Memory+Journal

HOLLY CREYER'S MEMORY JOURNAL __**INTRODUCTION:**__ Memory is a very crucial part of living. If you could not remember things, you wouldn't be able to survive by doing simple tasks like adding up the money you spend at the grocery store or even the colors of the rainbow. I will share my experience with memory.

__**CHAPTER 1: THE THREE TYPES OF MEMORY AND MY STUDY HABITS**__: My study habits are not the best. Sometimes, I don't study at all when I should. Usually, its because I don't have time. But also, I just hate actually sitting down with the material and studying. Studying more than one night is much better than looking at the material a few minutes before the test because you will do much better. Seein the material more will help you store it into your long-term memory. Your long-term memory has an unlimited capacity and duration. Studying right before the test will probably only put the information into your short-term memory, which can hold 5-9 items with a duration of 20 seconds. The sensory memory has a duration of 1-2 seconds and can hold nine or more items, when information goes as it comes through our senses.

I thought that US History was one of my more ineresting classes. Teachers can make classes more interesting by doing activities, in groups or independently, rather than just having the class sit and listen to lectures every single day. Doing an activity would be elaborative rehearsal, which is using effort to make associations between new information and old familiar information.
 * __CHAPTER 2: A FAVORITE CLASS AND HOW ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL HELPED ME LEARN__**

__**CHAPTER 3: FORGETTING**__ There are theories on why we forget.One is interference, where learning one set of material interferes with remembering another. This happens in school often, with different classess. Repression is another theory on forgetting. Repression is when a memory of a traumatic event gets pished into the unconcious. An example of this is when somebody gets raped, they push it into the back of their mind, and honestly can't remember the crime happening to them.

__**CHAPTER 4: WHY I REMEMBER SOME THINGS BUT NOT OTHERS**__ My last bad day was not too long ago. I was at work, and I wasn't feeling well. It was so busy. Everything kept going wrong, little things like me dropping things out of my hand onto the floor over and over. Many customers were yelling at me. Everything just kept adding up. You remember bad days with autmomatic encoding. They happen to you, personally, so you remember them much easier then things out of textbooks. Remembering things out of textbooks is effortful encoding, you have to work at remembering it.

__** CHAPTER 5: MY FLASHBULB MEMORIES **__ A flashbulb memory is a vivid recollection, in great detail, of dramatic or emotionally charged incidents that are of interest to a person. A flashbulb memory that I sometimes have is off the day that my best friend moved to another state. I can remember everyone who was there to say goodbye to her that day, the date, even what the weather was like. Some things coming up in my life that could end up being flashbulb memories are prom and graduation.

__**CHAPTER 6: STUDYING AND FORGETTING**__ The SQ3R method is taking a quick look to see how everything is organized, developing questions, reading the material then answering the questions, reciting answers outloud that you wrote down, and reviewing all material again. I could use this method to make my study habits better. Rather than just studying just straight from the information, I could focus on the parts that I have a bigger problem with.

__**CHAPTER 7: LOOK WHAT I LEARNED TODAY MOM! IT'S A MNEMONIC**__ Mnemonic devices and chunking help you to remember. Chunking makes remembering telephone numbers much easier. They use words in the phone number so that you remember, rather than all numbers so that you forget.

__**CHAPTER 8: I SAW IT! OR, DID I?**__ Once, my friends and I saw a car hit the side of a kid's bike. He fell off the bike, but was ok. The car was damaged and the front passenger side door wouldn't open. The police asked us what happened because we saw it, and we had to be eye witnesses. If I was on a jury, I would be worried about the eyewitness giving accurate testimonies. I wouldn't want them to tell me the wrong information, and me either helping to convict an innocent person or letting a guilty person walk free. I'd want them to be able to tell me a good description of the suspected person, and the correct events that led up to the crime.

__**CONCLUSION: ALL THAT I HAVE LEARNED**__ I have learned that memory is a very important thing. It comes in handy for studying in school so that you do well. Somebody's good memory could save your life if you are convicted of a crime that you did not commit. Your life depends on memory. Without it, you could not do simple tasks like elementary math.