2.5
Quality3.6
DifficultyN/A
Would Retake118
ReviewsN/A
Would Retake
118
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
18
4
11
3
27
2
33
1
29
What Students Say
“Indeed, she is often quite abrupt”
ENGL208C - 2.0 rating“I took this class with McArthur and got horrible marks on my essays (though I'm an English major)”
ENLG208C - 3.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
50%
Textbook Required
100%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.87 avg changeRatings by Course
208C210C
5.0
(1)DR223
5.0
(1)ENGLOTS
5.0
(1)SPCOM224
4.5
(2)ACC232
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
SCPOM223
5.0
ENGL210F
5.0
ENGL208
5.0
ENLG208C
5.0
SPCOM223
4.7
Reviews (118)
No Comments
thinks that she is the end all and be all of the english language
Pleasant, enjoys subject, fair marker.
The nicest prof., will give extensions, but slightly boring.
Very dry, can be condescending. Knowledgeable, though.
Very supportive of those with public speaking fears
Worst. Professor. Ever.
awesome - she's the best, smart, funny, helpful
She does not teach very well. Does not have command of class. She's no good.
Quiet, uninteresting . Somehow made Arthurian Legend boring
No Comments
No Comments
She has a soft voice but she's fascinating and smart
Boring and irritating!! Reads way too much into things! Not open to new ideas.
Sucked the fun out of Arthurian legend. Needs to work on vocal projection!!
nice person, interesting things to say, but not a great teacher
Amazing person, great prof, but she does speak a little too softly
loved every minute of both classes I took from her.
Very boring, NO spark whatsoever...fell asleep more than once...
No Comments
I'm sure she's nice but makes you feel like your back in highschool. She also managed to suck the life out of poetry and is way too boring.
She's a nice person to talk to. But class is sooooo boring!
She has favourites. If you're not one of them, then you are screwed.
No Comments
Went into her class excited about Arthurian legend, but she managed to suck the joy out of it for me.
Perhaps if this professor's name were spelled correctly some of the comments might, and I stress might be vaguely credible. Kathryn McArthur is the correct spelling.
prof. mcarthur rocks!
One of the best instructors I've ever encountered. I'm currently in grad school, and still refer to the lessons I learnt in her class. In a word, excellent!
Extremely boring and drastic lectures. Reads too much into somethings. Really hard marker too, very very picky w/ grammatical errors. Exams were pretty tough too.
Tired and boring lectures, monotonous voice, over critical when it comes to grammar, assignments must fit her bias in order to receive an A. But hey, if you want a class which offers some time to catch up on sleep, just look for her.
One of the best teachers that I have ever had. I learned a great deal. The term 'over-signaling' is cool and she some great stories. Prof. Cathy all the way!
Favors 4th year English major students. If u are first year and not majoring in english, she'll look down upon u and give u a bad mark.
This class is utterly and rediculously boring. If you want to take English, do not take this class. Buy the book and read the stories yourself, she is a horrible teacher and makes everyone sleep.
Dear lord, this is the most boring class I have ever taken in my entire life. Honestly, avoid her at all costs.
she's a dumb old lady...the actual short stories were good...but she's a dumb old lady...
Knowledgeable, approachable, and perceptive.
Puts you to sleep. DO NOT take her 3-hour evening class! Everything she says is interesting but if she could just say it at a normal pace, tone she'd be done in a half hour. To pass exam: repeat her lectures verbatim.
Stay away from her. Lectures are messy and useless, yet to pass you have to spit them back at her in your essays and exams. She ruined my favorite books by making the class so boring.
She is the worst prof I ever had in university.
No Comments
nice person, but sometimes gets off track, like talking about trees for 2 hours. average prof, i'd take her again over some other profs.
she is pedantic, and not competent to teach at university. She might be suitable to teach grade 4, since that is about how she treats her students. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GET THIS PROF FOR ANY CLASS
Lectures are boring, but Class is entertaining and she is a very easy marker. Take it if you want to get a good mark,
she is a good facilitator,good lectures, but try staying on her good side. dont be late and double check your work. it'll make a biigg difference.
