Writing Children's Literature was badly taught. AVOID.

she's a HORRIBLE poet and is reallyreally weird!!

She was SO subjective on grading. Forget her.

This professor was SO quirky that her teaching quality varied beyond acceptable from class to class. The anti-guy stuff I didn't see, but the opinion I got from my fellow female class/dorm mates was that this is a professor who cannot teach and should be

If you have to, or want to, take this course, find another section taught by one of the other professors.

Since others teach this course, I'd recommend that you sign up for one of their sections and avoid this professsor, if possible.

I felt that this professor was often unprepared for class, was quirky, and had many more bad hair days than I ever did, metaphorically speaking. Pick the dept's. better teachers for this course and you'll do OK.

I've never had a teacher who was so often late for class, so poorly prepared, or so unwilling to explore an alternative interpretation of a work. Avoid.

I got an A, but the impression I was left with was that she'd rather be writing poetry in her office than teaching.

There are some professors who, through their teaching, can give you profound insight, others you merely remember as bad teachers. This is one of the latter.

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If she like you, and you work hard, you'll do well gradwise. But if she doesn't like you or your interpretation, and you work very hard, you will NOT do well. VERY subjective. AVOID.

AVOID this professor if possible. If you can't, don't wear makeup to class and just nod your head affirmatively when she looks your way while speaking.

I went to her office with a class question and she just about slammed the door in my face because she was late for the belly dancing class she teachs off campus. Come on professor, THIS is your full-time job!

If you want to take this course, find a section taught by any other professor.

Great subject but a very bad teacher. I had more fun fun counting the number of lights in the classroom ceiling. My boyfriend's lightmeter said that the classroom had 40 footcandles of illumination--none of which came from the teacher.

The most difficult teacher I had this semester; I'm thankful the semester's almost over. I cannot recommend this professor to anyone for anything other than angst.

The best part of the ending of this class and semester is that I'll never again have to suffer through Machan's pathetic attempts at teaching!

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A very bad teacher. If they ever invent the STNG Holodeck, Machan should be forced to sit through a class taught by her virtual self! That would be poetic justice.

I worked very hard in this course and unfortunately found the professor to be one of the most subjective graders I've ever had. I would advise others to take this course from any other teacher.

Writer's Workshop was so disorganized that it made me wonder if this professor could organize a box of pencils! And the class was invitation only!

She taught as though she had many more important things on her mind.

I took poetry Writing I in the summer to accelerate my degree program and Dr. Machan is the only professor teaching it at this time. After 2 weeks, I know that I will never take another course from Dr. Machan if I can help it.

She's a very bad teacher.

a mean-spirited teacher

Machan's method of teaching this course seemed to be to make the students parrot back what she had just said. She punished independant thought grade wise.

As a teacher, Machan is a major disappointment. If you're a woman, and not a radical, vegetarian-Marxist feminist, forget about getting an A from Machan no matter how hard you work and study.

Find another professor for this course if you want to receive a good grade.

If I knew about this site earlier in the year, I would not have have taken Poetry I from professor Machan. The negative comments I read below are unfortunately correct.

One of the most uncaring teachers I've ever met.

She's a terrible teacher and has made me think that poetry is something incredibly insubstantial. She's politically connected, so watch out!

if i could put 0s down for the ratings, i would. she was the absolute worst prof. i've ever had. she was extremely discouraging as far as grades and didn't offer any help. she likes only her weird-ass free-verse poetry so-- don't take her class. it is TER

A terrible teacher who made an important (to me) course almost unbearable. Avoid this teacher.

This professor doesn't tolerate gladly any poetic interpretations other than her own. She's the worst prof I ever taken a class from.

When I took writing Children's Lit from Machan, I found it to be one of the most depressing classes I've had because she stressed her political agenda throughout it more than how to write children's lit. Grading was unjustified.

Machan's only children's book is the "Book of the Raccoon" (1980) in which men kill raccoons, boys turn their dogs on young raccoons, etc. I took her class as a young mother and she brought this same anti-male philosophy in the class.

I'm an IC junior and Professor Machan is the worst teacher I've had in the writing department. Her Poetry I class was poorly taught and I felt that she was much more interested in advancing her own career than teaching.

