The purpose of this study was threefold: to determine whether adding a mnemonic to systematically designed instruction would improve verbal retention, to establish whether retention is better for concrete or abstract information, and to determine whether mental imagery or verbal elaboration is more effective for learning concrete or abstract information. A one and one-half hour instruction period introducing Elizabethan drama was presented to 244 secondary-level students. A research-proven mnemonic was written into the lesson to create the congruent treatment; imagery elaboration was used for concrete nouns, and sentence elaboration was used for abstract nouns. An incongruent treatment was created by reversing the two elaboration methods. Analysis of data revealed that the group receiving congruent treatment exhibited greater retention of concrete, abstract, and combined information than did the control group. Congruent treatment also resulted in greater immediate and delayed retention of concrete information than did incongruent treatment. Finally, correlations indicated that immediate retention and delayed retention were better for concrete than for abstract information. (Author/KS)