By Robert Oliphant

Is America headed for a memorization renaissance? Most supermarkets now stock at least thirty different puzzle books, including large-print versions, for the millions of us who worry more and more about memory loss (call it "senior moments, senile dementia, or Alzheimer's, if you wish). So as might be expected, the National Endowment for the Arts is sponsoring a 50-state poetry memorization and recitation contest, and the National Anthem Project is currently calling for all of us to lay our patriotic literacy on the line, as it were, by learning the Star Spangled Banner by heart - all four verses.

Practically considered, fifth graders are still the aristocrats of the mnemonic community. Not long ago a reader wrote me that she had been required as a Tenderfoot Girl Scout to learn all four verses of the Star Spangled Banner (318 words), and more recently another reader wrote me that her daughter, along with her fifth grade classmates, had been given one week in which to memorize Lincoln's Gettysburg address (272 words).

If we add the Bill of Rights (only 472 words) to these two traditional documents, we end up with an overall patriotic-literacy target of only 1059 words that's well worth shooting at - for fifth graders and for those on their way to becoming new citizens and responsible voters.

Memorization and testing . . . . Hitting a mnemonic target requires a test of some kind, especially if we want to make sure our fifth-graders understand what they're reciting. Appendix One therefore presents a ready-for-use 100-item test covering the three key patriotic documents of our civilization. The instructions, by the way, are meant to make sense to any fifth grader, as well as to any parent or teacher who wants to construct additional tests with the same key features, namely, Cheapness, Authority, Relevance, and Encouragement (C-A-R-E).

CHEAPNESS. . . . Like justice, testing delayed is testing denied, and corruptible testing kills confidence across the board. Appendix Two, therefore, demonstrates how the 100-item test in Appendix One can be followed by many, many other 100-item patriotic literacy tests as tools that combine security with cost effectiveness. By way of reassurance , Appendix Three, which explains our verb-form approach to the measurement of reading comprehension, is intended as a confidence builder for students, parents, and teachers.

As will be apparent, our three-document target of roughly 1,000 words can produce just about the same number of two - or three-word "locator phrases." Each of these phrases can then be used to locate, very conveniently, as many as 16 different word-targets, any one of which can serve as a focus for a specific multiple-choice question suitable for machine scoring. So if neo-mnemonic America wants its children on a large scale to learn a supplementary "1,000-word Pledge of Allegiance and Comprehension" (Banner, Gettysburg, and Bill of Rights), this construction process is certainly cheap enough to serve our five million fifth-graders, along with the rest of our population - including senior citizens searching for therapeutic memory challenges.

AUTHORITY. . . . American parents are no fools. To them a good test question, be it algebra or sentence comprehension, requires a clear unambiguous answer, ideally one that can be checked against a respected and reliable source like traditional American school dictionaries, e.g., the Webster's Collegiate, Webster's New World College, and the American Heritage College dictionaries.

All three of these dictionaries use the same pronunciation symbols and grammatical terms. So any one of them can serve in effect as a publicly available answer key for the specific questions we will be giving participants to use in demonstrating their mastery of our 1,000-word target. Far better, most of us will surely agree, to have a publicly verifiable answer key than to depend upon the mysterious whims of far off gnomes employed by commercial testing services.

RELEVANCE. . . . John Maynard Keynes defined "relevance" as a change in the PROBABILITY [caps added] of subsequent behavior. Physicians, for example, use cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight loss tests to increase the probability that patients will comply with their advice regarding more healthful behavior . Along the same lines, parents and teachers can devise and use their own 100-item tests to increase the probability that fifth graders and other learners will comply with the time requirements of a patriotic literacy study program.

There's no doubt that some of us are faster memorizers than others (the "Irish ear," it used to be called). But the going estimate these days for fifth graders is 50 words an hour, which means that at least 20 hours of honest do-it-yourself effort will be needed to produce a level of recitation performance that will, and should, stand up to public scrutiny. Fewer read-aloud speeches, more polished recitations - why shouldn't neo-mnemonic America revive these features of traditional commencement exercises?

ENCOURAGEMENT. . . . As set forth here, there's no doubt that our 1,000-word Pledge of Allegiance and Comprehension is " tortoise friendly." It's true of course that our 100-item tests, like all tests, favor the clever and quick -witted. But it's also true that our clearly defined three-document target, four general question-types, and publicly available answer sources open a wide and friendly door to all participants, especially those who choose to spend more personal-best time than their quick-witted competitors in reaching the same level of test-performance excellence - "slow and sure winning the," as Aesop put it.

