FYSB BC1182

Books, 3-4 essays that each have a first and a final draft.

Mostly reading, completely manageable 2 papers with revisions and a final research paper (includes annotated bib and prospectus)

two 5-6 page papers and one 6 page research paper all with ungraded rough-drafts

I agree with the review below for the most part. Soloski can be condescending and obsessed with her own intellect. She is smart and often witty and provides useful comments on essays. However, the class environment is not pleasant, and she makes students feel like they are below her. Sometimes she even shoots down students' ideas in front of the class, and then when she asks questions later and is met with silence, she will jut sit there for like 2 minutes and wait for someone to speak. Very strange! The books are pretty good for this class, though, and Soloski is not horrible...she just is definitely nothing like the glowing reviews from a few years ago. Everyone pretty much agreed that she is condescending and class discussions are weird. But... Im pretty ambivalent about her in general.

Lots of pages but you don't have to read any of them. 3 papers (first 2 are 4-6 pages long and the last one is 8-10)

Sonam is an amazing professor. He made lots of time to meet with everyone in the class to help with papers and understanding course material. He is funny, informative, and he pushed us to think critically and examine texts from a feminist perspective.

Professor Olsen is sweet and she tries hard, but there were only a handful of stimulating discussions. She seemed to have a hard time accepting unusual ways of writing an essay, and her comments on the essays exposed this. She does let you do a first and then a final draft, though, which is really nice. Sadly, if you want a good grade, you have to sacrifice your style and just do what she wants.

Frederick was a very approachable professor, as is evidenced by the fact that he let students call him by his first name. I really liked his class because he didn't baby us or try to lure us into guessing the motifs or symbols in a text that he wanted to talk about. Instead, he would present us with his ideas (which were always interesting) and encourage us to engage in literary discourse about these ideas with both him and our fellow students. Many people did the bare minimum (if anything) for reading, yet complained about how there wasn't enough student discussion in the class. I think that Frederick could sense that our class was bound to be somewhat ill-prepared on any given day and took the reins in order to save us from shallow, plot-based discussions fueled by what people could remember from spark notes. He was super helpful with papers when we met with him and always hung around after class to answer questions. Overall, he was a great professor and I would definitely take another class with him.

As a person, Mr. Bird, with his cuffed pants, boat shoes and chain smoking, makes class interesting. As a teacher, his book discussions can be pointless and frequently off-topic. Overall, a funny and interesting class but if you're interested in serious discussions, you have to make them happen yourself. He is very available for help on the papers.

"To say JW stands for anything is a betrayal to the name JW" This class is lit. He tries to make it seem difficult like Shamus Khan does in the social world, but J Dubs is an easy grader and a huge pushover.