Not sure if I agree with everything Anonymiad says. I think her reasons for group discussion were to bring the class together and encourage class discussions. I enjoyed the texts we read and liked the direction she took with the discussions of women in ancient and modern texts. I thought her lecture style was clear and not too pompous. Would I recommend her to other students? Sure- if you like reading interesting texts and having complete strangers pop into the room and say, "You are the best lecturing professor I've ever heard!"

Difficult professors are often the best, but with Professor Wood, this is not the case. I found her unprepared to teach a course at UCLA, and simply unfair. For instance, she put terms on the final exam after saying in class, "I'll just write this on the board, but you don't need to know it." She also returned essays and exams without any comments or marks, leaving one to wonder if she even read them or just randomly assigned grades. The poorly-worded essay questions suggested she should stick to Greek and avoid English altogether. Although her analysis of the ancient texts was insightful (though she often spoke in unneccessarily pompous language, making her lectures somewhat inaccessible to those of us who speak plain English) her grasp on the modern texts was flimsy. To cover for this, she encouraged more "group discussion" in the latter part of the course and divised in-class presentation/debate assignments. She allowed these to drag on for over two weeks, thereby avoiding giving lectures, while taking role every day to ensure each student was their for the mandatory torture. Meanwhile, for most of the students, the complex ideas presented in the post-modern texts remained in the shady depths of Tartarus. Her demeanor screams "small liberal arts college!" and she seemed overwhelmed by the idea of a ten-week quarter (which she kept calling a semester), and her course load reflected her misunderstanding. I know someone will eventually have to take her class again, so I'll sacrafice a cow to the gods of the classics department that she may learn and improve.