It's worth pointing out here that our society is moving increasingly toward this kind of low-cost, high stakes testing as an alternative to over-priced cost commodity education in achieving social and income mobility in our society. Right now, for instance, the publicly available July 2005 results of the California Bar Association (via web site) indicate that correspondence-school (Concord) and private sector graduates (Ventura/ Santa Barbara) now have a higher first-time pass rate than graduates from higher priced law schools like UCLA and Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley.

Right now, as well, many parents are leveling the playing field for their children, academically and athletically, by holding them back a year or two, as opposed to pushing them to keep up with their more precocious classmates.

TO CONCLUDE . . . . If all politics is local, as Tip O'Neill put it, all learning is personal. Tachers may inspire, but it's students who perspire hour after hour after hour. Important though the sales and purchases of commodity education are (credits, grades, degrees, etc.), it's become increasingly clear that a free society requires citizens who are measurably competent in the knowledge and skills they claim to possess, as pointed out recently by columnist Rich Karlgaard of Forbes magazine (March 27, 2006). Hence the growing importance of external high stakes testing as an alternate route for young Americans who would rather study on their own than sit in stuffy classrooms listening to boring lectures and vapid discussions.

I'm not claiming here that learning our 1,000-Word Pledge of Allegiance and Comprehension will equip our fifth grader to learn Greek or baton twirling on his or her own. But my direct experience certainly indicates that any American, not just a quick-witted fifth grader, who masters the Star Spangled Banner, the Gettysburg Address, and the Bill of Rights, will certainly have far more intellectual confidence than ever before, enough so to take on a vocabulary growth program or even - and why not? - an aggressive exercise and calorie-counting weight loss program.

As for earning United States citizenship: The 100-item patriotic literacy tests described here certainly represent an offer that can't be refused by immigrants, their advocates, and even our national leadership. President Bush, for instance, has publicly stated his view that our national anthem should be learned in English, not Spanish, and the public availability of these three documents certainly rebuts any claims regarding their ethnic or educational bias.

There's no doubt, as Thoreau put it, that every American is still a "majority of one": opinionated, family-centered, and suspicious of high- falutin speeches from self-appointed experts, especially when there's a shooting war going on. But war or no war, majorities or minorities, a nation always needs a center with plenty of room for everyone. Lacking other alternatives what's here is, as I see it, our most practical unifying alternative and, to put it bluntly, an offer that can't be refused.

Hundred-item patriotic literacy tests !! - surely a dirt-cheap national program like this deserves something better than a Scarlett O'Hara response of "I'll think about that tomorrow."

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APPENDIX ONE. . . . A 100-Item Patriotic Literacy Test

(Memory-friendly versions of these three documents.)

Dear Participant. . . . This test has been designed to measure how well you remember and comprehend the Star Spangled Banner (all four verses), the Gettysburg Address, and the Bill of Rights.

As indicated below, we'll be working with 25 "locator phrases," each of which is further identified by source. Phrases from the Star Spangled Banner are identified by S, followed by the verse-number, i.e., S1, S2, S3, S4 . Phrases from the Gettysburg Address are identified by only by G . Phrases from the Bill of Rights are identified by B, followed by the amendment number, i.e., B1 through B10.

These locator-phrases (LP1-LP25) will enable you to locate specific words in terms of their "addresses." For example, the address "the first multi-syllabic (2 or more syllables) word preceding " what so proudly" (S1) clearly identifies the word EARLY and no other.

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Section one: syllable emphasis . . . . questions 1-25. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases please indicate the syllable that gets the most emphasis in pronunciation in the FIRST multi-syllabic word immediately PRECEDING that locator phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly" (S1), your "first multi-syllabic word preceding" would be EARLY and your multiple-choice answer would be (a) out of four possibilities: (a) first syllable, (b) second syllable, (c) third syllable, (d) none of these.

Section two : vowel pronunciation . . . . questions 26-50. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases, please indicate the FIRST pronunciation-vowel letter in the dictionary phonetic transcription (Webster's Collegiate) of the FIRST multi-syllabic Word immediately FOLLOWING that Locator Phrase.

If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly," your first "multi-syllabic word following" would be "twilight" (as in "twilight's"), and your multiple-choice answer would be (c) out of five possibilities: (a) A, (b) E, (c) I, (d) O, (U or "none of these," including the "backward C" or "schwa," which is used to represent our so-called "neutral vowel," as in "the")

SPECIAL NOTE. . . . By way of indicating further distinctions (e.g., "long" vowels), American dictionaries add additional markings to our basic vowel letters. For practical purposes, though, your ability to choose between these five pronunciation-vowel possibilities is an excellent indication of your familiarity with mainstream American pronunciation.

