Loved this class. Nearly two hour "lectures" never felt like it. He absolutely adores good writing and gets everyone else to love it too. Also has an incredible range of knowledge on literature/film. Ask him about any writer, screenwriter, or director since the beginning of time and he's sure to have stories to tell about them.

This class was not helpful. Do not take if you want to get into a recipe for disaster. I do not recommend, if you need one on one help. Take another writing 2. Trust me.

Worst teacher ever. Highly do not recommend taking him. If you want to get screwed over, then take him. He puts his life first and doesn't care to help nor teach the students . Do not take.

Kipen is a very interesting guy, often found dressed in an Ivy League style, hanging out either sipping coffee or reading a book at YRL. We read great essays by even greater essayists. He tries to make his classes fun and engaging while involving everyone to participate. His essay instructions are almost always "write what you want to write" (within a given scope), which does make his assignments more enjoyable. He does grade your first two essays in front of you, which while nerve-wrecking, is very helpful for me to improve my writing.

Professor Kipen has been my favorite professor at UCLA. His lectures are super easy, and he's a funny guy. He goes through the quotes from the readings he assigned for the first part of the lecture, and then gives a prompt for a short response that you email to him, which he then reads out loud (it's actually quite funny watching him try to figure out how his computer works.) It was really casual, and typically one or two comments were good enough.
His class had 3 essays: a 4-paged journal, 5-paged guide about your hometown, and a 6-paged argument about inclusion of a writer not already on the syllabus. They didn't feel like a task at all. I'll admit, the prompts are a little vague. But from my experience, he didn't really care if you answered the prompts to the T. He was more interested in seeing you develop as a writer. Don't be scared to ask him for advice (about the essays or otherwise), because he's always so helpful.
One caveat: If you're coming into this class thinking you'll walk it and get an easy A, you might want to reconsider. Kipen pushes the depth of your writing ability, albeit in fun and intriguing ways.
Basically, if you're a student Kipen doesn't know well and someone who just sits silent, you might struggle. But if you develop a relationship with Kipen, he's going to do everything to help you as a writer (and get an A). For me, at least, he's been more than a professor; he's been a mentor and a friend. Highly recommend.

Kipen is a wonderful professor. His class almost felt like a breather between difficult major-prep classes (not saying you should treat it as such!) The lectures are very engaging because he actively involves the class in his discussion. It generally starts by him asking for a quote from the reading (in a course-reader that's about $21), talking about the quote, then about halfway into the class he asks everyone a question that you answer by email. These questions could be about the essays you write (I'll expand later) or even about what you ate for dinner last night. If you feel embarrassed to speak in front of everyone, you might want to get over that because you have to read what you email to the whole class at your seat (though usually, the emails are as long as about one to two sentences). Anyways, the class was engaging the whole way through. There's no midterm or final for this class, just three papers that are due about three-four weeks apart. The first paper is three pages, second is five, and third seven. For someone with frequent writer's block when it comes to writing essays, I never found myself pushed for time when finalizing my essay. The best part about this class was the live feedback he'd give while grading your papers on the due date. Take him if you can, he's a really nice guy open to any questions and isn't uptight about anything when it comes to the lectures.

I think that my writing style improved tremendously with this class. Not only did the professor help me take risks in my own writing, but I better understood how to connect with an audience through my words. The classroom portion of this class, besides the writing, was very worthwhile, as we reviewed the real writing skills of various authors that I then transformed into something I could use in my assignments.

My writing improved more here than in any other English class I've taken. Professor Kipen provides the readings (which are usually short), so there's no need to buy any books. Each class usually starts with a discussion of the text with the professor taking note of who speaks. The discussions usually involve students reading lines that stood out to them, followed by Professor Kipen expanding on each and giving insight/context to the writing. I don't know exactly how participation is weighted in the final grade, but you don't need to talk in every discussion to get a good grade. Each day ends with a short writing prompt where you are given about 5 minutes to write 2-3 sentences to the best of your ability. Everybody shares their sentences out loud, and Professor Kipen gives great, friendly advice on how to improve. There are three larger writing assignments throughout the quarter, including the final.

Kipen's one of those professors that you either click with or you don't, and as someone who did click with him I loved the class. He adores writing and writers and it absolutely shows. He's a super chill guy with a good sense of humor and I'd gladly take another class with him.

Content-wise, we focused on the federal writers project, which was part of the New Deal in the Great Depression. When he told us that at the beginning of the quarter, I legitimately thought about dropping the class because it sounded so boring. Thankfully it was way more interesting than I expected. Tons of really talented and well-known writers contributed to the project so we got to read Zora Neale Hurston and John Steinbeck and Ralph Ellison and Marjory Stoneman-Douglas and people like that, but tons of less well-known but equally talented writers like Kenneth Rexroth and Anzia Yezierska and Jerre Mangione are on the syllabus too. There's no textbook or reader to buy; he just sends pdfs and photos of the essays you're reading each week.

We had a small in class writing exercise in class most days. We got about 5 minutes to write 2 sentences and then he'd read through everyone's and do mini critique/reviews in class. There are three papers, the first was just keeping a journal for three weeks and picking three pages to kind of refine to be a little bit better writing and turn in. The second is a 4-5 page guide to your hometown, which sounds dry but you're encouraged to go into the history and people and life of the town rather than just making like a tourist guide to attractions. The third is 5-7 pages of biographical criticism about any author from the syllabus-- basically going over their writing in the context of their life and the writing scene they occupied. For all of them there's a lot of wiggle room to write about whatever you want; he'd rather have a piece of great writing that's not super connected to the actual assignment than a boring paper that adheres strictly to the prompt.

The biggest struggle people had with him was his clarity about what he wanted (more specifically his lack thereof). If you're the type of person who needs a very clear rubric for an essay, this class will be rough for you. The best way I can describe it is he's operating on vibes more than specific goals. If he says write a guide to your town and you ask how many locations you should describe, he won't have a number for you. You could write in depth about the town square the whole time or you could do an overview of tons and tons of different places, as long as you write something interesting and do it well he'll like it. He just wants to read good writing. You're not going to get a checklist of things to include, because he doesn't have a checklist of things he's looking for. If you can vibe with him and go with the flow you'll do well, if you're spinning your wheels looking for specifics you won't.

I went through a pretty rough time in my personal life during the quarter and fell behind on the papers, and he was super supportive and great about reaching out and being accommodating. Of the three papers, I only turned in the first one on time, but still ended up doing really well in the class because of how helpful and kind he was to me.

This was a great class, and if you need Writing 1 credit this is a fun and painless way to get it.

I really liked this class. I've never had an English teacher who seemed to actually enjoy reading and writing as much as Prof Kipen did. I honestly don't like writing at all, (in past English classes I would just BS my way through an essay) but his passion for the subject made me care about writing well, and my hard work was always rewarded. The class is kind of difficult because he expects a lot from you as a student, but you don't really have any hard assignments other than the three major essays. We also didn't have to spend any money on textbooks, which was a plus. My biggest area of criticism would be that the syllabus was not as clear as I'd have wanted it to be, and so there were times where I felt a little behind.