If you do not give her exactly what she wants you will do poorly. Don' think of adding your own thoughts as they have no place in her class. She's in charge and you are insignificant!
soooo boring. she gets too excited about trees, arthurian legend and is pretty tight in grading essays. avoid this class.
Her lectures are scattered and at times so off track that its not worth attending. Essays are marked on spelling and grammer with little care for how well you grasped the ideas of the course, with only three minor errors bringing you down to a C paper. It's unlike any teaching style I've seen.
She's a good prof in all but lectures are sometimes boring. Hard marker. Make sure you know MLA or else you're screwed.
Unreasonable demands on exams for the amount of information she gives in lectures.
Easy marker, as long as you remember MLA. Is open to different ideas and opinions. Had a lot of fun!
Interesting course material (detective fiction), lots of readings. You need to be fairly good with grammar to get a good mark, but the previous comment regarding sticking to what she wants to hear is completely false. There is considerable freedom in what essay topics you choose for your essay, midterm or final.
i hate english, only took it b/c i had to, but i'm glad i took this class. she's a really nice person and really helpful, and she marked very easy. i only read 4 of the 20+ stories we were supposed to read and still got an A. she was really excited about the material, tried to make it interesting, bringing in guest speakers and having movie nights.
Oh my goodness. She is completely uninterested in anyone's opinions other then her own. She has favorites and is a very tough marker. mentally she is not all there!
This course is not hard, but boring. There are a lot of readings, of which I did none, and I still did fine. If you're an English major or understand how to ****, this course is a breeze. Her lectures are very simplistic and often off topic. She seems fairly sweet though, and marks easy. You don't even have to go to most of the lectures.
I will never get those night back! She hates any opinion other than her own and favours women over males. Mentally she is not all there and she marks papers with a viciousness that is unsurpased!
She really talked about nothing of relevance to the course for the most part. Her lectures mainly centred on 'back in my day' type speech. After she poorly prepares you, she grades you very difficultly.
Very nice lady! Wants you to do well in her class, and is always ready to help.
she's very nice. there were a lot of readings for this class, but i only did two of them and still got an A. as long as you proofread your essays you can get a great mark. you don't need to know much for this class, as long as you know one thing well enough to write and essay on.
Worst prof Ive ever had...her gradings make no sense...lectures totally random and not related to the exams at all...I was so looking forward to the class and she totally ruined it for me
She marks the essays as if everyone is an english major and knows how to write an emaculate essay and forgets that people take this type of class for fun. Needless to say, she took the fun right out of it. Exams = AWFUL. She picks quotes that you would never in a million years think to register as an exam quote. Absoutely terrible.
Terrible. Lectures were interesting, but she is an incredibly hard marker. She basically threw my 80-85% English average in the trash. It seems she forgot that this was a second year Children's Lit course, not the be all and end all of English Literature courses. Very self-important. I never say this about profs, but avoid her at all costs.
She ended up being one of my worst profs ever. She wanted you to listen to the distance ed lectures as well as coming to her class. When getting your essay back, the only comments you get are about which pages to see in the little brown handbook because she helped her husband write it. Was extremely disappointed by this course
I was really looking forward to Arthurian Legend but it is one of the worst classes I have ever taken. She teaches public speaking? You'd never know it, sits behind the podium and rambles on about random things. Had no idea what was on the midterm going into it because she fancied the phrase "I would never test you on this". Imagination's worst NME
Don't take this class unless you have time to read one 500 page book a week. Unbelievable and unrealistic amounts of reading. It's a decent course if you do the readings and you get to watch a lot of neat movies, but overall I would recommend filling your course load with something else!
Maybe she is great in person, but definately do not take this course DE. I loved the material, but the prof gave zero feedback, and had completely unrealistic expectations for assignments. She gave low marks and didn't explain why, and basically had the attitude that 25 years of marking experience meant that we should not question her about grades.
