Akeelah and the Bee

Have you seen this movie? I got the opportunity to watch it while home on break. It’s definitely one of the best of 2006. Besides providing an engaging look at language and morphology, it also gives some insight to the cognitive processes involved in spelling.

My favorite example from this movie is of state-dependent learning. I don’t want to provide any spoilers, but there’s a scene at a bee where Akeelah is struggling to remember how to spell a word. To help jog her memory, she starts doing what she was doing when she learned the word, and it comes right back to her. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C!!!

Go rent this movie today.

IMDb link to the movie page here. See the scene I’m talking about here, courtesy of YouTube.