Milton · English And Comparative Literature
Light readings for a 3000-level English class, one 4 page paper, 5 page paper, 7-9 final paper, final
Three essays, two of which were about 3 pages each and a final paper (8-10 pages). Her grading was very fair, and she gives detailed feedback on all the assignments.
Two papers (both pretty difficult, but if you have a nice TA you can rewrite or get help), and take home final- 50 questions, all difficult research type questions
A whole lot of reading - political treatises, Paradise Lost, Comus, Paradise Regained, etc. (we never covered everything the syllabus included); 2 papers (5-6 pp, and 7-8 pp) and your usual english final - IDs and essay.
Professor Crawford is by far my favorite professor thus far at my time here! She's incredibly brilliant and reads each poem in so many different contexts (historical, religious, etc.). Each way of reading and interpreting the poem or piece of prose is correct...and she makes you truly believe that. I used it to allow for a free flow of ideas. Never once has my book been written in as much as I did for this class. She makes class so enjoyable by her sheer excitement for the material. She has a ton of office hours that I used to both help my understanding of the material and to just talk to Professor Crawford about anything and everything. She also gives a lot of great feedback on my essays.
The class was mostly made up of English majors and Milton's writing is extremely dense, but Guibbory really takes the time to break down all the material and reading which makes it pretty digestible. She leads the class as a large discussion and takes everyone's opinions into account, both when talking about Milton and deciding on assignments. High recommend trying out her class, Guibbory's enthusiasm about the course content rubs off on everyone.
Professor Kastan is an engaging speaker and can take any subject and make it interesting. As an English major dreading the poetry requirement, I took Milton having had professor Kastan before. As usual he was great at making the sometimes dry material interesting, and he has a great ability to include the entire (large) class in the discussion. The biggest downfall of this class was the discussion sections. There seemed to be no guidelines for the TA's and since the discussion sections were required we often ended up talking about the same topics over and over. So Kastan was great, but the discussion sections weren't so hot.
Decent professor, Milton is his specialty so he actually knows what he's talking about. Very smart, approachable, whether you do or do not do the readings is up to you, the final can be a killer either way. The class is not really a Milton class, but a Milton and His World class, which can be good or bad depending on how much history of the English civil wars you can stomach (and remember for the final). Ie: Cromwell, Charles II, Rump Parliament. Overall, an interesting and erudite lecturer, he's always available to talk and he's very good about giving constructive criticism on papers. He's not a spitter or the please-kill-me-now type, though Milton might be. With that said, material is rather dry at times and the final won't let you get away with not knowing every single thing about the works and the circumstances in which they were written.
three papers (two shorter ones & one term paper) and a final exam with quote IDs, place/people etc. IDs, and an essay that you know the topic for before, reading for every class (sometimes light, like a few poems, usually a book of Paradise Lost or a prose work)
An open-book, in class midterm essay - it will be hard to stay inside the time limit, so organize your ideas on each work well beforehand. A final paper - 7-10 pages. Try to choose a topic you really care about, because it's almost impossible to write about Milton unless you know what you're doing.