Lloyd Pratt

School: Yale University
Department: English
Location: New Haven, CT
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rated by 19 students
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Pros: Professor Pratt is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Cons: He seems intimidating and the grading can be harsh, but trust me- you will learn more in his class and benefit from it than any stupid blow-off class.
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THIS DUDE IS HARD! He went to Brown University...PHD, wrote a book, taught at Yale and Harvard. enough said. The TA does all the grading...which sucks because the TA was a little bitch. LOVED listening to Pratts lectures. Two essays, a midterm, and an essay as a final.
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Pros: Very educated, knows his subject
Cons: Very tough grader
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One of my favorite professors at MSU! I loved him and loved the class!! The novels we were were interesting and a lot of them were hard to put down! I know some students had issues with the TA, and I will admit he was a hard grader, but I didn't mind him. I learned far more than I expected in this class and my mind was opened to books I would normally have never read.
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One of the best professors I've ever had. He is so smart and knows how to keep a class involved with a discussion. The reading load was a lot, but the essays and midterm weren't too difficult. Definitely worth the effort. Make sure you get on the TA's good side, though, because the TA does all the grading.
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Pratt was awesome. He was a great professor and really knew how to get people to stay involved in the discussion. We had a lot--A LOT--of reading to do, and most of the time I didn't even complete it so that was one hard thing for me, but that was my own fault. The books were sometimes difficult, but it wasn't too bad as long as you had time to do it. Which, ahem, I did not.
The only bad thing I'll say is about the TA. The TA is the one that does most of the grading and class discussions so make sure you talk in recitation. I had a terrible TA who was condescending and arrogant the whole time, and he never initiated good discussions, so it was always agony. But it wasn't too bad, and we usually just talked about what Pratt had gone over the day before.
I would definitely recommend this class and this professor. But especially Pratt--take any class with him if you can!
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Professor Pratt is by far the best instructor I have ever had. He is so smart and his lectures are amazing. I've had this professor before and compared to the other class, this class had two downsides. The first is the size. I truly think English classes should be 25 people or less, and I think Pratt's style is cramped by the 60 or so person class size. The other downside was the TA. He was a way harder grader than Pratt, and Pratt's grading is fair.
Anyway, the reading is a lot, but doable, and Pratt is obviously the best professor ever. I swear, if you get a chance to take a class with him, you will learn so much, and grown so much as a thinker. Just do it. Also, do not be intimidated by his expectation lecture. You will be fine.
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Lloyd Presley Pratt deserves big time respect. Pratt facilitates discussion better than any professor at MSU. Student involvement and understanding are his priority during class and he uses various ways to accomplish it.
There is one book for the course that appears intimidating at first. The readings for the course were relatively short, but extremely heavy. The readings are focused on various philosophers and acclaimed critics, interesting to say the least.
There are three papers collectively worth 75% of the grade, the other 25% is split between the final and participation. At the end of the semester there is an option to do a revision on a paper to replace its grade.
In my opinion (if that matters) his grading is fair. He is great at leaving constructive feedback and tells you what to improve on, but also what you did well (how rare!).
Simply put, if you have a chance to experience a Lloyd Pratt managed class take advantage of it.
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I have never had a better professor than Pratt. This guy is amazing at teaching. He makes sure that everyone understand what is going on. His methods are great. Part way through the semester he will stop and make sure everyone is in the same place. I would NOT take this course with anyone else. Matter of fact, if I could take Pratt for another class I WOULD!
We did three papers, participation is HUGE, and final. His grading is fair, not easy, not hard, but fair.
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Professor Pratt is one of the best professors at MSU. He is very smart, he is very approachable, and he is always open to everyone's point of view. He runs his class as a discussion most days, and it's a very engaging and open atmosphere. His grades are based on two exams (not very difficult as long as you listen in class), two papers (challenging but he will help you with them), and participation. As long as you are willing to pay attention in class and participate a bit in discussion, you will do well. Great professor, great class.
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One of the best professors I have had and I hate english. If you have a good work ethic there is no reason not to do well in the class. Its not an easy A it requires some effort but its not hard either. He is very approachable and is always making sure students understand what is going on in the class and the readings. He never tells students they are wrong and always listens. He is big on class discussion, but as long as you say something and contribute its not that bad. He makes it easy to talk in class and is very open minded. He isn't trying to trick students he just wants to know they are actually learning. It may seem like he assigns a lot of reading, but he is very flexible and realistic as to what he expects of you, if its too much he will change the syllabus. He is an extremely respectable professor and anyone who has him is lucky. I would recommend taking any of his courses.
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Very smart guy probably one of the smartest professors I've ever had here. His class requires a lot of reading but honestly you don't have to read but I would suggest at least skimming through assigned readings so you can have input for class discussion because class participation was worth as much as the exams. He makes you do per critiques for your papers and he also makes you turn in a rough draft so by the time you turn in a final copy for your paper you should do well. Class discussion is very interesting too. I didn't like his attendance policy you can't miss more than one class without being penalized, also he had us do a group project which I thought was dumb and he threw in an extra assignment that wasn't on the syllabus at the last minute. Overall good professor if you want to learn something and improve as a student take professor Pratt. Not a push over class but if you go to class you will do well.
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One of the best English profs I've had yet. I haven't ever been a great writer but I got a 4.0 in the class with a good amount of effort (I actually did 90% of the readings). Speaking of reading, he expects a LOT out of you in terms of reading, although much of it is not discussed and he canceled a lot of ours. Just stay on top of it and don't get behind and you'll be fine. He's a very intelligent guy and I learned a lot about more in his class than I have in any other normal literature class so far at MSU.
