Professor Shorter is tough and has high expectations for his students, but he cares deeply about this course, his students, and being a great professor. He is very smart, and therefore has strong opinions, but he is also very willing to listen and change his epistemology if need be. You need to read and write a lot in this class, but it is worth it. Shorter also offers lots of extra credit opportunities. You will learn so much in this class. Highly recommend.

Great class! Professor Shorter is engaging and I promise you there is never a dull moment.
Selling all the books for this class
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I am a south campus major who does not have much writing experience or even consider myself as a below-average writer, but I thoroughly enjoyed this class. This class is definitely not as easy as before when the students had a lot of extra credit opportunities. I was afraid of entering this class because of the previous reviews, but I don't think you have to be too scared.
Grades are out of 100 points so if you get a total of 96 points, you get an A. Each point is worth one percent of your grade, so each point you lose on a paper is one percent gone. The grading scheme seems scary at first, but Professor Shorter provides extra credit points through pop quizzes (usually 2 points per quiz) and Capstone Workshops (~5 points). The pop quizzes are based on the readings and are quite tricky, but they can only add to your grade so don't worry. Think of the extra credit points as making up for mistakes you made on your papers. I did not get a lot of extra credit points in the class (~5) but I still got an A (I mostly got 0/ 0.5 points on the pop quizzes). Here is the grade breakdown:
Attendance (you can miss up to three days for full credit) - 15 points
Short Analysis (3 pages) - 15 points
Author Analysis I (5 pages) - 20 points
Author Analysis II (5 pages) - 20 points
Final Paper Introduction - 5 points
Final Research Projects (7 pages) - 25 points
Total: 100 points
Like others have said before, this is not an easy Writing II class. Papers are due every two weeks, so the class is very fast-paced. A large amount of reading is also assigned every week. Professor Shorter has high expectations and very strict guidelines for what he wants in a paper. However, he details them very clearly in his writing guide and college rule sheet. As long as you follow his rules, you should get a decent grade on his papers. His rules seem very tedious at first such as not using “it is” or any of its conjugated forms. You have to comb through your writing very carefully to find every single mistake. Another thing to add is that the final paper is graded even stricter than before. A mistake worth 0.5 points would be worth 1.5 on the final paper, so do not slack off. I recommend you to go to your TA's office hours to go through your papers and asks for their opinions. Your grade mostly depends on your TA, but they do grade it by the guidelines Professor Shorter provides. While I tell you this, I did not go to any of my TA's office hours but I still did fine on my papers ranging from one to two points being taken off per paper. However, I would have done a lot better and I would have been a lot less anxious if I asked my TA for help. All of the TAs are great at their job and genuinely cares about the success of the students.
As for the content of the class, it is very interesting and mind-opening. I have never been this interested or personally invested in a class at UCLA. Professor Shorter makes every single lecture entertaining; he jokes around and provides many personal anecdotes. The lectures feel like a discussion between him and the students. He told us many personal stories that allowed students to connect with him. He even organized a field trip where students could go "ghost-visiting" with him. At the end of the quarter, he shook every student's hand and this action greatly demonstrates his overall character. This class is much more about aliens, psychics, and ghosts even though we did learn a lot about these topics. This class is about learning about what we should consider as the truth and how to look at the given evidence. Professor Shorter has changed the perspective in which I view the world.
I highly recommend this class if you want to be in an extremely interesting class where you can build a personal connection with the professor. As a South Campus major, this class was very different from the classes I am accustomed to and it was quite hard for me. I am not used to writing so much, but his guidelines become easier to follow the more you write. The changes he asks you to make become natural for you as you write. His guidelines teach you how to become a better writer for the outside world. However, this class is not easy. I spent more time focusing on this class (~50%) than I did for my other two classes (including STEM). I would recommend you to take this class when you have an easier quarter because it is quite time-consuming if you are not used to writing. I promise you would have a lot to take away from the class as long as you keep an open mind.

This class was one of the best classes i have taken here at UCLA. Prof. Shorter is super engaging and funny. After some classes, I was literally at the edge of my seat, because the lecture was super interesting and eye-opening. You do not have to come out of the class believing in aliens, but I think one will gain deeper, valuable insight and understanding on existence, life, and what is considered "truth." But tbh, this class got me believing that aliens are real lol.