Maybe she is great in person, but definately do not take this course DE. I loved the material, but the prof gave zero feedback, and had completely unrealistic expectations for assignments. She gave low marks and didn't explain why, and basically had the attitude that 25 years of marking experience meant that we should not question her about grades.
Maybe she is great in person, but definately do not take this course DE. I loved the material, but the prof gave zero feedback, and had completely unrealistic expectations for assignments. She gave low marks and didn't explain why, and basically had the attitude that 25 years of marking experience meant that we should not question her about grades.
Avoid Detective Fiction at all costs. She sent out an email that 1/2 our class failed the exam - shouldn't that signal something to her about her material or grading style? She seems unwilling to help and treats everyone like inferiors. Threw my average in the garbage. AVOID!
She chooses her favourites early in the term and her marking is extremely vague. She is completely superficial. She will smile at you and tell you how great of a job you did and then give you a grade so low there is no letter for it. This lady needs to retire.
Kathy. Worst person to teach public speaking. She only teaches 3 classes all semester..The rest of the time just sits there and acts all-important, all-knowing. If you like egotistical profs, heres one course you should take.
I also warn anyone who takes a DE class with her. I'm on the Dean's honours list and she gave me a 53 on my paper. Totally messed up my average and she assigned a grade to my paper after the first two paragraphs. If the class doesn't perform well she seems angry with you (as she posts rude messages on Ace). My paper wasn't THAT bad McArthur !!!
Do not take Public Speaking with Kathy. As others have stated, she picks her favorites early in the class, and she has no problems failing you if you're on her bad side. Her marking is based on her opinion of you, and is completely unwarranted. She is not at all helpful and expects you to know and understand the material on your own. AVOID!
this proffesor is awful, first she makes u study a zillions quoations and tests u on it and it has to be exacly her thoughts ur urs don't count even if they are comatible with the question, she looks for a way to fail students , and when one makes a mistake she reports you to the dean. nevertheless, i got expelled and she ruined my life.
There is something about the faceless-ness of the cyber world that turns this usually sweet professor into an almost inappropriately mean, catty woman. I took children's lit through DE and the way she responded to student comments were boardering on being just plain rude. I have never experienced anything like it in my life!
You definitly do not EVER want to take SPCOM with this prof, ever! She's just as old as Ms Doubtfire, looks a bit like her too. Her marking system is totally random and there is no reasoning or logic behind it what so ever! For your final grade she litterally just pulls random numbers out of her ass!
She seems to enjoy making students very aware that they are not at her level by setting unrealistic expectations. She seems to have something to prove by not only giving low marks but taking up class time to explain to students that they they should expect a lower mark than usual. Waste of time, money and effort.
I'm very disappointed in this professor. Having attended every class, read every assigned reading, and come into this course with great interest in the Arthurian Legends, I felt that this professor was too hard a marker. If I am willing to put the work in and the time, I would hope to at least obtain a 70 in the course, but that did not happen.
Everything that the previous posters have said is absolutely true. Via DE this professor writes relentlessly to make you feel inadequate, and her marking is way too hard. My group discussion marks went lower the more I contributed, and the writing assignments are subjective, confusing, and totally unhelpful. Stay away!
There is no other words to describe this prof other than MEAN and RUDE. She claims to mark fair but thats a lie, she also claims to expect a fair amount from student which is another lie. So we can add lier to the list of words describing her! And something to take note of: she is not fair, she is pretty much anything but that!
She's definitely a sadistic marker, she disregards the student's effort and marks harshly based on her own impossible standards. It wouldn't be as bad if she wasn't so pretentious, acting nice and understanding when she's not interested in helping students at all.
same comments as others. Failed my essay based on her impossible standards and refusal to reconsider. Went to the top and got my essay graded FAIRLY! Interesting class, I learned a lot, but beware of her strict marking standards!!
