Russian

This class was fascinating but really dark. Heavy material is covered. The guest speakers were amazing to listen to and ask questions from. Readings were mainly summaries/analyses of the Chechen war/invasion of Ukraine, but some other conflicts are mentioned. Good class if you're interested in journalism.

Professor Portice is without a doubt one of the finest, most effective instructors/professors I've had in my time in Middlebury. Her skills as an academic and teacher speak for themselves, bu for me one of the most important aspects that she brought was her cultural knowledge of Russia. She was able in class to show us examples of the grammatical concepts we learned being put to real use in everyday Russian. She made us speak in Russian and had us relentlessly drill and repeat any mistakes or shortcomings in our speech, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. My Russian shot up during this time and she was an instrumental part of that. Besides her skills as an instructor of Russian language, Professor Portice is funny, exceedingly understanding about accommodations, test corrections and the occasional missed homework. Overall, Professor Portice has been a valuable and crucial part of my foreign language education here at Middlebury.

Professor Portice is without a doubt one of the finest, most effective instructors/professors I've had in my time in Middlebury. Her skills as an academic and teacher speak for themselves, bu for me one of the most important aspects that she brought was her cultural knowledge of Russia. She was able in class to show us examples of th …Read more

You have to do a response paper every week, but they were just participation grades and were never even returned with feedback. The midterm was pretty tough and had two parts over two days, the first day about 1.5 hours and the second day around 3. Fair grading though I felt.