Bonnie Singing Analysis

Bonnie is part of the honor choir group in her middle school and has three years of experience in singing. Bonnie needs to practice a new song she had chosen to sing at the annual talent show. However, the song Bonnie picked to sing is almost six minutes long and consists of a variety of lyrics and different pitches that she needs to remember. This eighth grader has exactly one week to prepare for the talent show and is worried that there is not enough time to remember all the words and pitches of the song, since she can only practice for an hour each day due to also having homework assignments. Luckily, there are a few study techniques that Bonnie uses whenever her instructor gives the choir group new songs to practice learning.
Principle
This technique consists of deep processing, in which meaning is focused on the material that is being studied and leads to better remembering (Craik & Lockhart). Since the song Bonnie chose has many lyrics/words to remember, she can come up with relatable examples, such as relating the song to a personal experience or an important event, like a first kiss or a first crush. The examples could fit the concept of the song to form a meaning that Bonnie will be able to comprehend, thus making it easier to retain the song in her long-term memory. Instead of studying in the same place, each session of practice could take place in different locations, such as the park, at home, or at the gymnasium after school—to avoid distractions or limitations to attention. Furthermore, this particular aspect of the technique uses autobiographical memory, in which the environment the material is being learned can later be recollected and act as a cue to make it easier for the honor choir student to remember the material, by “mentally” going back to the time and place that learning was taking
Visualization is a mental rehearsal in which all aspects of sensory can be experienced through practice, instead of relying on context-dependent memory, which is retrieving episodes or information in the same state/environment (Memory, 211). In Bonnie’s case, context-dependent memory is unreliable being that she is unable to physically practice in a similar state as she would be in when she performs at the talent show. Visualizing herself increases her chances of performing very well in the activity, since she can imagine the circumstances of the environment as she can also consider the possibilities of what can happen during the event. While practicing, Bonnie can pretend that she is performing in front of a huge audience, she can also imagine how she is going to come out on stage, how she is going to begin, how she is going to move around on stage, how loud or quiet the audience is going to be, as well as the manner of how to react if she were to make a