I could not speak of Professor Fisher more highly. He is by far the best professor I have ever had at UCLA. He is passionate about what he teaches, and his lectures are engaging and charismatic. He has a deep understanding of the texts he teaches, and presents fascinating and nuanced ideas about the texts in each lecture. The workload and reading is very reasonable. My only complaint would be that if he does grade one of your papers, instead of your TA, he is an extremely harsh grader. Other than that, I recommend him to the highest degree.

This class had drastically improved my critical reading and writing skills. All feedback I recieved on my essays were very helpful (and it was cool to learn that all the TAs and the professor grade essays together; they're able to establish a standardized criteria or A papers, B papers, etc...). In regards to the class readings, they can really get away from you if you're not disciplined. Try your best to stay on top of readings. But if you don't finish an assigned set before lecture, that's okay; make sure to finish it eventually, though. There's also an online gallery project that's super fun. Start it early if you can, trying to finish it the day that it's do is not. Fun. Other than that I really enjoyed this class, Professor Fisher says at least 4-5 iconic quotes a lecture. It's great.

His hair looks like a bird's nest, he is as beautiful as he is enigmatic, and I will forever remember the profound wisdoms with which he has left me, both those quantified in mere mortal English and those that transcend any spoken language.

Right off the bat, I have to say that Fisher is a very harsh grader. My TA gave me As or A-s for all my assignments, including the first essay, "gallery assignment" (which is basically choosing and explaining a series of images), and final, but because Fisher graded my second paper and gave it a C, my final grade in the class became a B+.

That said, he's a very enigmatic and very intelligent professor. His lectures aren't boring even though he does go off on tangents at times, you learn a lot. I cannot stress enough that going to class is essential. Everything in the final exam requires that you understand what Fisher has said about the readings.

The absolute worst of the worst. His addiction to coffee took priority over his professorial responsibilities and obligations. As if the course's incomprehensibly complex concepts weren't strenuous enough, his embracement of caffeine preceded his writing any of the discussed terms or ideologies. Upon the one rare incident he placed his beverage down, he interrupted lecture in dire search of it. This made the class all the more painful when the subject material predates Shakespeare & friends and is in all but modern English. To top it all off, he lectured at an insanely rapid speech rate.

Professor Fisher was at first very charming and engaging. However, my impression of him soon changed when it came time for papers.

Besides the fact that he had a reader grade most papers, he was also a terrible tyrant when it came to paper ideas. If you would throw out a paper topic at him, he would say, "Hmmm..." and then ramble about how the paper was weak and how it needed to be fixed. The thing is that he wouldn't tell you WHAT needed to be fixed. He would simply go on and on until he confused you to the utmost, and then you would be left with him telling you to find the solution. So office hours were an utter waste of time.

He was also extremely slack with grading. He gave short quizzes, but he would take 2 weeks to get them back, and the last quiz was never returned (though we took it in 7th week).

He also lectures by asking big questions, and when people participate, he keeps pressing them to clarify certain parts. If you say something stupid or which he THINKS is stupid, he will say, "hmmm" and then immediately call on someone else.

The Canterbury Tales with this man is not a class I would suggest to take. He also tends to favor certain students.

Fisher is a great guy...once you get to know him through many meetings. He genuinely cares about the student and is willing to sit for long periods of time discussion issues in the class, his teaching style, and of course, the literature. The thing I respect most of all is his willingness and openness to critique and evaluation. He's fairly new to UCLA. I also had him for 10A (his first quarter here) and I think he learned a lot because when I took 141B with him, I could see vast improvements. His lecture style is a bit odd. He speaks very elaborately, and to be honest, sometimes doesn't even finish his thoughts. I think he gets lost in his tangents. Many times he'll say "And the most important thing to remember is...[insert tangent]..." and will never finish the thought. Despite his tendency to lecture over people's heads, he is brilliant. He's got so much knowledge and passion for Medieval Literature and is the reason why I like to consider myself a medievalist. He's a great guy who cares for his students, has a bit more to learn in terms of being an effective professor, but is all in all one of the most brillian people I know.

Fisher is a pedant but he does absolutely know what he's on about. I personally really liked his lectures and learned a lot. And if you tell him you don't like something about the class' direction, he'll work to change the class and make it better. Also, he's surprisingly lenient with absences. If you really need to skip class or get an extension, he'll give it to you, no questions asked, which is surprising because at first he seems so serious.

Professor Fisher has a fair degree of knowledge within the field of medieval literature, however he treats certain students incredibly condescendingly, with precedent of expressing derision of mockery towards them in class for asking questions he considers too basic. Professor Fisher also struggles to effectively explain or couch core concepts to the English discipline like how to do a close reading or analyze/read Middle/Old English texts with students in office hours who are struggling with the course. He also generally has a disorganized lecture style. In general, Professor Fisher may be knowledgable about his specialization, but his professional demeanor and inability to effectively support students who are new/not naturally adept at tackling core texts/questions in the field decisively limits his capacity as an educator. Various students I know who took courses with him, alongside myself, found his teaching style to be discouraging, ineffective, and at times patronizing. Truly, raw knowledge is not at all enough to make one an effective or even respectful instructor, particularly for non-traditional and commuting students like myself and peers who succeeded in spite of him.

I did not expect to enjoy or do well in this class because medieval literature is very challenging for me but Professor Fisher understands how students feel about this kind of material and makes things manageable and engaging. This was after a year online and he was very understanding about that as well. There was a creative project which was fun to do and helped with the understanding of the material, and then essays which were fairly graded. When you have to take a medieval literature class, I recommend taking it with Fisher.