ENGL W3011

from 2024 fall syllabus: Class participation and preparation. 15% of your final grade. In order to get passing marks on this assignment, you will need to offer a comment or question to the discussion at least 4 times this semester. Beyond this minimum requirement, excellent class participation is less about quantity than quality: take notes as you read; arrive on time with the reading in hand; ground your remarks in textual observation; try to listen and respond to others as much as you initiate new lines of thought. Paper 1: Close reading similes and metaphors. 15% of your final grade. A short paper (2-3 pp.) in which you perform a close reading of no more than ten lines from a text. Paper 2: Critical analysis paper. 20% of your final grade. A longer paper (5-6 pp) in which you produce an argument about one or two texts from a set of two or more close readings; this may involve two different translations of the same text. You may use your close reading exercise as a draft or partial template, but this paper must read at least one new passage. Midterm. 15% of your final grade. We will go over the format of the exams more extensively in class, but in brief, both the midterm and final will include (1) several passage identifications; (2) a short passage analysis; (3) a synthetic essay that cites 2-3 texts. Final project. 20% of your final grade. Study guide (6-8pp) for the final…

Apart from the class participation, from what I know, the workload was pretty much the same as what other seminar sections had. Preparing for the class participation was such a nightmare though and took way too much time and effort.

We have reading responses Mondays and Wednesdays- except before, during, and after a paper is due, which okay yeah most people would find annoying to do discussion posts, but they're genuinely useful when it comes to ideas for your essays. These posts are worth 15% of our grade and are graded on completion, and you are allowed to miss one. We have 3 papers- first two are worth 10% and the last is 15%. And a midterm and final- final worth 15% (the midterm was just practice for the final for us) and of course a participation grade worth 20%. You are also are allowed extensions, she is pretty lenient about them- she just asks that you at least turn something (it can literally be a sentence or paragraph or even brainstorming) to her the day of the original deadline. Essays can be annoying to write for anyone, but she genuinely helps you complicate your idea or reach one when you visit office hours with her, what's fun is that you can write your essay and hype yourself up like wait I lowk ate that, and she'll usually agree. And she's a generous grader and gives thorough feedback on your papers- with a page explaining what she likes and parts she was confused on and then annotations on your essay.

20% participation (including one discussion post per week for the latter half of the semester) 3 ungraded short poetry papers (to ease you in) 2 5% short poetry papers 1 20% longer poetry paper 1 25% longer drama paper (Hamlet) 1 25% longer novel paper (Pride and Prejudice and/or separate text chosen by seminar leader, Autobiography in this case) Reading every week for lecture and sometimes seminar Autumn gave us an extra credit paper which I thought was especially nice of her since I didn't hear of any other leader doing so

Pretty light and as previous reviewers said she is a very fair grader.

LitHum with Emma was good. Didn't love the class as it was from 4-6 but not very hard, not as much weight on midterm (take-home) and final as the 2 take home essays we were assigned. Discussions were a little slow and sometimes painstaking as she is not the best lecturer, but is very kind and is always willing to help if you want to discuss essay ideas/exam/falling behind etc. The class wasn't lifechanging but not the worst experience. She encourages participation though it is weighed only 15% and the more you participate the better the class will probably be

If you're not the kind of student to speak at LEAST 7-8 times per seminar, do NOT take this section!!!!!! Maybe it was because of the people who were in this class, but I have never EVER had a seminar where speaking SO many times in once class was the norm. It was honestly so ridiculous because every single time a question was raised, people would literally be fighting to speak. There was NO moderation of discussions at all which made it difficult for me to discern what was truly relevant to our analysis of the literary works and what was just pure fluff. In sum, seminars were a nightmare because we were encouraged to just fight to get our voices heard to secure a good class participation grade (which honestly is so dumb because quality should 100% be prioritized over quantity – which was not how it was during this seminar). There should definitely have been some curtailment of each person's participation – some older students were so competitive with trying to get their voices heard that it honestly felt like no one was even listening to each other. TLDR if you LOVE class participation then this seminar is for you. If you don't want to get a bad class participation grade for *only* speaking 5 times (which I personally find to be a ridiculous amount for a once-a-week seminar section) instead of 10 times per week, do NOT take this section

I literally took a worse lab chem professor next semester so I could stay in her class. I love her class so much, its the breeze of my day. I don't agree with the other review- they might just be a bad writer. #JusticeforLilith I'm so serious, the rest of the class loves her so much. I find our discussions in class very interesting and eye opening. She poses questions to go through in discussion each class and provides interesting media to compare our books to. She really helps to complicate ideas for the essays and overall become a better interpreter. Lilith makes you feel like a true literature and philosophical being. The intellectual discussions we have in class are exciting and quite literally the reason I wanted to come to Columbia, it's spaces like these that make your Columbia experience memorable. #ThankYouLilith

Coming out of Autumn's litcrit seminar I have pretty mixed feelings. First, the class was on Thursday evenings from 6:10-8 which definitely didn't help at all. Second, the seminar itself does not need to be two hours long. It dragged on and on and on every week, though I find this to be partially a flaw of the course itself. It is clear that Autumn is intelligent and can analyze literature. But to me, I only felt that she knew how to teach her specific field of focus, African American literature, which was demonstrated when we read the final text, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. For the other texts (poetry/Hamlet/Pride and Prejudice) I felt that she did not facilitate the discussion well at all--there was often a lull in the conversation and she would sometimes ask questions that didn't make entire sense or just that no one knew how to answer. On the other hand, we had one of the other seminar leaders as a sub for one week and she asked very easy questions simply to get people to talk, and I'm not sure which was worse. Also, it was evident that Autumn was wrapped up in her dissertation which she's currently in the middle of/in the process of finishing soon. So I didn't find she was really prepared for the seminars. And I didn't feel that I got a whole lot out of the seminars, although usually the first hour was alright and some of the students in my class made some good po…

Mary Grace is such a sweetheart. Like the previous reviewer said, she's always willing to make time to talk, recommend you books, tell you about some exhibit going on in NYC and also like the previous reviewer said, she has an awesome wardrobe. The only thing was even though she's really nice, she's also really direct which I found off-putting at first (she WILL put you on the spot or will just say "that's wrong" in front of everyone. Oh, and she hates Pride and Prejudice and let us know it). However, this directness also means she'll give you really practical rules for how to get an A or will give you a list of "pet peeves" never to commit in papers. She has a pretty good sense of humor too. Just do the reading, avoid doing things from her pet peeves list, go to her office hours and you'll get a good grade.