Professor
Kimberly Ball
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I took Professor Ball's class during the pandemic. SCAND 40 is not a class where you would have to spend hours studying for, but it's also not a class where you could breeze by without taking some notes. Participation is acquired either through a 350 word reading response forum before lecture or by live class discussion to which Professor Ball is very nice about making every answer's point heard. The lectures are recorded to watch later but since quizzes are live anyway, attendance still matters. They are very easy if you did the week's reading, something as simple as recalling the name of the main character. However, the exams were quite expansive compared to how slow and easy the class usually is. It's open note though and very much includes her slide information. What helped for me was having a table of what names were in each story in my notes as there are a LOT of names and they're too complicated to mentally spell out. Overall, not too hard except for the unexpected jump in difficulty during the 300 point exams that had MC and 2 Free Response questions.
Fall 2020 - I took Professor Ball's class during the pandemic. SCAND 40 is not a class where you would have to spend hours studying for, but it's also not a class where you could breeze by without taking some notes. Participation is acquired either through a 350 word reading response forum before lecture or by live class discussion to which Professor Ball is very nice about making every answer's point heard. The lectures are recorded to watch later but since quizzes are live anyway, attendance still matters. They are very easy if you did the week's reading, something as simple as recalling the name of the main character. However, the exams were quite expansive compared to how slow and easy the class usually is. It's open note though and very much includes her slide information. What helped for me was having a table of what names were in each story in my notes as there are a LOT of names and they're too complicated to mentally spell out. Overall, not too hard except for the unexpected jump in difficulty during the 300 point exams that had MC and 2 Free Response questions.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - DO NOT GET BAILEY BERRY AS YOUR TA. I almost got a B+ because of her harshness in grading essays. She graded the first essay maliciously as she could care less that it was the first essay and we did not really know what type of writing/analysis she wanted. Make sure you guys take annotating seriously as it is graded strictly as well but that is understandable. I expected to get an A in this class based on the distribution but last year was once in a blue moon. Or maybe I just got unlucky with my TA. This is still the best Writing 2 class to take though so TAKE IT!
Fall 2019 - DO NOT GET BAILEY BERRY AS YOUR TA. I almost got a B+ because of her harshness in grading essays. She graded the first essay maliciously as she could care less that it was the first essay and we did not really know what type of writing/analysis she wanted. Make sure you guys take annotating seriously as it is graded strictly as well but that is understandable. I expected to get an A in this class based on the distribution but last year was once in a blue moon. Or maybe I just got unlucky with my TA. This is still the best Writing 2 class to take though so TAKE IT!
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - It's a fairly easy A GE to take, but some of the requirements from Ball make it feel kinda like a high school class. You need to show up to most of the lectures because there is a quiz or two in each one that can happen at any point during the hour. You need an iClicker for the quizzes, but you can miss up to like 6 of them before it starts hurting your grade. She grades participation by going through the list of all the students and calling on them to answer questions that relate to the readings, but you can avoid getting your name called randomly if you raise your hand to answer questions a couple of times because she pushes your name to the bottom of the list if you do that. Lectures weren't bruincasted, but all the slides were posted. The only annoying thing was that her no technology rule was really strict, so you couldn't type your notes during class unless you have CAE accommodations. Readings were interesting because most of them weren't normal history textbook readings. They were snippets of various Scandinavian sagas. However, some days the readings were a little too long in my opinion, although I'm a STEM major so my threshold for it is pretty low. There were two multiple choice exams that were easy if you kept up with the readings and the lectures. The final was a take-home paper (even before COVID-19 got in the way) that was 700 words max and a chill prompt
Winter 2020 - It's a fairly easy A GE to take, but some of the requirements from Ball make it feel kinda like a high school class. You need to show up to most of the lectures because there is a quiz or two in each one that can happen at any point during the hour. You need an iClicker for the quizzes, but you can miss up to like 6 of them before it starts hurting your grade. She grades participation by going through the list of all the students and calling on them to answer questions that relate to the readings, but you can avoid getting your name called randomly if you raise your hand to answer questions a couple of times because she pushes your name to the bottom of the list if you do that. Lectures weren't bruincasted, but all the slides were posted. The only annoying thing was that her no technology rule was really strict, so you couldn't type your notes during class unless you have CAE accommodations. Readings were interesting because most of them weren't normal history textbook readings. They were snippets of various Scandinavian sagas. However, some days the readings were a little too long in my opinion, although I'm a STEM major so my threshold for it is pretty low. There were two multiple choice exams that were easy if you kept up with the readings and the lectures. The final was a take-home paper (even before COVID-19 got in the way) that was 700 words max and a chill prompt
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - This was a pretty fun class. We met 3x a week and had readings due for each class, ranging from 2-5 stories or occasionally a movie. We also had to get a certain number of participation points to get an A in the category overall, and she was pretty fair about letting us either participate in class or write a 350 word response. You could not participate a good number of times and still get an A as long as you were careful to keep track of your points. We also had a short quiz each day but they were very easy if you did the readings. There were also 2 midterms and a final paper. I actually found the midterms to be sort of difficult and I wasn’t sure why I lost points on certain sections because she seemed to take off points for no reason. You’ll have to study the slides really carefully to do well on the short answer section of the test, she tests for memorization of random quotes that are on the slides which you might not know even having read all the stories. I have no idea how the paper was graded because she took so long grading everything that she ended up just posting our overall grades the day grades were due and didn’t record the paper grades. Overall the class was pretty interesting and I learned a lot about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s not a super easy A because there is a lot of work but if you’re at all interested in fairy tales it’s definitely worth taking.
