What the Writing Was For

My mother took a few courses at the University of Delaware when I was eight. I have one clear memory of it. She is sitting on the floor of our living room with books open around her, filling a spiral-bound notebook with writing. I don’t remember our conversation word for word. But I have always remembered the core of what she told me, which is that writing down what you are learning makes it stick. At the time, this made all the sense in the world to me. You can read something and remember some of it. But when you write it down, you test that memory and create a new one. It’s a form of review that you make physical, and that translation stores it within you more securely. This lesson from my mother has aged well. In fact, just recently, something about it has newly occurred to me. In 1988, the slow, hand-cramping, notebook-filling method was really the only choice available, other than not doing it at all — just reading and hoping for the best. But for someone who believed in this…