Martha Nell Smith

This professor has taught: ENGL359A, ENGL359C, ENGL379K, ENGL388D, ENGL428B, ENGL435, ENGL439A, ENGL439D, ENGL439G, ENGL458B, ENGL459C, ENGL601, ENGL602, ENGL626, ENGL699, ENGL749B, ENGL758A, LGBT359A, LGBT448Y, LGBT459B, LGBT459C, LGBT459D, LGBT459M, WGSS348B, WGSS498C, WGSS498Y, WMST498B, WMST498Y

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Martha Nell Smith ENGL439D Expecting an A Anonymous 11/22/2024	Dr. Smith is incredibly knowledgeable about all things Emily Dickinson. I've learned a lot in this class and really enjoy our group discussions. Her only downside is that she never responds to emails. Many of mine have simply gone unanswered, and the ones that she did respond to, she responded to about three weeks late (not an exaggeration). But besides that, she's great!
Martha Nell Smith ENGL439D Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/09/2023	Smith really knows her stuff. She is involved with anything to do with Emily Dickinson. She is truly so knowledgeable about all her works and life. Going into this class, I knew nothing about Dickinson. I left this class with so much knowledge about her, her works, and the way her image was falsely crafted by publishers. If you want an author study, this is it. Smith created or helped create all the databases, books, museums, movies, and tv shows about Dickinson. There is no better person to learn about Dickinson from.
Martha Nell Smith ENGL250 Anonymous 12/27/2011	If you come across this class for some reason, let me save you a semester of HELL. RUN THE OTHER WAY! AND NEVER LOOK BACK! I initially thought I was registering for Engl250, not knowing that it was also referred as WMST255- it makes a HUGE difference. I have never regretted a class like this one since I've been at the university. The professor is just a closed minded bigot- if it's not her opinion, a. its wrongs, b. it doesn't matter and c. you WILL FAIL!! No consideration for the fact that students have other classes. This should not be considered a CORE- this is a freaking 400level class, i swear! 3 papers (10%, 15%, 25%), a final (25%), discussion- including random quizzes in disc sec and lecture when she's mad cuz no one shows up to class, or someone leaves early, and 5 discussion posts(25%). T.A.'s are fickle- one minute their helping you, the next, they don't even respond to your emails. Don't even bother emailing the professor-she won't respond.She openly discriminates against the guys in the class, and it's just sick! I'm a girl, and I kept an open mind about women's studies but honestly-it's a bunch of bull, common sense that's spun into nice little themes and lessons designed to fool the students into believing that there's actually some profound thought, and critical thinking going on. The Amount of reading- surpassed all my other classes combined! One of the books we had to purchase- Norton's anthology of literature by women: all I ask is that you look this book up, and see how many pages it has, and I promise you, no page will go unturned!!! Never mind the fact that she doesn't go over half of the lecture slides in lecture, but still holds you accountable. This teacher definitely ruined any hopes of me liking the subject. I'm telling you- RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! Don't say I didn't warn you.
Martha Nell Smith ENGL250 Emily Menase 11/17/2011	Dr. Smith knows what she's talking about, but the whole class seems to have no main message. There is an insane amount of reading including very long critic articles required, and at least 5 pop quizzes are given throughout the semester so you've got to make sure you do the readings. There were so many "themes" in the class and readings that studying for the final (pretty much our only grade next to 3 papers) became very difficult. Discussion class is fun and really helps understand the reading outside of the unclear power points presented in class, but sadly that was only 50 minutes once a week.
Martha Nell Smith ENGL250 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/02/2011	This class was boring, but not as terrible as the other comments make it sound. She does teach one-sided, but it's kind of your fault if you didn't expect that when you signed up for a WOMENS LIT course. Grades depend entirely on your TA, so try and switch to a good one during the first week of classes. There is a lot of reading, but you can definitely sparknotes and skim things and still keep up. Some of the literature is a little graphic, but there is a pretty good mix of readings. It isn't the easiest CORE class, but if you can write decent papers you should be fine. Also, if it is in KEY 0106 like it was last Fall be prepared for some extreme temperatures, it was always really hot or really cold.
Martha Nell Smith ENGL250 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/16/2010	Professor Smith wasn't so bad, although she was almost always late to class. She has really high expectations for her students yet rarely even got through more than 2 or 3 slides in her 10-15 slide powerpoints. And yes, you are still responsible for the material on the other slides. She doesn't grade anything and doesn't respond to e-mails so don't even bother. Basically everything is up to your TA. Definitely make the effort to go to office hours and participate in discussions. I don't really recommend this course, there is so much reading that it is nearly impossible to keep up with. Basically don't take it unless you are willing and have the time to put considerable effort into it.
Martha Nell Smith ENGL250 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/12/2010	Interesting class but not worth it if you are looking to get a good grade. Prof. Smith is very one sided with the information given and if you don't agree then your grade will be greatly affected. 3 papers, each having difficult prompts that you will either understand or you will completely write off topic. We had 2 TAs for the class one was an easy grader and the other was very difficult to please. There are random pop quizzes that start off only in discussion, but once people start not showing up to lecture many were in lecture. She puts the power points on blackboard, but they are hardly notes mostly just general questions of what it is like to read the readings. There is an unbelievable amount of readings that is very difficult to keep up with even if you read a couple each day, the understanding of having other classes is not seen here. The final is based off all of the readings on the syllabus even if we never went over them in class and it consists of identifications, short answer, short essay, and a longer one. Avoid if possible!!
Martha Nell Smith WMST255 Expecting a D mjen12291 05/03/2010	this class may be the worst thing in the entire world. the teacher is not only a huge ***** and not understanding, but a complete moron. She is extermely black and white and does not care about anything but her class. She seems to think that her class is the most important. She gives tons of readings and no one ever does well on the papers. There are 3 papers and most people got Cs. She freaks out if you miss a lecture and gives pop quizes. I really suggest you dont take this class. She is the enemy!
Martha Nell Smith WMST255 Anonymous 04/29/2010	This is what i said for my course evaluation. I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO TAKE THIS COURSE FOR THE REASONS I LIST BELOW! The teaching style of the course was abysmal, it is completely unfair to base so much of our grade on such short papers. Having a 1 page paper be worth 10% of our grade (a 2-3 page paper worth 15% of our grade), is an unfair way of evaluating our knowledge of the readings. Furthermore, we were supposed to have writing workshops before our papers were due and we haven't had any and we aren't having one on our last paper. Without writing workshops, I have been unable to improve my writing thus I have received bad grades on both of my papers. I wish the criteria for the papers was clear, so that we could know what we are being evaluated on. The grading seems to be very random, and it seems unfair that I was penalized for following the assignment on my second paper. Also, having a final exam and pop quizzes in a literature class is annoying because the class should be more about papers and less about memorizing which poet wrote which poem. Overall, I would NEVER recommend this course to another student. I think the course needs to be revamped first, by limited the number of students who enroll. Having a literature class with 180 students is stupid. In lectures with such a large number of students, it is impossible to really discuss the readings. Also, when we don't start class until 2:10 when the class is supposed to start at 2:00 we lose out on much needed time. The readings were entirely too long and were often boring. It is crazy to assume that we will remember the names, authors, and summaries for so many poems. Furthermore, they were difficult to understand and we did not have adequate class time to discuss all of the readings. Having class twice a week for 50 minutes just isn't enough time given the amount of readings we have to go over. We often didn't have time to get through all of the slides, but we were still responsible for the material? That's just insane because it isn't our fault that the lecture time is so limited. Overall, the expectations for this course are way too high for an intro level class, and I hope that the course can be changed to make it better because I feel that this topic is extremely important.