Participation (10%) 2-Page Response (20%) Midterm (30%) Final (40%). Recorded lectures. Live TA discussions + going to office hours determined participation grade.
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Your grade is a shot in the dark. Your TA grades 100% of your writing. If you get a TA who grades harshly (which many people did), you're screwed in the class. Luckily for me I didn't, but its still unfair. There were people who were incredibly active in live discussions and obviously understood the course material yet they bombed papers.
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You get an INSANE amount of reading that you need to reference when doing all the papers. I understand that its a learning environment and the reading was genuinely important in understanding the topic, but it was still a lot. This is just my heads up.
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Lectures were useful. Lacayo likes repeating herself so at some points it would get redundant. But she definitely helped in relating the reading to topics and helping people understand the struggles of the time.
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Lacayo revealed each essay prompt during live lectures and then gave us 20 minutes to ask clarification questions before we couldn't email her or the TA's until the submission window closed. This sucked terribly. In a Zoom with 200 people, 20 minutes is no time to let everybody ask their questions. None of my questions I asked in chat were ever adressed. Overall just a bad experience in that aspect.
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If I would give advice, I would go to your TA's office hours and Lacayos office hours. Ask what you did wrong on your writing and ask how you can improve. Don't fall behind on reading or movies. Show them you care about your grade.

I was really excited about this class, but I left the quarter pretty disappointed. While the class material is so interesting and important, the online format did not translate well with this course. Monday lectures are live discussions, but at some points they felt redundant; I struggled staying engaged. We also related the class material to modern times, and while this was a good discussion, I did not find it useful for the midterm or final.

I tried my best to follow the feedback from my TA after each assignment, but his grading was very nit-picky and lacked a format. He still found ways to deduct my scores and even told me at one point that he “didn’t agree with my argument.” I was ultimately disheartened when at the end of the course, my final grade was just posted. I never saw my grade on my actual final paper or participation grade. I wanted to at least see these scores individually because they held such significant weight.

In the end, I was so stressed and obsessed with my assignments that it took away from the value of the class. Yes, I learned a lot and feel more educated, but I’m walking away from the class with discouraging memories that significantly shaped my experience.

The format of the class was hard to keep up with. I always planned to get all of my work done for my classes from monday to wednesday but because the professor would post the wednesday lectures late, I was not able to stick to this plan for any of the weeks. My TA was flexible and nice so I did not struggle with harsh grading. Overall the readings were long, but it was not necessary to read the entire thing. I felt that the monday discussion with classmates and the wednesday lectures reiterated the most important points from the readings which helped me write my papers.

The class content is great and well worth learning. However, Professor Lacayo struggled to effectively engage students in lecture (especially in the online format). The grade is composed of 3 writing assignments with very vague prompts, and during the writing periods you have no access to help from TAs or Professors, making it difficult to increase your grade or gain clarity on the assignment. Also, this class was hard to take online. The Wednesday lectures were asynchronous, but professor Lacayo never posted the on time - sometimes they were posted as late as Friday or not at all. I appreciated Professor Lacayo giving us the whole week off for Thanksgiving break and having no weekly readings the weeks of writing assignments, but the class was still difficult to navigate alone and without guidance.

See Chicano 188, taken Fall 2019, submitted Dec. 10, 2019 review. Pretty much spot on regarding every aspect of the class. I managed to perform well due to the following:

(1) for each paper you have to read a majority of the assigned readings. However, I would basically draft a paper and then add citations from the readings at the end. (Where it gets weird is how to write a paper without citing external sources, many students had issues with this.. whoever graded my papers didn't... go figure.) You are basically writing a paper and assuming that all the information you provide is common knowledge and doesn't require a source. This is weird, but it was the only way to draft an intelligent analysis "without using external sources"- which was one of the requirements. Again, you still have to have a pretty good understanding of the readings, which I normally did at least one week prior to assigned writings.

(2) Lol don't rock the boat. There is a strong sentiment within the class, you need to find a unique way to echo that sentiment in your papers. Some may disagree, and I'm assuming it reflected in their grades... and to them I would say it's a lot easier to do when you actually read all the assigned readings. You may have your personal opinions, but good luck demonstrating your understanding of the class material and while promoting a counter argument.

(3) During discussion, don't just talk about the reading. Look up other stories and historical facts that demonstrate a deeper understanding. I think it will definitely help your participation grade (overall grade).

Lastly, I actually learned a lot in the readings, but discussions and lectures drove me insane. I'm biracial, so this is partially an inherent curse so to speak. I actually felt bad for students who weren't Black or Latino because the tone is very one-sided....lol it reminded me of when I was the only minority in predominantly white classes, so if you feel that way suck it up... read the material, and follow the above tips as best as you can... in other words embrace adversity, it's a challenge you won't see everyday so you can grow from it if you have the right mindset.

#A+