Review:
In my opinion, Leslie Lawrence should not be employed as a teacher. She does not know what the word organization means, I think she knows nothing about writing, and as a person in general she is miserable and intolerable. Going to this class made me upset and annoyed and I always left in a terrible mood. She will teach you nothing about writing, or about differences. Only take this class if you are interested in listening to this poor excuse of a person talk about her life, and trust me its not worth listening to. Everything she said made me want to scream. The readings she selected were on a high school level, if that. She also does not know the meaning of the word syllabus and keeping up to date with her constant annoying homework assignments is impossible. I feel as if I am stupider as a result of taking this class with her.

Workload:
The number of papers is somewhat fair but it is the amount of readings and small useless assignments which puts the workload for this class over the top.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
I really enjoyed this professor and her class. In terms of writing, the articles and supplements she provided helped significantly improve my writing ability. I was quite astounded to see that some other people disliked her so much. I would have never expected to read such harsh reviews by a professor who cares as much about her students and Professor Lawrence does. At the beginning she requested that we write an introductory essay, as many professors do, that spoke of challenges/difficulties we've experienced in the past with writing. One of my favorite aspects of Leslie Lawrence's approach was that she tailored her critique and suggestions so that it helped me to improve the areas that I believed could use the most help--and it worked! I am a MUCH stronger writer and have seen my grades go up consistently by an entire letter grade. Additionally, I thought her choice of books was fabulous. One of the books that we were required to read at the end of the semester, Stone Butch Blues, was an incredible work. All in all, I think Leslie Lawrence is a fabulous, supportive teacher and I would confidently recommend her to other students.

Workload:
She gave a fairly regular work load. For an English class. As one student noted, she did have a tendency to send a lot of emails, however because of her consistent communication I always knew what was expected of me and I appreciated that.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
STAY AWAY FROM THIS PROFESSOR!!! I like English but she is the worst teacher I have ever had. She focuses a lot on grammar and we rarely discussed the readings. She will also flood your inbox with emails and does not stick to a syllabus; the assignments are always changing. I was in a class with a lot of interesting intelligent people but we couldn't have meaningful discussions because she is such a terrible teacher.

Workload:
Not way too much reading but a lot of it was unnecessary and repetitive.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
She was the worst English teacher that I have ever had. I left almost every class upset over something that she said. She often would call her students "confused" if they did not agree with her opinions. Extremely hard grader. The readings were definitely interesting but instead of getting into a good discussion about them, we often did stupid acting activities. Even during the acting activities, she would tell people that they are bad actors. Horrible teacher.

Workload:
Workload was a lot. Some days we would have to read 100 pages from Tuesday to Thursday. She grades the papers really hard. I have gotten good grades in the three other English classes I have taken at tufts but could only muster a C+ according to Lawrence's horrible standards.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
I usually like English classes and I definitely liked my English 1 class. However, Leslie Lawrence was a horrible teacher. If I participated in class, I felt that my opinion was not valued and was always ridiculed by her. I left almost every class upset over something that she said and she left no room for opinions different from hers. There is tons of reading, but she rarely discusses the reading in class. Instead we did stupid acting activities and even in these activities, she finds ways to ridicule the students. Stay away from her and this class.

Workload:
There is definitely a lot of reading. I had this class on Tuesdays and Thursday and one time for a Thursday class we had to read 2 twenty page chapters in one book and 50 pages in another book.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
This was one of the best classes that I took last year. VB (as everyone calls her) is a great professor. She's very accessible, and requires that everyone in the class meet with her at least once to go over the drafts of each essay. Meeting with her more than once and even emailing VB is very beneficial, as she gave me new ideas to write about in my essays. There are class discussions every day the class meets about the readings and the books, which includes debates and role-playing. I would definitely take another class with VB.

Workload:
4 books and 6-7 other readings were assigned. There were also 4 essays spread throughout the semester which integrated the subject of differences and the readings. My class also saw 3 movies related to the readings in the Media Center.

review a class you took with Virginia Brereton - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
This is obviously one of those classes that is a requirement for students in the Liberal Arts College, so it's not like you can skip over the class itself, but certainly stay away from this professor if at all possible. She attempts to act like you have a lot of freedoms in the class as far as discussion, paper topics, and ideas are concerned, but one soon realizes this is far from the truth. The readings are rarely discussed, especially in depth, and it really feels like they stand alone considering that none of your papers have anything to do with the material. Class discussion is bland at best with the professor's opinion the central focus, and one soon completely loses interest in anything at all. I thoroughly enjoyed English up until this point, but have certainly reevaluated that joy.

Workload:
Reading assignments and five to six papers, nothing to strenuous or time-consuming.

review a class you took with Leslie Lawrence - help your classmates make informed decisions!