Section three : sentence comprehension- auxiliaries and ing -forms . . . . questions 52-75. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases, please indicate the verb-category (auxiliary, present participle, gerund, or "none of these") of the FIRST verb form PRECEDING that Locator Phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly," your first verb form would be "see," and your category choice would be (d) out of four possibilities: (a) auxiliary, (b) present participle), (c) gerund, (d) "none of these," that is, present tense, past tense, infinitive, or past participle.

Section four : sentence comprehension - finite and non-finite verb forms . . . . questions 76-100. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases, please indicate the verb-category (present tense, past tense, infinitive, past participle, or "none of these") of the FIRST verb form FOLLOWING that Locator Phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is your first verb form would be "hailed," and your category choice would be (d) out of five possibilities: (a) present tense, (b) past tense, (c) infinitive, (d) past participle, or "none of these," that is, auxiliary, present participle, or) gerund.

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Locator Phrases

Abbreviations: S = Star Spangled Banner, v = verse; G = Gettysburg Address; B = Bill of Rights, a =amendment, 1-10 = amendment number

LP1. . . . silence reposes (Sv2)

LP2. . . . half discloses (Sv2)

LP3. . . . first gleam (Sv2)

LP4. . . . footsteps ' pollution (Sv3)

LP5. . . . triumph doth wave (Sv3)

LP6. . . . their loved homes (Sv4)

LP7. . . . us a nation (Sv4)

LP8. . . . when our cause (Sv4)

LP9. . . . a new nation (G)

LP10. . . . long endure (G)

LP11. . . . altogether fitting (G)

LP12. . . . we cannot dedicate (G)

LP13. . . . to add or detract (G)

LP14. . . . and to petition (Ba1)

LP15. . . . being necessary (Ba2)

LP16. . . . nor in time of war (Ba3)

LP17. . . . unreasonable searches (Ba4)

LP 18. . . . and particularly (Ba4)

LP19. . . . criminal case (Ba5)

LP20. . . . ascertained by (Ba6)

LP21. . . . in controversy (Ba7)

LP22. . . . shall be otherwise (Ba7)

LP23. . . . punishments be inflicted (Ba8)

LP24. . . . deny or disparage (Ba9)

LP25. . . . are reserved (Ba10)

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APPENDIX TWO . . . . Practical Considerations

Verb form terminology . . . . Appendix Three presents and explains our seven verb-form categories, including their relevance to the development of high speed reading speed and retentiveness.

Test-taking security . . . . Any teacher or proctor who gives the same multiple-choice test to fifty or a hundred students in a crowded room is issuing an open invitation to cheat. Hence the desirability of multi-version tests, as with the following three additional versions of our Section One instructions.

Version A (changes "preceding" to "following") . . . . Section one: syllable emphasis. . . . questions 1-25. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases please indicate the syllable that gets the most emphasis in pronunciation in the FIRST multi-syllabic word immediately FOLLOWING that locator phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly" (S1), your "first multi-syllabic word following" would be TWILIGHT and your multiple-choice answer would be (a) out of four possibilities: (a) first syllable, (b) second syllable, (c) third syllable, (d) none of these.

Version B (keeps "preceding" but identifies a different "before" word-target). . . . Section one: syllable emphasis. . . . questions 1-25. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases please indicate the syllable that gets the most emphasis in pronunciation in the FIRST multi-syllabic word BEFORE the FIRST multi-syllabic word immediately PRECEDING that locator phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly" (S1), your "first multi-syllabic word before the first multi-syllabic word preceding" would be "none" and your multiple-choice answer would be (d) out of four possibilities: (a) first syllable, (b) second syllable, (c) third syllable, (d) none of these.

Version C (changes "preceding" to "following" and also identifies a different "after" word-target). . . . Section one: syllable emphasis. . . . questions 1-25. . . . For each of the accompanying 25 locator phrases please indicate the syllable that gets the most emphasis in pronunciation in the FIRST multi-syllabic word AFTER the FIRST multi-syllabic word immediately FOLLOWING that locator phrase. If your locator phrase, for example, is "what so proudly" (S1), your "first multi-syllabic after the first multi-syllabic word following" would be GLEAMING and your multiple-choice answer would be (a) out of four possibilities: (a) first syllable, (b) second syllable, (c) third syllable, (d) none of these.

