Anne Prescott

I LOVED this class. Professor Prescott was a very knowledgeable teacher. As a non-English major, I liked that she did not just analyze the text. For every work that we read, she gave us lots of background information and historical context, which I enjoyed. She liked to throw in little anecdotes that were usually applicable to the conversation but were sometimes a bit off-topic. Nonetheless, the stories were usually quite interesting. As for the papers, she gave us numerous topic choices for each paper and then told us that we could always run other ideas by her. There were usually a few analytical choices and a few creative choices, so you could pick your strength (or weakness, if you wanted to improve your writing) for each essay. She gave ample feedback on each paper, and she was more than willing to clarify and help during her office hours. Like other reviewers have said, she is pretty loose with deadlines (and understanding if something major comes up), but she is usually pretty prompt about returning papers. If you're interested in continuing Legacy into your second semester (or if you want to pick it up!), then I would highly recommend taking Prescott's class. You will enjoy it, and your writing will improve!

I know that everyone loves Professor Prescott, but I'm taking her class this semester and am having an entirely different sort of experience. Professor Prescott clearly knows a lot, but unless you want to spend class hearing about all of the obscure poetry that she's memorized, and all of the background information that she's accumulated, then you'll find her class terribly boring. We have hardly talked about the text at all--but I do know something about Galileo now. Completely irrelevant. Also, if you're under the impression that this class is a seminar, you're incorrect. She talks at you all class without asking for your opinions or input. As far as papers go, she assigns a lot of them, and she gives you bad grades if she doesn't agree with your thesis. Also, don't try to write a paper that analyzes the conflicts/tensions in a book that aren't explicitly mentioned in the text. You're much better off writing a traditional "content versus form" paper, since it's the only thing she seems to appreciate. I don't deny that she knows a great deal, but I find it very difficult to deal with her arrogant name-dropping, sweeping generalizations, and condescending attitude. I just wanted to make sure that people on this site saw that some people have a different opinion, since I chose this seminar based on CULPA reviews and was sorely disappointed in the result.

Professor Prescott is nice and this is a good class to take. I'm not an english major and just wanted to learn a little shakespeare. Her lectures are pretty relaxed and she can be quite funny. You read about 1 play for every 2 classes. I recommend keeping up with the reading(although I don't think most people did) and also reading a summary of each play, to make sure you pick up on everything. The first lecture each week was background info, the second was talking about the play.

four essays (no research-that's for FYE), doable reading.

Professor Prescott is a brilliant woman. She is funny, personable and down-to-earth. She knows everything there is to know about the author and history behind each piece, adding extra depth and little anecdotes that can be entertaining. She critiqued my writing all semester, and as much as it was frustrating that my grades weren't stellar, her comments and suggestions have much improved my work. She's also really lenient about handing in papers on time. If you're a first-year, she's teaching Legacy, and you genuinely want to improve your writing, take her class, but don't expect A's.

First the good things about this course: (1)The core readings of the course, including major writers like Rabelais, Donne and Shakespeare and going back to their sources in Ancient Rome, are fascinating and well selected. (2) Professor Prescott is very knowledgeable about everything to do with the Renaissance; she is also a very nice person who seems to genuinely care about her students. She also has a good sense of humor. Now the other side of the equation: (1) The class started out with about 40 students, most of whom attended for the first few weeks. However, gradually no more than 50% attended, and it was never the same 50%.Why? Probably because she turned out to be extremely boring. Her method of teaching: talk endlessly for the entire period, whether people were paying attention or not. Each session was a monologue (hers)about everything under the sun. (2)If you actually did all the readings, the amount of work became overbearing. Her lectures were tangential and only dealt with the major texts in a cursory way. You usually did not know ahead of time, what she was going to focus on. For example, we had a five hundred page anthology of the works of John Donne. What were we supposed to read for the next class? "All of it," she said. She actually end up discussing about a half dozen of his poems, fifteen pages at best. I suspect that most students eventually gave up on the…

I adore this women, she is so smart and interesting. I found her far more dynamic than the Prof who taught the other half of this class , even though I found that reading material more interesting. Her lecturing style is very exciting, and desperately made me want to say the "right" thing. I am in love with her and given the chance I will take another class with her. The material is a little boring in my opinion, there are a few choice entertaining readings overall I found them to be dry. Oh, She is really a stickler for good grammar.

Professor Prescott has a great sense of humor, is friendly and knows what she's talking about when it comes to this time period. She's an expert! She's lenient about late papers, it seems. Still, make sure you read in this class. If you don't, you'll be kinda screwed for the papers and the major, super-hard final exam. She's yet another Barnard English department professor that doesn't facilitate discussion very well and her lectures tend to be a bit dry (so many people doodled in their notebooks in class). Still, again, she's intelligent in this area of study and is accessible.

Prescott is a funny professor. She may be the only person who can actually extract humor from Renaissance literature material. But I did fall asleep a lot of times in her class, and her final is hard and will take a full 3 hours (not exaggerating). She has quote identifications (identify author and text), one large essay, 2 mini essays, and 3 quote analyses on her final. She is a fair grader and helpful in her office hours. She also missed a lot of our classes due to illnesses or lectures she has to attend. Some say she's a true "Barnard woman." She definitely knows her stuff and can lecture and quote from texts without them in front of her. Overall, an ok class, but I really felt that I didn't enjoy the class because it required a good understanding of renaissance history to better understand the texts.

Always interesting, often brilliant, sometime hilarious ("pot has changed since when I was a kid..." "it's like Viagra, you know, you have to take the age of the subject into comparison"). You should take any class you can with her, just because she makes everything interesting. She's actually TOO lenient about due dates, paper, subjects, students going off on tangents, etc., but she really cares about her classes, and it shows.