When I read the following article from The Atlantic, I recognized, all too familiarly, the pains experienced by the author. Similar to the college composition class, my public speaking classes have been taking an enormous toll on me. Each semester professors are given an opportunity to describe their classroom experience in a self-evaluation, at my school. This semester for COMM 110, I am going to respond in one simple way: 1/3 of my students missed the following vocabulary matching question on a quiz:
15. ____ resembles steel in hardness. She can be tough, and even a little _____, an attitude that stems, at least in part, from wanting to live up to the high expections her father set for her.
a. aspiring
b. grandiose
c. edgy
d. scrutiny
e. steely
A final insult took place when a Ph.D. colleague of mine, at another institution, got it wrong too, saying “Well, it takes me a minute.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/college