Prof. Shorter has high standards, though. Do not think that this will be an easy writing 2 course. You literally have to comb through your essays, looking at each and every line for possible mistakes and places where you can lose points. Plan on finish writing your essays a couple of days before the deadline. Then, proofread on your computer with Shorter's writing rules open. Ask your TA for help (shoutout to Christina for being the greatest TA!). Have a classmate peer edit your paper. Print out a hardcopy of your paper and further edit it. Then, literally read it out loud in your room and see if you can catch any mistakes. You can then copy and paste it into a text-to-speech program on the internet and have your computer read it to you. (Or if you have friends, you can ask them to read it out loud for you.) Despite the high writing standards, after taking this class, I feel like I became a much better writer and I feel confident in my writing skills going forward.

If you want to actually learn something valuable in your time at college, take WL ARTS 51W. Highly recommend!
If you want an easy A writing 2 course, this ain't it.

I really enjoyed this class, and it was a really great way to develop my arts critique and analysis skills while also learning about a wide range of extremely relevant social justice issues and movements around the globe. When I took this class, it was structured as a documentary film analysis class, which I think was a great introduction to the WAC department. Overall, I think David's teaching style worked well for this class--the only thing was that there is a good amount of writing assignments, and his standards (which he calls "the college rule") are very rigorous.

Covered very heavy but necessary events, historical moments, and ideologies. Prof Shorter can be extremely intimidating and confusing (def entertaining though), but as long as you engage with the material, you'll be able to follow along during class. I personally took away more from the readings than the lectures/discussions.

My quarter, we had "Letter to the Colonizer" and "Letter to the Colonized," two open-ended creative projects (song, poem, paper, art piece, etc) addressing that prompt, and a final paper. The two "letters" are received as creative projects, but Prof Shorter has high and harsh standards for papers and graded accordingly on the final. The TAs are a great resource!!!

This class was an insane introduction to the WAC major... the theater setting made it hard to get to know people and the workload was a lot, esp for incoming freshman. But the actual content we covered really touched me, and def expanded my critical lens. We watched multiple films per week, some in class and some on our own, that covered a range of different social issues.

Short papers on a specific number of films (our choice on which) out of the total watched were due the week each film was assigned. The papers needed to discuss a specific technique the director utilized and what goals they achieved-- "the film cut back and forth from this scene to this scene which highlighted this," "the selective use of color made apparent this theme," etc. There was also a final paper with a broader prompt.

I took WAC 33 as a GE. Honestly, for the ling and philosophy credit, I might not recommend that. The class is a bit more difficult than your typical GE. The course goes very deep into its content and provides students with a range of history and perspectives. If you're interested in the topic, I'd consider taking it. David is very funny but has high expectations for his students. Do not expect to be able to skip class or space out. Honestly, he doesn't assign a ton of assignments besides readings that you really need to do. The letters to the colonized/colonizer are more of a creative writing sort of thing, so the class truly only has two hard assignments (thesis/outline and final paper). He gives the formatting requirements for these two. Put in the work and you will do well. The TA is also a great resource.

WAC 33 is a very challenging but rewarding class. This was my first WAC class, and I didn't expect it to be as great as it was! I wish I took it earlier in my undergrad career, because it improved my critical thinking skills and my writing by a lot! If you have the opportunity to take this class, you definitely need to sign up for it! David is an awesome professor; he's funny, entertaining, sarcastic, etc.). I always looked forward to going to class. Also if you need the course materials, I'm selling the course reader and the two required novels. Please email me at *************

I'm a first year this year, and I took WAC33 my winter quarter 2013. I spent all of my time going to the TA sections, which were helpful when writing papers. Despite his strict writing requirements, it really does make the paper sound better in the final product. He's one of those professors who will recognize your hard work, and give you the grade that you work for. There are a lot of readings, but it all comes together and makes a lot of sense. You must have an open mind about religion and culture. I read a post saying, that this was a hard class but worth it in the end, and I could not agree more, which is why I decided to leave a comment about Shorter. The TAs are nice, he is a good lecturer, but I never really spoke to him in person for longer than a few minutes. He replies to e-mails. He's am intelligent man in his fieldwork of indigenous groups. Be prepared for the two papers. He has EC opportunities!!! And he lets you re-write the first paper, the Gill paper. On my first paper I got a -1.5/20 all because of "grammatical" errors. Then, a 3/20. Then on my last rewrite I got 18/20. It's worth it though. And the final paper, I got a 25/25. Ended up with an A+. If you can write, or like to, and want to delve into cultural differences, self-reflection, and meditate at the beginning of class, etc. Take the class. Your writing will improve, even if you think you're a stellar writer... If you have questions or seek advice on the writing style, email me at *************.