South campus major here. Although I got an A-, this was by no means an easy GE/writing II class and I don't consider myself to be a great writer. The highest grade I got was an A- on my final paper. All my other papers were B's. The essays become progressively longer as the quarter goes by.

Here is a grade breakdown:
Participation (20%)
1st paper (5%): 2 pages
2nd paper (10%): 3-4 pages
3rd paper (20%): 4-5 pages
Final paper (30%): 6-7 pages
Midterm paper (15%): This was originally supposed to be a timed in-class 50 min essay. However, the fires happened during that week so Professor Kumar changed it to a "timed" take-home essay in which the prompt is posted online, and we were strongly encouraged to type as much as we can in just one hour and submitted on CCLE at the end of the weekend.

NOTE: Your grade in the class is largely dependent on your TA, who is the one that actually grades your essays. DO GO TO THEIR OFFICE HOURS to get essay feedback and to clear up any ambiguities or vague parts of your essay. Understandably, college can get incredibly hectic during some weeks and if you really have to, you could get away with not reading 1-3 books and using various online resources to make up for it .

However, depending on how strong of a writer you are, it can come back to bite you the most when it comes to essays, some of which will ask you to compare and contrast two books. Unlike high school where you could just finesse English classes with things like SparkNotes, reading the book in its entirety makes a tremendous difference in your writing process and you'll spend less time agonizing over your analysis comments.

Overall, if you're willing to put in the work each week, then this class shouldn't be too bad. Do not take this class if you are worried about your GPA or thinking that it'll be an easy GE just because of the grading distribution.

Grades are made up of:
Participation - 20%
Paper 1 (2 pages)- 5%
Paper 2 (3-4 pages)- 10%
Mid-term exam (timed essay)- 15%
Paper 3 (rewrite of the midterm, 5 pages)- 20%
Paper 4 (6-7 pages)- 30%

The earlier assignments in the class are given very little weight in the overall grade, so it does allow you to progress throughout the quarter.

I really enjoyed the class and the readings. We got to read Voltaire, Goethe, Baudelaire, Dickinson, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Kafka, Beckett, Walker and Krys Lee, which I feel like is an interesting selection. There are a lot of books that I normally would not have read, but having to read them for the class has allowed me to discover the fun in them. Professor Komar is very helpful, and her lectures are interesting if you have done the readings.

However, discussion does make or break the class a lot. My TA Jeremy Zimett was super funny and helpful, gave very clear instructions as to how to write the essay. I will also strongly advice going to your TA's office hours to discuss your essays as much as possible, as they would be the ones grading it.

Your grade in this class weighs super heavily on your TA. My TA didn’t grade participation in lecture but I know that others did. He also said that this was by far the hardest writing 2 offered at UCLA and judging by what I heard from friends, it definitely was. So much more reading than others and papers are graded as though you should have extensive experience with comparative analysis. I have always considered myself a strong writer but got consistent Bs on the papers. I would recommend meeting with your TA to write exactly as they would like, and letting go of any writing tactics you had adapted in hs.

Honestly, I did not understand how to write for this class and that made it somewhat of a pain. It was definitely an intense learning curve. There were a loooot of readings which can be hard to keep up on, but the books are good and not difficult to understand. Komar is a pretty good lecturer and does well to actually elaborate on themes and ideas from the assigned readings. Sections are unnecessarily long, but whatever. The class was fine overall, but not up my alley.

Komar is really engaging and easy to talk to. The workload in this class is really a lot though. Every week, you have to read a book and then almost every other week, you have to write an essay about the readings. If you don't know a lot about analyzing literature, I would recommend going to office hours. The midterm is an in-class essay and then a rewrite of the essay. The final is another essay. This class is very writing intensive so give yourself enough time for the assignments and you should be fine.

Go to lectures because she gives a lot of helpful analysis for your essays. Not all of the reading is 100% necessary, you could do without reading 1 or 2 of the books and still do good, but the class does have a heavy emphasis on reading and analysis.

Prof. Komar chooses amazing texts and presents them in a very informative way. I appreciated how her analyses were thorough yet reasonable (not far-fetched) and felt like I genuinely achieved a better understanding of how I should approach material as complex as what she teaches in future. The grading, however, is harsh. I think very few people got As or even A minuses on the first two papers assigned. But don't let this discourage you because your grades will go up toward the end of the quarter. Participation counts for 20%, so try to say something during discussion. Prof. Komar adjusts her syllabus according to her students' feedback, but here's what we did this past quarter (Fall 2018):

* Candide, by Voltaire
* The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Goethe
* A selection of poetry, by Dickinson and Baudelaire
* A Doll's House, by Ibsen
* The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
* Drifting House, by Kris Lee
* Notes From Underground, by Dostoevsky
* Endgame, by Samuel Beckett
* The Metamorphosis, by Kafka

Don't be intimidated by this long list, though, because a lot of the texts are quite short. If you truly like literature, the workload won't feel as heavy, and you'll leave after 10 weeks with a great sense of accomplishment, feeling that you've become a wiser person and a better thinker.

Took this class for my writing 2 requirement, I am definitely not a writing sort of person so I did struggle in writing the essays, and I thought my TA graded me pretty harshly. The essays do come one right after the other pretty quickly so it is a LOT of writing. I got a B+ in this class; however I did take this my first quarter of freshman year so my level of motivation and work ethic wasn't where it should've been. That said, this class is do-able if you put in the effort and an A is definitely attainable. The readings and discussions were very interesting to me, but even if you absolutely hate a reading then you're still able to express this in discussions and that even spices up the discussion.

I found COM LIT 2CW with Professor Komar to be a terrible experience, though I suppose it is one of the least bad Writing II courses out there. There were many many readings (to be expected from a literature course), and quite a few papers. Although Komar had reasonable expectations from us when it came to completing readings when papers were due, "lectures" ended up being pointless discussions about the texts, none of which were any help to us for the papers. To make matters worse, attendance is mandatory, so you're stuck wasting 4 hours a week discussing things that don't help your graded assignments at all. The TAs also all grade extremely harshly on the first few papers, since their rationale is "it'll drive you to improve". Overall, a terrible class; each lecture/discussion was painful. I couldn't be more glad I never have to take another one of these courses.

This is most definitely not an easy class. If you thought you were a stellar writer in high school, this class will make you question that. The TAs are supposedly similar in how harsh they grade... not sure if that's true. I think the most frustrating thing about this class was how unclear the expectations were in the beginning. It wasn't until I was well into the quarter that I finally figured out what standard Professor Komar & the TAs were holding us to. However, after struggling through the entire quarter, I am really happy I took this class. It definitely prepares you for all of the writing you will do throughout college and your professional career. Yes, this class was initially a slap in the face, but you learn so much about your writing skills and how to improve them along the way! The books Professor Komar chooses are absolutely wonderful and some of them have become my all-time favorites. Her lectures are not very structured (i.e. she doesn't use slides) but she admits that her lectures are meant to guide us in the right direction and just get us thinking. If you are interested in the authors and time periods this class studies like I was, you'll ultimately find the difficulty of this class worth it.