Show Letters to the Editor Speech Prof Answers Student Dear Perhaps you will permit me to have on reply to Bishop's angry letter about the department speech The two test questions to which Bishop objected to indeed seem to be unreasonable or trivial under the circumstances described by Perhaps I can mitigate the guilt of department slightly by describing some of the circumstances under which the questions were Let's take the worst one the one the color of the cover of the This was the last of 21 items on a quiz based mostly an hour's At the outset of the 1 explained that the quiz was to be regarded partly as a check on attendance and partly as a check on FOR THE Thursday lectures in Speech 1 approximately 90 to students are crowded into a room meant to seat which makes for most difficult testing We could not possibly base a substantial part of the Speech 1 grade on the 7 or 8 quizzes given these Thursday lectures perhaps all quizzes on the lectures should add up to two percent of the total weight of the final course The question to which Bishop objected was one of 21 questions on one of the 7 or 8 We like to give the quizzes in the hope that they may help us to teach and the students to Bishop is quite right in suggesting that the question is a trivial He should be commended for taking his college education WHY WAS the question Last year the speech department enrolled approximately students in Speech the bookstore sold about copies of the cost 25 cents I thought perhaps we could include as the last question of a quiz that counts very little toward the final grade a question that might be taken as a question and yet one that might remind students that they should buy the syllabus in order to keep track of the weekly BUT I AM evidently not very good at and when one serious-minded student raises a strong objection to such a the question should probably not be used Bishop answered the question but had he not done so his final grade would not have been altered by one one-hundredth of one per cent for his THE QUESTION about the hurricane was asked by some other I think it could be defended as a question attempting to discover how well the students read assigned ma but I'm sure your paper doesn't have room for a detailed The speech department ons 1 would welcome an opportunity to discuss our course with Bishop but as yet I have not met I could explain that in student evaluations given for the past two the including the has emerged rather But there is certainly room for we welcome the suggestions of Since Bishop is clearly a serious and a candid He could give us some useful pointers if he were to come into my office for a brief and I help him with fourteen mistakes he made in the carbon copy he graciously sent to of the letter he sent to the Halbert S. Greaves Speech Department Department Head |