Hour fifteen minute classes are absolutely brutal to sit through and make the material incredibly boring, especially when Professor Lyu struggles to draw out responses from her students.
Grade Distribution
8 Reviews
Professor Lyu is a really sweet and caring professor. She really tries to help you improve your french and completely understands that even in the 3000 level, we still have much to learn. There is a lot of work (papers, readings, group work), but the readings are actually pretty interesting and at a suitable level. If you work hard and show her that you are trying to improve, you will probably do well in the course.
I am native French speaker and I can honestly say this class was necessarily tedious (so I can't imagine how it was for other people in the class). Overall, if you are not a French major/minor don't take the class because you will end up doing a lot more work than necessary. There three sections to the class: poetry, play, prose. Poetry is the hardest because she although she keeps repeating that there are several ways to interpret a poem, she kind of expects you to see it her way. There are 3 papers (1000, 1300 - you write this one in a group, 1700 - counts as your final) and three exams. She is not a hard grader if you figure out what she wants and she is a pretty nice lady as long as you do what she wants. Class can drag on since its over an hour twice a week but if you are into french lit and stuff like that, you will enjoy the course. I got an A but than again I'm a native.
She wasn't too hard of a grader, but each class really dragged on.
great teacher! On exams she doesn't take grammar under account, because she realizes that eveybody is in a hurry to finish. Be careful for grammar mistakes in compositions though!
Madame Lyu is very helpful if you get to know her and she looks to see improvement in your work throughout the semester. If you do the readings and come to class you will do fine.
A lot of focus on discussion in class. Make sure you've read and really analyzed the material at home before you come to class; she definitely makes people speak.
This class was an overview of different genres-poetry, drama, and prose. Classes are discussion based and there are also many small presentations that are required. Lyu seems to really care about the literature and interpretations were always very in-depth.