Shes garbage. she has favourites. i delivered two speeches. After the second one she said I improved greatly. Got my grade back, and it was the same as my first speech. Avoid her at all costs. Her feedback is garbage and she thinks she knows all. I am sure I could school her in a public speaking competition.
This is a split course between her and another prof, while the other prof was quite good, interesting and helpful, Kathy McArthur was dull as rocks and rather a harsh grader. Too bad she is involved in this course.
I went into this class without really knowing much about English classes. She helped me to learn how to write amazing papers and I ended up with a 90 in the class. Perhaps the people who are complaining should do some actual work!
Almost impossible to get a good mark. The post below me is lying as marks have not been released yet. She doesn't give a hoot about her students and her lectures are inane. Interest books though and fun to read. Too bad that she kills all the magic.
To succeed in her classes you MUST write well. If you can't write at the university level, she'll tear you apart. Because she teaches more accessible courses (Fantasy, Arthurian Legend, Sci Fi) she's overwhelmed with people who don't belong in English classes. If you're not willing to take your essays seriously, don't get mad at her.
HORRIBLE. I am an ENGLISH major and did not do well in this course due to her impossible standards. I feel bad for any non-English students who took this course. She ruined the magic of children's books, rambles, and hires useless TA's. I loved the books we read but hated every moment of this class.
High expectations for everything. Her + TAs believe that English is the be all, end all; if you can't write a perfect university essay, you will fail at life. Overly critical of absolutely everything, boring lectures; mainly lectured off topic about authors, their lives and other non-course books. Blabbed on and on, never really said anything.
Kathy is brilliant and always knows her stuff. er classes are intriguing and interesting
Do not take childrens lit with this prof if you hope to enjoy it. I repeat, do not take any course with this prof, unhelpful, hard marker, sometimes rude.
Her lectures aren't terrible but her grading is ridiculous. I have never received lower than an 80 on an essay and she failed me on our final one. The grade was not the worst part-her comments were. Very unprofessional and rude. She definitely turned me away from taking any engl courses at UW. I thought profs were suppose to inspire students...
do not take this course with her if you think it has anything to do with the children's book that you love, because she will ruin all these books for you. she's pretty boring and unclear in her assignment instructions. Probably the worst professor I've had, definitely regret taking it now
This professor is definitely very strict with her expectations, but her lectures are really interesting. I found that she was clear in her instructions for assignments and repeated her expectations frequently. The course material is GREAT! I would definitely recommend this course - you just have to be willing to do the work.
She is an awful professor. Her grading scheme is ridiculous, and she is extremely rude and condescending in her comments. do NOT take this course with her. the content was interesting, but not worth it when class averages are always in the 60s.
This professor has extremely high expectation and a very strict marker. It is a course even with hard work and lots of effort, it will be hard to get a decent grade. Assignment feedbacks are always vague and unhelpful, you are severely penalized with out much explanation.
DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER AS THE PROF! The course material is awesome, however she completely stomps all over it. She is very vague with explanations, expectations and lecture material. Do yourself a favour and DO NOT take this class with her. You will regret it.
Not understanding the negative reviews of her online Children's Literature class; I though it was amazing! However, if you are expecting analyze characters or relate these books to children's psychology, it is not what this course is about. A lot of history, a must for any English major/minor!
Definitely a hard marker. The course material is very interesting, though, and she presents it rather well. I'm taking this course as an elective, while interesting, I'm not sure this is healthy for my GPA with her criteria. Wondering if I should have asked about auditing the course.
HORRIBLE. the course itself is incredibly interesting. Such a fasniciting topic. However this professor is probably the worst ive ever had. refused to give individual feedback, so i never knew what i could do better on, just what the class in general could. was horrible at marking on time. not even all projects marked going into final exam. BRUTAL
Highly unrealistic expectations regarding assignments; grading based mostly on grammar and not content in writing.
I was initially very interested in this topic but the prof is horrible and really ruined it for me. She is highly critical about the most minute details (especially for a 2nd year elective) and instead of actually providing assistance, such as tips for improvement(even when additional feedback was sought!) she reuses the same blanket statements.
