"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

I remember more from my 7th grade social studies class than any other class I've ever taken. Our teacher was very big on remembering things for life - not just for the next test - so he taught us a bunch of different memorization techniques. The first one he taught us was if we wanted to memorize how a historical event happened, it was important to fully take the time visualize the event exactly how it happened in our mind. As an example to this technique, he told us to close our eyes and envision a purple cow in a green pasture, and then every once in a while he'd ask us what color the cow was that he mentioned on the first day of class. We all always remembered, and he explained that it was because we took the time to fully picture the image, instead of just trying to remember the words. He also taught us to use mnemonic devices for lists, even if they don't create an actual word or phrase, by counting out how many were in the list and just sounding out what the first letters combined were. Example: WAJMM (pronounced Wah-jum) to memorize the first five presidents of the united States (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe.)

For the passage above, he taught us a certain way to say it, which had certain words very exaggerated so that we remembered the flow of the words and only had to remember how to get from one exaggerated word to the next. It's hard to explain in text, but basically: "We HOLD these truths to be self-evident: that aaalllllllllllllllll men are created equal; that they are ENDOWED by their creator with certain unalienable rights; thatamongtheseare: life! liberty! and the pursuit of happiness!"

This teacher was my favorite teacher because he taught us how to learn things, instead of just teaching us things.