ENGL BC3179

not too bad because you don't need to do all the readings. weekly post on yellowdig.

I had super low hopes for this class because it is a boring topic, but Gordis did a good job connecting to modern themes. She is super sweet and understanding. I wouldn't take this class unless you like history though. It is tons of reading. 2 short essays. 1 long essay. and a hard final exam. The saving grace of the course is Lisa. She is an amazing person which makes the class fine.

Super dense readings, literally every single one was frankly torture with the exception of like two. We had weekly posts on the online platform Yellowdig, which included a Reflection on the week's readings and response to "Provocations," which were passages she posted with questions to go along with. They were short and sweet, no crazy requirements for them. We were also encouraged to interact with our classmates' responses. Two short essays (750 words), one longer essay (5-6 pages), and a comprehensive 3-hour final exam after the reading week that was open note/remote for our class, with an in-person option. It was helpful to be given the choice, and the exam was fine, but I'm relieved it's over. Class for English majors, can be used to fulfill American Lit req or one of the two pre-1900 requirements, along with fulfilling gen eds (I'm double counting as American Lit and Thinking Globally). Fine workload, lots of opportunity to do well.

Lisa Gordis is very kind, but this course was unfortunately unbearable for me on account of the content and readings. It was just so boring, and I actually tried to drop it but didn't due to very strange advice from my advisor. Gordis tends to jump around in lecture from topic to topic in the reading we are looking at for the day, which ends up being confusing. Course objectives are not laid out in a straightforward way, so I just assumed everyone was a Quaker author once we finished Bradford. She doesn't cold call, which is nice, but sometimes she'll ask if students would like to expand on comments they made on the online platform Yellowdig she incorporates in class (more about in Workload section). She isn't a harsh grader; in fact, I would say she's quite objective. She gives very helpful feedback. Sometimes in class she'll read very long passages when she doesn't need to, subsequently asking what we think of it, which I found to be a waste of time. I don't think she exhibits favoritism at all, but it was obvious that some students ruffled her feathers a little more than others, but she's human. I appreciate her passion, and she is clearly very learned and accomplished. She also responds to emails really quickly, which is great. On the first day, she said she understood that this class may be difficult due to consisting of material written by "old dead people," which I foun…

I took this course to fulfill the literature requirement and because I needed the course to be in the morning, and Boy Am I Happy!! that I happened to take Professor Gordis' and that I did not read the older reviews before I committed. I don't want to discredit the older reviewers, but my experience was so very different. I went to almost every lecture (2x/week minus one) and I went to as many group office hours as I could (once a month or so) and before each paper submission, we met in an individual office hour. The lectures follow a syllabus that is published at the beginning of the course. When there is more student participation (= discussion in class) the course falls behind. To catch up, Professor Gordis speeds up sections by scripting some parts or we had prerecorded lectures for when there was a scheduling break. All assigned reading material is pretty clearly outlined, which pages/sections/poems to read, and with one of them she mentioned it four times that not the entire printed copy is assigned and she also put it out there electronically. That being said, this is a literature class and fast readers have it easier. I am not one of them, and I did not read everything. The papers and the final are set up in a way that if you missed two or three authors, you'll still be able to do really well. I took this course during COVID times, and everything was online. I took fou…

4 2 page responses, 1 5-6 page paper, 1 exam and 3 blog comments.

Pros: If you are interested in American history and religion this course covers many of the texts that are important for a good understanding of them. It is also a fairly small class which is good if you enjoy discussions. The blog is also a great part of this class as it allows you to get participation points fairly easily. Cons: While most professors tend to be nicer in office hours, Prof. Gordis was a strange anomaly. She was very encouraging and enthusiastic in class but in one on one conversations nearly seemed bored and was rather condescending. She's also fairly good at hiding the fact that most questions are very loaded and that she expects a certain response. She will be quick to correct you if you don't say what she wants you to say. As one reviewer said, do not take this class to satisfy the lit requirement.

Not too much, six 1-pg responses due at your leisure throughout the course of the semester, one 6-8 pg final paper, and a final.

I tend to agree with most Culpa reviews, but I have to say Professor Gordis is one exception. While it is clear that she is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of early American literature, I found Professor Gordis's personality to be abrasive and at times rude. At many points throughout the semester I felt as though her responses to comments made by some specific students during class discussions were belittling in a way I had never heard a professor speak to students before. As a senior English major, I was very thrown off by this, which hardly encouraged the majority of the class to participate in any "discussion" of the reading material. On a more personal note, Professor Gordis often seemed distracted and uninterested in what I had to say during her office hours, which also caught me off guard since I tend to expect a certain amount of respect towards students. I found Professor Gordis to be a--for lack of a better word--cold professor who quite honestly didn't seem like she enjoyed teaching or spending time grading her students menial work. It was also frustrating that, at the time of the final exam, I had not received one piece of graded work back from her as was the case with the majority of the class. I know that many people who see negative reviews on culpa assume the reviewer received a poor grade, but this review honestly has nothing to do with the grade I got,…