The Importance of Memorization

As a college professor of writing and literature, I am struck by how burdensome my students typically find memorization assignments. Give them a full week to memorize any Shakespeare sonnet. And you've already got the first line down, and a number of them will painfully falter. When you know something by memory, by rote knowledge, you have the chance to know it on a very different level than if you don't know it by roteknowledge. It's a much deeper form of knowledge.