Machan is a very difficult teacher who has a very bad and hard-to-follow teaching style. She's not helpful and trying to get an office-hours appointment is like trying to get an audience with the President. Her Poetry I class was very poorly taught.

As far as writing children's literature goes, Dr. Machan is the living embodiment of Shaw's observation that "those who can do, those who can't teach," or, from my experience in her class "attempt to teach."

At the end of this children's literature course, I believed that Machan knew almost nothing about children's lit based on her 2 mysandrogenic books (the "Book of the Raccoon" 1977; republished with illustrations in 1982 as "The Raccoon Book

Machan is professor you DO NOT want to take this class from (Writing About Witches, Fairies and Dragons). When I took the class, I was UNDERWHELMED by her teaching skills and I felt she prejudged her students. AVOID!

She's a terrible teacher. I dropped the class on Friday.

I wish that I had signed up for this course from any other writing professor. Dr. Machan expects you to memorize fer opinions and then write as she would. Katharyn also gives me a headache and her gradinging gives new meaning to the adjective "subjec

Dr. Machan portends to have knowledge of Children's Lit, but is completely out of touch with the reality of today's publishing in this specialized field. Her teaching style is very badly done straight lecture. Other dept. profs are much better.

From what she demonstrates in class, Machan is completely unqualified to be teaching this course (i.e., Children's literature).

Having taken Science Fiction/Fantasy from Prof. Machan, I now know that Dr. Machan had no clue or credentials in what she was teaching and would advise others to take this course from any other Writing Dept. professor.

Taking Poetry II was a disaster, as Dr. Katharyn Howd Machan spent more time preparing for her performances as the First Poet Laureate of Tompkins County and as Ithaca's Chief Belly dancer than she did preparing for class. Avoid her classes if possible

As far as writing children's literature goes, Dr. Machan is the living embodiment of Shaw's observation that "those who can do, those who can't teach," or, from my experience in her class "attempt to teach."

Dr. Machan is annoying. I honestly thought her poetry was repetitive, boring, and pointless.

Taking this class from Machan was a major educational mistake I made. I expected to learn about writing children's literature. What I got was a teacher with makeup trowled on who's more interested in building her local reputation than in teaching.

Dont take this class!!!

My boyfriend and I took this class together and came to the same conclusion: Machan does NOT know how to teach; Machan would rather be doing other things than teaching. She should not have gotten tenure, and it took her 13 years!

As a teacher, she's lost it and should retire. I wish that Dr. MacCurdy had taught this class.

For your sake, as well as for your grade-point and academic sanity, avoid associate professor Machan. My father uses the phase "It's my way or the highway." This is the best metaphore for Machan's teaching style I can give.

I wanted to learn to write children's lit which would be accepted by today's kids, not those of 30 years ago. From what I learned, Dr. Machan is well past her hands-on expiration date to teach this course.

I was surprized that Machan would even consider teaching children's literature since, in class, she often referred to young kids as "urchins!"

As far as writing children's literature goes, Dr. Machan is the living embodiment of Shaw's observation that "those who can do, those who can't teach," or, from my experience in her class "attempt to teach." Avoid this teacher.

Dr. Machan is annoying and I thought her poetry was repetitive, boring, and pointless.

Not a fun class; learned much but definitely paid in fear of embarrassment. She is way too serious and needs to lighten up a lot. You can be an effectively challenging professor without giving people a lot of grief and misery.

horrible....dont take any of her classes, do yourself a favor

She is the worst professor I have ever encountered. She's cruel and believes that the world revolves around her. I would rather knock my own teeth in than sit through another one of her classes. I learned more about writing in highschool than I have from Machan.

Machan lives in her own world and getting an honors grade from Katharyn seems to be about regurgitating what she wants you to write, rather than her helping you learn to create your own well-expressed written thoughts and opinions. Don't take a class from Machan.

The worst professor I've had at IC!

she is very stubborn. if you do not have the same opinion as her its wrong. no matter how you try to approach writing, she still says it is wrong. you might as well not even try or better yet, dont take the class.

Dr. Machan is incompetent, simply put and her lectures are bad enough to induce nausea. Her doctorate had to be obtained through a mail-order catalog. I wanted to learn to write science fiction, but her class was a huge waste of time, just as listening to Machan is a huge waste of life.

