Basically it was a super easy A+, but you'd have to sit through 2 pretty boring lectures every week (lectures aren't podcasted).

There were no traditional final and midterm but instead pop exams that were given every so often (8 in total). The books that were the required reading (I highly suggest you read all of them as they are vital to you answering the test questions) were pretty interesting, A Death in the Rainforest by Don Kulick (loved it!), Confronting the Death Penalty by Robin Conley (interesting read, a little repetitive) and The Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane Hill (lol, took a lot of effort to get through this one).

The tests were like 5 true/false questions and 2 open-ended questions and worth 10 points in total for each test. I had Reem as my TA and she was super helpful in relaying the material because I literally do not pay attention for shit in lecture so going to my section was highly necessary in my case.

Honestly, take the class for the grade but other than that I wouldn't say Durantis lectures were super engaging so he often times lost me when we were like 10 minutes in lecture. His slides are often very short and don't carry much context so can't rely on that too.

Professor Duranti is truly a unique lecturer. He always gives anecdotes and tries to engage our large class. Sure, he goes off tangent, and he is aware of that, but don't worry too much about taking notes in lecture. Some lectures may seem long and a bit dry. He will post the slides later, so you can refer back to those. I didn't expect this class to be so focused on linguistics. Nonetheless, the books he assigned to us were not too bad, and I actually enjoyed one of them. The pop quizzes are pretty easy. Just have an idea of what the last week's readings and lectures were about and you'll be fine! He even drops your lowest quiz grade. The fact that there are no final and midterm makes this one of my favorite, low-stress GEs. Duranti cares about his students' wellbeing and understands that a GE should not cause an unnecessary amount of stress, which I found to be the case in some of the other GEs I have taken at UCLA. I would recommend this class. You will definitely learn something interesting out of it.

This class was weird. The content is relatively dry and the workload is alright. You are assigned 3 books to read throughout the quarter. Pretty easy reads. Lecture entails Duranti using slides that correlate the reading to his other lecture material, all super boring tbh. However, Duranti is a very interesting man. He is super accomplished and honestly really funny. He is a realist and understands the lives of students and how much they have to do. There is no final or midterm in this class. It consists of 8 pop tests that are assigned throughout the quarter. People say this is random but honestly you can figure out the pattern of when you'll get one really easily, and sometimes he even emailed us the night before and told us we would have a test the next day. These tests were super easy, if you skimmed the reading which I did for the first book (didnt even read the second 2) and listened moderately in lecture while jotting the slides down, you'll be totally fine. Also these tests were super bs-able and you could pull answers out of your ass left and right. My TA was Max B. , he was super nice and graded very easily. He is a very formal and intelligent guy and uses a high level of language during discussion, sometimes tough to follow, but at the end of the day I was glad to have him as he was a forgiving grader. My advice if you are thinking of taking this class, do it. It is super finessable and honestly not too insanely boring, Minimal effort will give you an A if you know how to finesse a class.

Sweetest man ever!!! Very easy A! He often goes off topic and is sometimes hard to understand but he is a very nice professor and really cares about his students. He posts the slides after every lecture and had pop quizzes (8 in total) instead of midterms and final. They were very easy but ensured that you did your reading/went to lecture. They were true and false and short answer questions. Each quiz was about a page long and varied from 3-6 questions.

Selling A Death in the Rainforest by Don Kulick (normally $14) for $10
Selling Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane Hill (normally $44) for $30
(I will ship these to you for free!)

Love professor Duranti! He is a little old man from Italy and super funny. It's not always clear what he's saying but it's an easy A so doesn't really matter. There's no midterm or final; just pop quizzes based off the weekly reading assignments. Very light workload, no attendance in lecture but ya never know when there's gonna be a pop quiz. TA takes class a little too seriously but I def recommend this for GE.

I would recommend this class as it is a fairly easy GE. Professor Duranti does get fairly off topic sometimes regarding his studies, but it is interesting seeing how accomplished he is. There are no midterms and finals, only pop quizzes and tests. Although the only significant difference between the quizzes and tests is one or two more questions. These pop quizzes/tests also make it hard to skip class because you never know when they're coming. Other than that, this class is nice to get a GE out of the way.

This class was definitely an easy A. No final, no midterms, no papers. Just pop quizzes or tests every week, so you couldn't really skip lecture bc you never knew which day the test or quiz was on. If you have a good TA and discussions before the quiz, you'll be fine. My TA Wesley was the absolute best and always told us what was going to be on the test/quiz. Professor Duranti is a sweet man, but not organized at all. The material of this class is very dry and super boring, but if you have a good TA (especially Wesley), you'll be fine. I only read the first book (you're supposed to read 3) and I ended up with an A.
Selling all 3 books **********

Duranti goes off topic all the time and likes to talk about himself and his studies a lot. Even though this class is very easy with very easy "tests" and "quizzes" -basically the same thing - with just 3-8 questions and no midterms and finals, you need to do the readings. Very easy GE and a fun professor, and my TA was very good in summarizing his ideas. I recommend this course by him but I do not recommend taking a harder Upper Divison course from him.

Selling all 3 required books (FOR $20 EACH) in brand new condition!
Confronting the Death Penalty by Robin Conley ($30)
Forms of Talk by Erving Goffman ($25)
Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane Hill ($40)

Please email me @************* if you’re interested!!

Easy GE class even though lectures were a little all over the place. TA's really help with what's going to be on the test. You do have to attend lecture because there are weekly quizzes and tests BUT NO FINAL or even a midterm!! There are weekly readings (3 books). Quizzes were at max 8 questions and tests were easy. Duranti is a great guy, but the class can be a little boring at times and he goes off topic quite a lot.

Duranti is a very distinguished professor, but he is not a very good educator. He doesn't ever seem to come in with a plan for his lecture, and very quickly goes off on semi-related tangents that are mostly about his own work and observations. That would be fine if his pop quizzes didn't concern the lecture material. Most of the time, I was at a complete loss as to what I needed to absorb and what was just Duranti giving us his unchecked thoughts of the world.

I'm very thankful that my T.A. during the quarter was such a big advocate for the students, and was a better educator than Duranti himself.