Reviews for ENGL280

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Michael Israel ENGL280 Anonymous 05/19/2022	Easily the worst class I've taken at this institution. Professor Israel is a very unprepared and unorganized instructor. Classes had no structure and literally no one ever showed up (there were maybe 4 or 5 people who came to class consistently). Professor Israel would get so sidetracked and ramble about the most irrelevant topics, leaving us with no actual notes or useful information pertaining to the planned topic for the week. I couldn't tell you a single thing I learned about linguistics, which sucks because this class was a major requirement for me and because the subject is fairly interesting. If you show up to class and participate kind of regularly, you should be fine. He says himself that grades aren't too much of a worry, though he is prone to harshly criticizing your work but still giving you a decent grade (make it make sense). Ultimately, do not take this class with this professor unless you ABSOLUTELY have to.
Nathan Tillman ENGL280 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 09/15/2020	Dr. Tillman is an amazing educator! His class is incredibly interesting and you'll absolutely learn a lot. More importantly, he is an incredibly kind person who truly cares about you. You'd be crazy not to take one of his classes
Paul Cote ENGL280 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2019	one of the nicest professors I've had. his expectations are very reasonable and his exams aren't made to trick you -- he says this himself. Though I took this class to fulfill a gen ed requirement, I'd definitely take more classes with him if I was more interested in English. For 280, the structure with him worked like this: 4(!) exams 1 final 1 paper proposal 4 homework assignments 5 online discussions the midterms come quick, but they aren't hard. They're basically half multiple choice (super common sense questions, too), and half short answer or fill in the blank. The final he was nice enough to make online as he figured it would help people do better on it, and openly said to feel free to use your notes or any other resource. The paper proposal was his way of bringing some form of writing into the class, as this is a class on the history/structure of English rather than a literature or film class. We basically had to choose a topic that we talked about in class and think of a thesis that we could argue. We only had to write an abstract, and then also have two sources which we wrote an annotated bibliography for. Again, not hard at all. The homeworks were essentially mini exams, honestly. Super easy and he would sometimes hint at what some of the answers were. The problems were super similar to things that we did in class, so there were no surprises. The online discussions were kind of annoying, but not difficult. We had to write discussion posts on ELMS that were sometimes way too long for what the topic was (250 words for something that you can talk about in 3 sentences) so a lot of it ended up being fluff. Not hard, but kind of stupid. Overall this class was a 5/5 for me, especially with Cote.
Linda Coleman ENGL280 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/18/2013	She's a very unfair grader. On one of my assignments she read my labels wrong, and corrected the paper based on her misperceptions. She looked like an idiot because of it. Then when I pointed out her mistake, she did not even respond or bother to regrade the assignment. Do not take her.
Elizabeth Driver ENGL280 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/20/2011	Dr. Driver was a good professor. She explained the topics in way that tried to be interesting to students (she showed us Schoolhouse Rock once in class!). The class in itself is pretty basic, as long as you go to class and pay attention. (And, if you're an English major, the topics shouldn't be -that- boring to you anyways!) If you are a good student, she is fair as far as grading. Other people may have complained about the class, but that's because they didn't take it seriously enough.