Avoid taking this class with her if at all possible! She is an extremely hard marker, especially considering it's a second year elective course. She doesn't give clear or constructive feedback, even when asked for it, and is quite rude and full of herself in interactions with students.
I wanted to believe that she wouldn't be as bad as everyone was saying on here but, after half of a semester, this became impossible. She marks brutally, asks for odd things in her assignments and refuses to give individual feedback. She is also quite rude in the public discussion boards. Completely put me off the course.
While KM's recorded lectures for this online class are fascinating, she seems to struggle with interacting with students. Indeed, she is often quite abrupt. This is a shame because it makes students hesitant to ask questions publically, and distance students really benefit from seeing colleague's questions asked and answered.
I was so excited about this course and children's literature. This prof absolutely ruined it. She is just horrible. She has crazy expectations. You will not get a good grade if she is teaching your class. Avoid her AT ALL COSTS.
Worst class I have taken in uni.The professor is rude & very unhelpful when it comes to assignments. I asked her for clarification & she told me to figure out myself. Her expectations are beyond reasonable & she destroyed my love of children's books. Her whole life is child lit & she assumes we should just "get it" because she does. Terrible.
AVOID HER AT ALL COST. She has ridiculous expectations, she is extremely unhelpful when you ask her for clarification, she is rude. Worst prof I've ever had.
Easily the worst prof I've ever had. Open contempt for students, REFUSES to give clear guidance and feedback on assignments, very questionable marker--I'm SMART, and she failed me on the final exam. Multiple times she posted emails she got from students to the public message board (anonymously, but still) so that she could attack them, apparently??
Worst prof I have ever had. Hardly passed the course. I've never got such a bad grade before. I don't even know why the school lets her teach.
Absolutely the worst professor I've had in my 4 years of university. I did not read comments on this website about her prior to taking the class so I went into the course completely unbiased. Not only are her expectations UNREASONABLY high for a second year english course with no prerequisites but she bullies her students. DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE!
I took this class with McArthur and got horrible marks on my essays (though I'm an English major). I filed a reassessment challenge after and my mark went up by 10%. Definitely consider doing so if you're in the same boat.
The worst, most inconsiderate, and rude prof this university has. She is unclear about her instructions and holds ridiculous standards for her students. She is intimidating, making it very difficult to ask her questions, and is very easily irritated. I loved the books, but she ruined the class for me completely. She shouldn't be allowed to teach.
Not an easy marker. Not helpful, very hostile tone.
was really looking forward to this. Turned out to be a nightmare of a course. Workload isn't hard at all, but there is no marking scheme or no description of standards. Prof is extremely rude and unhelpful. Vague feedback written on my essays. probably the worst course I've ever taken, including organic chemistry and physics. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
Was the most frustrating class I have taken, and it is only a 200 level course. She was a bit of an unreasonable marker. Course could have been great, but too much reading, and marks were back to late in the course. Take something else if this course is not mandatory.
Thoughtful lectures, approachable, tough but fair marker.
In online classes don't attempt to ask her questions. When emailed or contacted through discussion posts, she seemed to avoid answering the question asked, focusing more on grammar errors found in the email. This made it difficult to correspond with her. She was also a harsh marker. Her tests were in MC format with "choose the MOST right answer."
Wrote a paper in her class about my interpretation of children's novels and was graded low because my interpretations were "wrong." This was years ago but her comments were rather harsh and it honestly felt like she was taking her anger about something else on me unless she was just that offended that I thought differently from her.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
50%
Textbook Required
100%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.87 avg changeRatings by Course
208C210C
5.0
(1)DR223
5.0
(1)ENGLOTS
5.0
(1)SPCOM224
4.5
(2)ACC232
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
SCPOM223
5.0
ENGL210F
5.0
ENGL208
5.0
ENLG208C
5.0
SPCOM223
4.7