This prof is out of (whatever passes as) her mind! I only passed the class because I was willing to do an "extra credit" project, which (and this is the truth) involved going to see her BELLYDANCE at the Pyramid Mall! WTF?!?! Grading standards were shaky as best. I have learned more reading the nutritional information on cereal packets.

She's so full of herself that I'm forced to believe she thinks the definition of the word genius is the sound of her own voice. In class, she entertains no opinions other than her own. I feel that I've wasted a semester taking this course from Machan. If you want to take children's literature, do so from another writing dept. professor!

Others told me not to take Creative Writing from Machan, but her's was the only section that fit my schedule. What a mistake! I've made 7 appointments to see her and she's cancelled each one without contacting me except to leave a note on her office door! She seems to spend more time with her careers off campus than she does teaching at IC.

Intro to Creative Writing was the course I enjoyed the least and that was due to this professor's inability to teach. Machan spends a lot of time off campus generating publicity for herself. My opinion is that there is nothing which Katharyn Machan has more talent for than promoting herself. Would that she spent as much time learning how to teach.

She cannot teach to save her life. It's as though she comes to teach class because she has to rather than wants to. But she does crave publicity and seeks it with a passion. Possibly the most dangerous place to stand at IC is between Machan and a reporter with camera.

I was a student at IC when Katharyn Machan-Aal started 'teaching.' She cared more for belly dancing than for producing students that can write well. Went on and on about the 'genius' of a fellow student that wrote about Lady Godiva naked on a horse. I bought a poetry book for her class that was simply horrible smut penned by horny college students.

The "Ishtar" of creative writing teachers. Dismal teaching skills. Required to buy a text of her writing (not exactly a poet laureate in the making here.)Likes to reward students that are 'lost' or 'bored' by ending class early. Unavailable for consultation, unless the meeting occurs at the Pyramid Mall during belly-dancing time. The worst. Avoid!

She's a terrible teacher.

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I'd recommend that potential students avoid Machan as she is a pathetic teacher who is very difficult to talk to if you can even get an appointment. She always plays the "I'm-54-and-I've-been-there-and-done-it-all" attitude to prove how much more she knows than you do.

Creative Writing I was a disaster due the Machan's inability to teach.

Instead of teaching science-fiction writing, Prof. Machan spent too much time trying to interest us in belly dancing! If I want to belly dance, I'll buy a cabaret costume and take a class. I wanted to learn how to write better science fiction and taking this professor's class did NOT help me do that.

Did a pathetic job attempting to teach Writing Children's Literature.

She wasa terrible teacher. She picked class favorites who got most of her time and attention, and gave us almost no instruction on how to improve our writing. Worse yet, Dr. Machan actually spent valuable class time trying to get us to buy pre-publication copies of her forthcoming poetry chapbook, "The Professor Poems!!"

Belly dancing, promotion of her own books, and grading on quantity, not quality. If these are things you're looking for in a writing class, take a class with this lady! She didn't even give comments on anything (Autobiography).

A very boring prof. During her lectures, it was hard not to look at the clock and count the minutes until the end of class.

Over the course of the semester, I felt that Dr. Machan taught our class with all the enthusiasm of someone who had to be there as opposed to a professor who WANTED to be there. She was almost impossible to make appointments with or to get fedback from. Avoid.

Machan was an absolutely terrible teacher when compared against other faculity member who taught this course. If I had known of this site, I would have read the many negative comments about her lack of teaching skills and taken the course from another professor.

Lessons felt unstructured and uninformative. You would expect someone teaching a class on fairy tales to be familiar with Perrault and Basile: but Machan had not heard of them nor their stories. Lastly, though it was not used at a student, Machan did use a slur in class. I will never take a course with her again.

This woman wants to act so very woke but silences students and makes them uncomfortable left and right. Ended up making a complaint about her behavior to the head of the writing department. Avoid her classes if you can

One of the most ridiculous classes i've ever taken. Unfortunately had both personal essay and creative writing with her and nearly lost my mind. She gives you work with no helpful feedback or guidelines, and expects too much from the students writing. Most of her class time is her talking about herself. Highly recommend avoiding this prof.

Yells at you if you don't do work