Some people will staunchly sing Watson's praises. However, I'm taking his class and he dropped a lengthy midterm on us four days before we're due to take it. You'd need to memorize a sonnet word for word, be able to identify passages, write a short essay, AND recall his 2-hour lectures in order to answer written questions. He will not warn you of this beforehand. This is just the midterm. You also have to write two essays (one short, one long) and take a final exam. I'm sure this is great for people obsessed with Shakespeare and already familiar with his work. If that isn't you, maybe pick a different class or instructor.

Professor Watson was an excellent teacher who made lecture on 400 year old plays relevant and interesting. His class is pretty difficult in terms of the midterm and essay, but there's plenty of time to get the plays read and as long as you're engaged in the class and attend lecture, you'll do fine. I think I lucked out on my papers because my TA seemed to grade pretty easily, but if you're an English major, try to take your Shakespeare classes with Prof. Watson.

IF YOU NEED TO TAKE SHAKESPEARE AND WATSON IS TEACHING IT, TAKE HIM! I've taken both my Shakespeare classes (142A, 142B) with him and I can say with confidence he's one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. His lectures are energetic and he's got this great witty sense of humor. There's been plenty of times after I read a play and absolutely hated it (ahem, Coriolanus), but Watson was able to shed some light onto it and made the play more understandable and accessible.

His class structures are the same: a midterm and a non-cumulative final and a paper. The midterm and the final have the exact same structure: 10 historical context questions from the Bedford Companion you're also suppose to read, 12 passage IDs and an essay.

If you keep up with the reading, there's no way you can't do well in the class. I highly recommend him.

This is my second course with him (142A was the first) and I have to say that it's evident and obvious why this professor has such high reviews: he is not only specialized in his field and can thus provide you this amazing, entertaining and enriching lectures, he is a great human being. The tests are challenging but if you do the readings, you should be fine.

Love this man. At first, I thought that Watson's lectures came off a bit like a preacher's sermon, but over time, I really appreciated his zealous lectures. His lectures are very clear, organized, and engaging. A lot of reviews say that his final and midterm were outrageous, but I think that he's since made them much easier. The IDs were very easy to recognize, but were a bit difficult to pin point where in the plot they came from the plays. I suggest studying his quote hand out sheets! Almost all of the IDs on the midterm were directly from them. Overall, great professor and wonderful class!

He is a great professor and his lectures are amazing. The problem? THE FINAL! OMG! The IDs on there were nothing like the IDs on the midterm. NONE of them were recognizable or on the handouts he gave! We had to do nine. Then we did 7 questions, paragraph each, about the texts.Then we wrote an essay about his lecture, 2 pages. Then we wrote tow essays incorporating five plays about two different themes, 3-4 pages each. I studied two days for this and I am sure I got at least half of them wrong. SO SO SO disappointing. I was doing so well in this class and then the stupid final. BE WARE>

The reviews on here pretty much say it all. Not one lecture was even close to boring. He does everything in his power to transcend you back to the 17thC. His voice is loud and clear; his humor is wonderful and his lectures are prepared. He speaks really fast, however. I had to use my laptop to take notes and was overwhelmed with how much material I had. On average, in font 11, I would have 9/10 pages of notes per lecture!
For the midterm, we memorized a sonnet, identified passages, answered really short questions, and wrote and essay. For the final, we had to identify passages, answer longer questions (paragraph each), write an essay about lecture material, and write two more essays (3-4 pages each) on themes from class incorporating plays. YEA, you will be writing until the very end. However, as I said, if you take down really REALLY good notes, you will do great. I got an A+ on the tests because of it. We also have to write two papers. One close reading, 2-3 pages, one themed, 6-7 pages.
He is one of the top professors at UCLA... Period.

He is intelligent and entertaining. He taught at Harvard. He writes great papers and thinks outside the box. On the midterm, we had to memorize a Shakespearean sonnet (you wrote it down, word by word, for the first question), identify 14 passages and write an essay.
Honestly, he's well aware that people hate this requirement: the Shakespeare, the Milton, the Chaucer. THEY ALL know we hate those classes (the majority).
The grade depends on your TA. Difficulty wise, I thought it was tough because I had to strain my brain to interpret and analyze plays like Romeo and Juliet for the 5th time since I first read the play in high school. Overall, since it is a required class for ENLG majors and others, he's not bad to take it with.

Watson is a great professor. Passionate about his work and incredibly enthusiastic in lecture. I took Later Shakespeare, Eng 142B, with him and enjoyed Shakespeare for the first time since high school. I also took a seminar with him about Metaphysical poets the following quarter, but was a little disappointed. I think Watson excels more in bigger lectures than small seminars. Still if you have a chance, take him!

Hes an amazing professor but he can rush through the lecture a bit and it can make it very difficult to write notes. I think he is a fair grader but then again it depends greatly on your TA!

One thing I can say about Dr. Watson is that he is very passionate about Shakespeare. The way he recites it is beautiful! This guy should be on stage. I loved seeing him take on the roles it really engages you in his lecture.