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For my final semester at MSU I am so glad to have had this professor. Not only was the class enjoyable but I truly can say I walked away from the class knowing a lot of information...much more than I can say for some of the other English classes I have taken.
I was intimidated like most students but I stuck with it and am so thankful that I did. You do read a lot of books/poetry/articles but nothing I would say that isn't expected in any other 300 level english class. Class discussions really helped me and the more that I found myself participating the more I was able to formulate my ideas about the text.
As for grading, this is where I can really say this is a fair class. Your first paper you are able to revise and meet to revise which really helped me, I went up an entire grade from my revisions. Everything is 20 % of your grade so nothing is outrageously weighted which I thought was great. The mid-term was exactly as Professor Pratt explained it and as long as you were present and interacting during class, it was easy to be successful.
This is a class I would recommend to anyone. I am a Special Education Major and I found this class beneficial.
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Besides having just about the coolest name ever, (his middle name is Presley, as in Elvis), Lloyd Pratt has a lot to offer as a professor. I was lucky enough to have him in my first semester at MSU and it was a great place for my secondary English education to begin. I wish I had more professors who taught like him. Discussion was well facilitated and fun. He really expects you to think (and have read!). He will call on you out of the blue, especially if you look like you're thinking about something, but you're not chastised if you don't have much to say. The class environment was very pleasant and Lloyd Pratt was an A+ professor. I hope I will get to take another class with him before I'm done here.
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I enrolled in this class as a freshman and struggled through the first two weeks before finally dropping it. Professor Pratt demands an excessive amount of time and energy to be put into the class and with 4 other classes to worry about, I found it to be too difficult. 75% of the class grade is based on 4 papers that you write throughout the semester (one of which is dropped). I stuck with the class long enough to write the first paper, although I dropped it before I handed it in. I cannot comment on his grading since I never had any experience with it. However, the paper topic was interesting enough and I it was definitely "do-able". I found that I put too much stress on myself to do well on the paper and found it to be very time-consuming. I would not recommend this class to anyone unless you are very serious about your writing. You should also be prepared to read the equivalent of one novel each week and write/answer discussion questions for the class. Clearly this class is meant for english majors and those who are very confident in their writing ability.
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One of the absolute best profs MSU has to offer. Don't be intimidated by his "I taught at Harvard..." speech, he is an amazing professor. Be sure to read the material or be a great B.S.er because the entire class is discussion, and if no one volunteers he WILL call on you randomly. He's very open to opinions different that his, and would never, ever, tell a student that they were wrong. Great guy, take is class and learn as much as you can!
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Professor Pratt is a wonderful professor with all sorts of experience to draw upon. He taught at both Yale and Brown before coming to MSU, and isn't afraid to talk about himself like other professors (though he prefers that the students do most of the talking). He's a fair grader, if that's your concern, but classes are interesting enough that you can't help but learn something if you're interested at all.
Pratt's specialty area, slave narratives, are what you want him to teach. He's very knowleadgable of the time around when those were popular as well, so don't expect to be able to tell him anything about Thoreau or Emerson that he won't know.
One of the things I liked most about Pratt is that he acknowledges problems with the university and listens to his students so he can accomodate them. He taught WRA, as well as some low-level ENG classes and had no problem coming to us in the upper level classes about our opinions on what can and should be changed. He's interesting to talk to, polite (although a little aloof at times), and knows his stuff. I'd say take any class he's teaching.
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I had Prof. Pratt for his first semester at MSU after teaching at Yale or Harvard or one of those. Perhaps partially because of his background, he has very high standards - this will not be an easy 4.0 class. The amount of reading assigned was rather ambitious for a 200-level course, but he's not anal about you doing all the reading exactly on time and there are no pop quizzes. The class is almost entirely group discussion led by the professor. Professor Pratt allows you to miss up to 3 classes; any missed beyond that means an automatic fail. We wrote 4 papers over the semester, our worst grade was dropped, and we were given an opportunity to revise one of the papers. There is ample opportunity to improve your grade. Although he refused to give us a practice exam, Professor Pratt prepared us quite well for the final and there were NO surprises or trick questions on the final; it was exactly as he said it would be. To get a good grade, the average student would have to do the readings, come to class, and study a little bit. If you have confidence in your abilities (this is what I did), you may be able to get away with doing about half the readings, coming to class, and looking over some notes on the way to the final.
The readings we did were very diverse, which was something I appreciated. An intro course should introduce you to many types of literature, and I learned a lot because of that. He did a poetry segment, then narrative (fiction), drama/plays, and literary analysis and theory (what makes good literature: essays by Plato, Aristotle, Wordsworth, etc). I checked the reading lists of other sections, and no other section had as varied a selection of readings.
Professor Pratt himself was nice enough. He wasn't particularly funny and at times seemed a little pedantic, but I had no problems with him; he actually apologized to me once for being a little brusque. One thing: he doesn't like getting emails asking him for things missed in class and most likely will not send you any handouts or anything. You'll have to go to his office hours or contact another classmate. But that's not to say he's not helpful; I went to his office hours a couple of times and he was quite friendly and assisted me with my papers.
Many people will complain, I'm sure, about the difficulty. Pratt is a tough grader and the class moves at a fast pace, but I found the experience very rewarding. And it is possible to get a 4.0 in his class. I did. You just have to be smart and/or work for it, but that's what college is about.

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