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COMMENT. . . . Other security steps can be taken by producing different locator-phrase sheets or changing the locator-phrase sequence in a given sheet, e.g., Please renumber the locator-phrases on your sheet, starting with LP11 renumbered as LP1 and ending up with LP10 renumbered as LP100." Each security step of course requires the production of an additional answer key. But the increase in aggregate preparation effort by larger numbers of students more than justifies the relatively small amount of extra effort involved.

Answer keys . . . . Machine scoring can be overly cumbersome for small groups. With multiple-choice test, I find that designing answer sheets to present letter-answers in groups of three gives the eye a practical number of three-letter "words" to recognize and handle. In California , by the way, state employees "eye score" multiple-choice driver's tests quickly, efficiently, and - best of all - right then and there .

Study assistance . . . . Given a multiple-version feature, there's no reason why some tests can't be given as "take home" tests or "open book" tests. The goal here, after all, is target mastery by all of those involved, not an academic-skills competition.

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APPENDIX THREE . . . . Basic Guidelines for Identifying Verb-Form Categories

AUXILIARIES (HELPERS). These are no problem. There are nine of them and each has only one form.

SPECIAL AUXILIARIES (HELPERS). These are also no problem. There are eleven of them: five in the BE-group, three in the HAVE-group, and three in the DO-group. Their forms depend upon the time factor (present or past), upon the number factor (singular or plural), and upon the person factor (first, second, or third). Learning these eleven verb-forms is therefore a good introduction to how action verbs work in general.

INFINITIVES. These are a problem since they are spelled just like present I-you-we-they forms and like the imperative form (Stop! Be quiet! etc .). As in Spanish, the Infinitive is the dictionary-entry form. Infinitives usually occur after Helpers, after TO, and after nouns - as in We heard him SING, We saw the people LEAVE.

PAST PARTICIPLES. These are also a problem since they have an -ED ending just like past-tense forms - as in "I have studied( PP)" versus "Yesterday I studied(PT). Some of them, however, have a distinctive -N/EN ending (SHOWN, BEEN, SEEN, DONE, GIVEN, etc.). Some of them also have a distinctive vowel-change, as in We have SUNG, The boat was SUNK, etc. Past participles are very versatile, including their adjective-style use.

PRESENT PARTICIPLES. These are clearly identifiable via their -ING ending. Like past participles, they have adjective-style uses.

GERUNDS. These are relatively rare. Though they have the same -ING ending as present participles, they are clearly identifiable via the noun-style use, as in KICKING a soccer ball is lots of fun, as opposed to He was KICKING a soccer ball. If you can substitute a TO-infinitive, the ING-form is probably a Gerund, as in TO KICK a soccer ball is lots of fun.

3RD PRESENT SINGULARS. These are no problem since each is clearly marked by its -S/ES ending. They're sometimes called "he-she-it" verbs.

PRESENT PLURAL/SINGULAR. These have the same dictionary-entry spelling as infinitives. They are clearly linked via number and person to subjects (usually nouns or pronouns). The imperative form, as in STOP, is often interpreted as a present plural/singular form with "you" understood, as in (You) STOP!

PAST TENSES. These are a problem since their -ED forms are spelled the same way as past participles. Their vowel-change form, though, is usually quite distinctive, as in Yesterday I/he/she/it/you/we/they SANG, DRANK, RAN, RODE, etc.

FUNCTIONALLY SHIFTED ADJECTIVES. The English language achieves its flexibility by shifting word-shapes from one category, as in RUN, which can turn up as both a noun or a verb. Along the same lines, English now treats many ING-forms, e.g., "interesting" as adjectives, as indicated by the fact that dictionaries now list them as such. This is also true of ED-forms like "interested." In most instances, an ING- or ED-adjective can be identified by the "intensifier" test of placing VERY in front of it, as in "VERY interesting" or "VERY interested" - as opposed to "he was VERY running " or "they had VERY walked."

Note. . . . Difficult sentences can always be comprehended if one identifies the FINITE VERBS in it. This time-signaling category contains HELPERS, SPECIAL HELPERS, 3RD SINGULARS, PRESENT PLURAL/SINGULARS, and PAST TENSES. NON-FINITE VERBS , on the other hand, are time-independent, as in I will HAVE SUNG, I have BEEN SINGING, I learned how TO SING last Thursday, etc. To put it another way, finite verbs drive a sentence forward - just like a railway engine!

To increase your reading speed and retentiveness, simply identify the finite verbs very rapidly in whatever you're going to read. Then put it aside for a while, after which you can return to it and read it in earnest. You'll be amazed at how fast you'll go!