Spring 2020 - This was a pretty fun class. We met 3x a week and had readings due for each class, ranging from 2-5 stories or occasionally a movie. We also had to get a certain number of participation points to get an A in the category overall, and she was pretty fair about letting us either participate in class or write a 350 word response. You could not participate a good number of times and still get an A as long as you were careful to keep track of your points. We also had a short quiz each day but they were very easy if you did the readings. There were also 2 midterms and a final paper. I actually found the midterms to be sort of difficult and I wasn’t sure why I lost points on certain sections because she seemed to take off points for no reason. You’ll have to study the slides really carefully to do well on the short answer section of the test, she tests for memorization of random quotes that are on the slides which you might not know even having read all the stories. I have no idea how the paper was graded because she took so long grading everything that she ended up just posting our overall grades the day grades were due and didn’t record the paper grades. Overall the class was pretty interesting and I learned a lot about Hans Christian Andersen. It’s not a super easy A because there is a lot of work but if you’re at all interested in fairy tales it’s definitely worth taking.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Very difficult and lengthy in-class tests, but enjoyable overall. Professor Ball makes these Nordic texts interesting and engaging and encourages discussion surrounding their themes. Grade is heavily impacted by participation so I don't recommend this class to anyone with social anxiety who is uncomfortable with speaking up in class. I took this class for my foreign language requirement and learned a lot.
Fall 2023 - Very difficult and lengthy in-class tests, but enjoyable overall. Professor Ball makes these Nordic texts interesting and engaging and encourages discussion surrounding their themes. Grade is heavily impacted by participation so I don't recommend this class to anyone with social anxiety who is uncomfortable with speaking up in class. I took this class for my foreign language requirement and learned a lot.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - - 40-50 pages of reading consisting of fairy tales and analysis (per week) - 2.5 hours of in class discussion with participation mattering, unless you would like to write commentary about them before the class (per week) - 2 midterms, one take home essay final. The midterms require a good amount of studying but are manageable, I believe the average was around an 89%. Professor Ball was very passionate about the fairy tales, and I really enjoyed discussing them in class. She makes the content interesting and fun to learn. The midterms, without studying, would definitely be difficult to maneuver, but ample review of the presentations (very, very important) and general recollection of the tales we read should put you in the B+/A- range. Some people will say that the class may be harder than it should be, but I think a bit of effort makes this class super enjoyable and great to experience. Would 100% take again.
Spring 2022 - - 40-50 pages of reading consisting of fairy tales and analysis (per week) - 2.5 hours of in class discussion with participation mattering, unless you would like to write commentary about them before the class (per week) - 2 midterms, one take home essay final. The midterms require a good amount of studying but are manageable, I believe the average was around an 89%. Professor Ball was very passionate about the fairy tales, and I really enjoyed discussing them in class. She makes the content interesting and fun to learn. The midterms, without studying, would definitely be difficult to maneuver, but ample review of the presentations (very, very important) and general recollection of the tales we read should put you in the B+/A- range. Some people will say that the class may be harder than it should be, but I think a bit of effort makes this class super enjoyable and great to experience. Would 100% take again.
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