Historical instructor

RICHARD KNOWLES

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.33/5 from 54 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

ENG215 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
Dry, boring lectures in which the professor LITERALLY read from the book. The only way I got through this class was going to discussion, where my TA taught us what we missed in lecture.
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ENG215 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
Boring. Wasn't excited about the class to begin with and he didn't make it any better. Exams are so-so, essay questions are fair, passage identification is quite unreasonable for the amount of material. only took this class to get the shakespeare requirement fulfilled.
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ENG219 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Prof Knowles is very interesting. His lectures help out alot for understanding the themes of the plays, which is huge on the tests. I'd highly recommend this class and Prof Knowles. He is clever and witty, and definitely knows his Shakespeare.
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ENG220 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Nothing but good things to say about this man. Enthusiastic and entertaining. I REALLY enjoyed his class, one of my favorites. He only grades on three exams, but he tells you and then retells you EXACTLY what points he wants to see. So, they are VERY do-able.
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ENGL 220
Quality 3/5Difficulty 3/5
Lecture isn't bad and he obviously knows his tragedies, but the exams suck. There is never enough time to do everything asked of you and the graders do not grade using the same rubric. They don't attend his lecture and have different expectations. You never know what you'll get on an exam, despite how prepared you are or are not. So frustrating!
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with RICHARD KNOWLES

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

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Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance 
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