This is a fantastic course that gives you the opportunity to read fascinating and important works of theater, poetry, and prose in French and learn a great deal of history along the way. Prof. Tsien is a wonderful professor. She truly cares about her students and will help you improve your writing, offer academic advice and mentorship, and engage your interests. I am very glad that I took this class and highly recommend it.

Of all the french courses you can take here, dont take this one. If you fail to excel in the first few weeks there is really no hope for a decent grade towards the end of it. The professor is extremely knowledgeable but not so much a great teacher.

If you're thinking about taking this class, DON'T. Mme. Tsien has the worst case of favoritism of any of the professors I've encountered at UVA (and I'm in my fourth year, so I've had a lot of professors). I don't know what I did to get on her bad side, but for whatever reason she didn't like me and it showed in my grades. As someone who grew up living and going to school in 3 francophone countries, I know that my French is good enough to get A's or at least B+ in most of UVA's upper level French courses--and I have, in three other classes. However, because Mme. Tsien didn't like me, she was unnecessarily harsh when grading my papers (there are only two in this class, and they count for a giant chunk of your grade). When I went to her to figure out what I possibly could have done so wrong, she said that my grammar was good, my arguments made sense, etc., but my ideas were "unoriginal" and didn't give much guidance as to what that meant. She also flat out lied to me when she said if I re-wrote my paper to align with her feedback, the first submission wouldn't count (it did). I basically got the same run around with my final paper as well, so I had double the work load as my class mates because I had to write 2 copies of each paper we were assigned. Again: I grew up speaking French and attending French schools! I have gotten better grades in my 4000-level French class than in this one! I was so concentrated on trying to re-write my papers and figure out how to be "original" enough for Tsien that I really didn't enjoy any of the material we read or learned about. Overall, this class was a terrible experience and I don't feel like I learned anything (or even kept up my French). This is my last French class at UVA.

Before reading this, know that most of the students in my class really liked Madame Tsien. She's energetic and "hip," talking about the current rap game and pop culture and stuff like that and very knowledgeable in her field.
However, because I didn't talk much the first week or two, Tsien assumed I was "unable to follow along" and not capable of having good ideas. She actually went as far as to accuse me of cheating on an essay because I "made a really intellectual point" that she just didn't think I was capable of. I got 100s on the first 2 tests and A minuses on both essays and she gave me a B......an obvious grudge grade. Not sure what I did to piss her off but she really fucked me over.
Again, basically everyone loved her class and thought she was super cool, so I'm obviously in the minority. She's energetic, passionate about what she teaches, and the readings are honestly pretty cool. Just make sure to stay on her good side.

Sometimes long and boring when you are tired, but overall an enjoyable class and not horribly time-consuming. Easy to do well as long as you make an effort

I did not think Tsien was an interesting professor, she wanted us to participate but gave little availability to do so. She assigns massive amounts of reading that would be hard to achieve in English, let alone French. I found the readings dull and the course focused more on literature than history, which I did not enjoy. I felt intimidated to participate and that anything I said was wrong.

this class is more interesting than it sounds-- when i signed up for it, i myself was afraid it would be awful...but the texts are actually pretty interesting/fun to read and madame tsien is so adorable. 3 5-pagers (+1 rewrite) and a take home final that wasnt too bad.

Tsien is wonderful and makes this class fun. I thought 17th and 18th century lit was going to be excruciating, but the texts were actually pretty enjoyable -- and not too difficult -- and class was generally entertaining. The final's a take home, and other than that grades are based on three five page papers and participation.