To the Editor:

David Glenn's piece on "active recall" was striking ("Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down." The Chronicle, May 1). But not because of Mark A. McDaniel's finding that one can remember material better if you make yourself rewrite it and/or recite it from memory. No, what is surprising is that Professor McDaniel's findings are, according to critics, harmful because they encourage the notion of rote memorization and regurgitation of information.

If Mr. McDaniel's research does, indeed, promote such study and retention, I am all for it. I guess I initially had that lesson confirmed when, in an earth-science undergraduate class, the getting-ready-to-retire full professor handed us, for the final exam, a mimeographed copy of the textbook's table of contents. "Pick three of the 14 chapters and write about the key concepts within each," he said. Some students gasped, others walked out early. Yes, what he did was despicable. But I passed the exam, and active recall played a huge part.

Moreover, I would offer that such a tactic is useful beyond the core facts, theories, and terminology studied in undergraduate work. I used such an approach more than a decade ago to pass written exams in pursuit of a master's degree. Then, three years later, I used the same active-recall method to pass a rigorous written portion of a national accreditation exam in public relations. In fact, the written part of that accreditation was so onerous that, not surprisingly, the process was changed to all multiple-choice several years later.

I found that active recall allows you to efficiently and accurately marshal the information you need so that, even in the case of an exam for advanced work, you can devote your mental energies to elaborating on the information you have internalized. I especially tell my undergraduate students about my earth-science class and the wonders of active recall. Then I have to assure them I'd never hand them a copy of our text's table of contents and say, "Start writing." I'm a believer, not a zealot.

Burton St. John III

Assistant Professor of Communication

Old Dominion University

Norfolk, Va.

As an indifferent high-school student, my grades were mediocre and my father (a first-generation graduate of Brooklyn College) regularly asked how I could possibly learn without a pencil and paper as I dutifully read the textbook. To my young mind, it seemed that writing material down would only slow my studying.

As a freshman biology major, I studied hard for the first time in my life. Prior to my first exam, my father asked if I wanted him to quiz me on the material I was studying — frog anatomy. I agreed. He made up a brief quiz and my grade was 80 percent — not too bad for the early study phase. He then said that he could study the material for 20 minutes and achieve a perfect score on a quiz I would compose. The challenge and the novelty of making up a quiz for my father were irresistible. Twenty minutes later, the "old man" (he was actually 42 at the time) took the quiz and aced it, as promised.

"Are you now interested in how I did it?" he asked. This was the moment when finally the planets aligned — my interest and motivation and my father's dramatic demonstration. He showed me the schematics of active, engaged learning: The textbook described the long itudinal skeleton in words — so close the book and draw a crude sketch of skull and backbone. The textbook then adds elements of the lateral skeleton — add to the crude sketch ribs and limbs. And so on. The need to makes one's own model (diagram, summary, paragraph, outline) was the lesson. I used it with success throughout college and in modified form over the subsequent decades of my academic career.

The negative comment cited in the The Chronicle ("I'm going to give information to the students, and the students then memorize that information and then spit it back") was all too predictable coming from an education community mesmerized by novelty for novelty's sake. Indeed, the book itself as a teaching tool is also "an old model of learning" — think tablets, papyri, and scrolls — but it continues to thrive. Given that students clearly understand that 60-second workouts do not produce six-pack abs and that lenient personal trainers and coaches do not get results ("No pain, no gain"), it should not be a total surprise to them that hard work, requiring their own effort and imagination, and fun — including innovative teaching and learning techniques — can coexist in the learning enterprise.

Postscript: My father is now 87, sharp as a tack, and shaking trees for his great-grandchildren.

Arthur Greenberg

Professor of Chemistry

University of New Hampshire

Durham, N.H.