English And Comparative Literature · Columbia University
A good UW teacher, if a bit of a hard grader. Normally, UW teachers are only in it for 2 years, but Heather will be teaching for 3 (which means you might get to take her class, which is why I am writing this review). Good attitude in class and out, very helpful comments on work that you submit (rough or otherwise), and if you have the chance to be in her class I really recommend it.
A typical conservative southerner, Heather Samples does not approve of dissenting opinions. She is a proud, pompous, and arrogant graduate student who was out of academia years; and is the ultimate freshman nightmare. If you take this class, forget about academic freedom. She proudly acknowledges her inability to stick to the course plan, misses all timelines, and simply doesn't care about these at all. Don't be surprised if she sends a mail at 5:15am saying the class will not meet. You should attend the party at her home in Brooklyn on night before LitHum finals or your grade goes down. At the end of course, Samples asks students to post evaluations on CULPA, and before handing out course evaluations in class warns that these will 'stick to [her]' for seven years. The superfluous humility of the student evaluations from her first semester are questionable and dubious primarily because some of them were posted before grades are available, and also because in her second semester all of those praises proved baseless lies. Her classes have too much discussion on specific essays, and little, if any at all, on the writing process as a whole. We spent less than 30 minutes of class time in the whole semester with the 'Bedford Handbook' and the 'Craft of Research' two books that are commonly referred on campus as Bibles on writing and research. Taking her class at most tries to prepar…
Whether discussing essays in class or working on our own writing, Heather Samples held us to the highest intellectual standard. Every day(bright and oh so early), I looked forward to class discussions because I knew they would be led in a way that encouraged participation while always proving productive. The amount of material we thoroughly covered in a given class never ceased to surprise me. The day our class discussed Andre Aciman's "Arbitrage" stands as a perfect example. Everyone came to class with ideas and left with better ideas. At first I wondered exactly what enabled such productive discussions, because Heather did not seem to run conversation- we were encouraged to talk about what we wanted. I truly realized the extent of HeatherÂ’s contribution to discussion and class as a whole when we worked on the CCP and broke into individual groups that were supposed to guide the class through a short discussion. Heather subtly directs and orchestrates discussion with mastery and precision despite this being her first undergraduate teaching experience. With this as her starting point, her potential as a teacher is truly staggering. With respect to essays, I was always impressed at the level of care Heather invested in making corrections and understanding not only what was on the surface of an essay but the ideas beneath. Heather returned my first draft with suggestions, I turn…
A really fantastic and amazing teacher. With such a drab and potentially loathsome curriculum, Heather transformed our classroom into a place of creative and fascinating learning. Even though she is well-read, articulate and lightyears beyond the first years she teaches, Heather never once exuded an air of pretentiousness or condescension. Instead, she is extremely accommodating and easy to be around. She's not a teacher who makes up for the lack of years between her and her students by putting up a front. Class is based around discussion of materials, with gentle direction from Heather, and you find yourself surprised at the end of the hour and a half how much material has been covered in such a digestable and easy fashion. University Writing took the spot as my earliest class at Columbia this semester, but Heather really worked hard to make sure the material stayed both inviting and invigorating to keep us awake. As a result, our class had a stellar attendance rate, with only a few students missing class throughout the term due to illness, etc. Her teaching style distinguishes itself on stressing the craft of writing as well as the argument behind it. Writing an essay for her consisted of caring both about the claim you're making and the way it's presented, something that had not been one of my priorities going in but certaintly showed its worth at the end of the term. She s…
This is the best university writing class ever. For those with tender sensibilities, the language can get a wee bit salty from time to time but Samples is one of the coolest and best instructors you'll find. She is easy going, explores everyone's ideas at length - even the ridiculous ones, selects the most interesting texts possible and makes comments that actually help you to become a better writer. Samples is always dead-on when she grades essays and she's young enough so she understands what it's like to be an undergraduate in our position. If you bust your ass, she recognizes the effort. SWITCH INTO THIS CLASS IF YOU CAN! Seriously.
From little/nothing to OMG WTF ROFFLED. Though the latter typically is a result of procrastinating on a major paper.
Four essays. Evaluation to the first available by the time the third is due, the second essay's evaluation available by the end of course, the last two ... I am not sure. Shorter home assignments never evaluated, just collected.
standard. I definitely agree with the previous reviewer about how exhaustive the essay writing became as a product of greater care for my work.
The standard essays, assigned reading, written exercises every week that may take thirty to forty minutes to complete. warning: you may find yourself caring about your work than is deemed regular and this causes essay writing to be a much more time consuming. however, it's definitely worth it.
The workload is appropriate for a freshman comp. class. 4 essays. One of them is somewhat hefty, 10 pages and a minimum of 10 sources. she makes you go to butler and get sources too.