on

That is genius. Why didn't I know this when I was pledging?

[preciousjeni]

I've found that for anything I need to memorize (particularly lengthy speeches/speech points) if I reinforce the memorization techniques I use during the day by reading the entire piece all the way through right before I go to bed each night before the event, my brain will process the information more quickly.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

That is genius. Why didn't I know this when I was pledging?

Why didnt you think of just asking it here?

[AGDLynn]

Well, the OP posted a year ago. Wonder if she initiated...

[AGDAlum]

Has anyone else had the experience that once the Purpose is in your head you can't forget it?

I will lapse into the Purpose when reciting the Objects & Aims of P.E.O. (I go to more P.E.O. meetings than Alpha Gam meetings.) I'll think, "No, wrong group!" and sometimes my memory dredges up phrases from Beta Sigma Phi (imperfectly remembered b/c that was a short time and long ago). By the time I'm back on track everyone else is finished with the O&A. (And then there are the memorized Initiation parts! <g>)