Professor Goodwin is really passionate about her material and cares a lot about student input - she would literally run down the aisle if someone wanted to make a comment. She shows a lot of video clips and has guest speakers.

That being said, it is somewhat difficult to follow along to her lectures. She is never quite clear on what information you need to remember. She jumps from topic to topic really quickly.

However, the midterm and final ended up being very easy because of the straightforward study guides she gave us (which had the exact topics you needed to know).

Keep in mind that a good percentage of your grade will be determined by the TAs, for participation and a group project.

Overall I ended up enjoying this class.

It should be a crime to insults someone's opinions without letting yourself be criticized for your very own.

Goodwin preaches more than she teaches the material. She uses all her own sources, her text, her articles to the mere point of promoting her and her beliefs instead of linguistic anthropology.
It adds mockery to the field as she stating you can say anything you want about body language and get published. My perspective is more right than yours is her motto.

In addition to this, she had her TA's run the course in the same manner. They're right, you're wrong, and there's no way you could be right.

Misa Dayson was absent minded in her discussions and biased in her grading.

This first year grad student would assume Professor status as she became the expert in linguistic anthropology, somehow overnight, you can look at any body language behaviour, make a comment, and since I'm the TA I'm right.

Dayson would waste time during discussion sections making us turn in questions on articles instead of helping us prepare to learn the material.

When grading the exams, she would grade more on the terms of who she liked during discussion then whether their answers were right. The same for the projects and the same for the take-home final exam. How can people do poorly on a take-home final exam? And how can people do poorly on a project where you make your observations?

O yea, it's only when you have a TA interested so much in her ego and status that her opinions are right irrespective of others.

Goodwin failed to address this unfair practice, and hid in her office while the linguistics department was getting cut that year and she continued to preach her material, as long as she had her high paying professor gig who cared, i have tenure i can do anything attitude

The only reason people took her course was because she handled the grading and they tolerated with her preaching of her beliefs to get a good grade.

But when she gave authority to the TAs, it was free for all grading, judge the material as if you were certified experts in the field.

There should be an audit in this class about how she handled grading. The previous years 80% or more students got A's,

Now students got 30% B's 20% C's, what did students get dumber after a quarter, did college material degraded so much that students output were that poor,

No it was TA with high standards, Misa Dayson, who doesn't even live up to high standards, from what I hear from students in other courses and other GRAD students for that matter too, Ahh the quality of students that the Anthropology department admits and the failure to check up or address this, further degrading our discipline, and a professor who hid and can't explain this, well as long as she gets what she wants while the department suffers, she wins

What an absolutely horrid experience. Professor Goodwin used some incompetent TAs with attitude problems for Anthro M140. For review session, the TAs said we are here to answer questions, then they would answer our questions with questions and you should know instead of helping. It was clear that one TA was the head TA that led the other one around as she didn't know what she was doing. For section, my TA, dawson or dickson, would waste time to purposely make sure we weren't ready for exams or papers as she wasn't prepared for section. At least state that you don't know the answer instead of giving us made up answers that you believe is right that will get us marked off points on exams that you graded.

As for the professor, I've heard raving reviews from past students, but after this course... I think they were more mesmerized by her easy grading. Don't let me go on about her making us buy her pricy textbook and read her articles.

Not so much with this course as she let the TAs do all the harsh grading. Some students I talked with who took her previous courses would say they submitted even better work than her past classes but received worst marks. It is obvious that she lacks a spine and care because she didn't even go over any of the papers and exams and grades when the final grades were released. You'll feel taken back when you see what you get for the loads of reading that you do and time spent studying.

If you're looking to take this class with her, expect low marks and harsh criticism from TAs who can't even explain themselves.

With teaching like this, it's no wonder that the linguistics department has been cut. And for the better too if students receive this crap.

Geezus! This class felt like a marathon race the whole way through. Over 1000 pages of reading that you actually had to do to get the point and to do the discussion homework. Now I am not one of those students that is always looking for an easy-A, however, if I worked hard I would have like to have come away with a much greater knowlege... but I feel that was not accomplished. On a quartersystem cramming in 6-10 readings a week was just not feasibe. I barely understood all the material... like main idea okay, but in depth knowledge... NO.

TA suck! They are not organized and bring nothing to help us understand the piles of readings and pages of lecture notes. They sit there and ask us to ask questions... uhh. most weeks I would not even understand the questions people asked or they would go off on tangent! UGH!!!!! One section I sat there thinking, "I have nothing to say because I don't give a crap about this!"

I was really frustrated with all the readings because I could not enjoy any of it. At the beginning I thought this course was going to be great... but it was just WAYYY to much- crammed in.

Testing was probably the one good thing: Midterm- given 6 questions up front; they are hard, but they pick 3 for the midterm so you have plenty of time to collaborate about them. Final is a take home 24 hours to complete it after filling out a study guide of terms. This was okay... but one question was on a realy hard reading that we had just read and had no time to process... WTF.. so not sure how people did on that one.

One group paper.. ours was 25 pages... my experience was not to bad...my group members were awesome, but I could see this being a nightmare!

I do not know my grade... but I tried very hard to attend every lecture/ discussion/ do the readings.

Bottom Line: This Class is a NO. I am Anthro BS and balancing this with two jobs and LS 3... not a good mix. subject can be interesting at time... but class needs to be worked on and condensed and refined!!!!!

UGH I am so glade that class is OVER!!!!!

Nitpicky TAs. I don't want to suggest favoritism, but you can get that feeling in this class. Also, the grade distribution for this class is really low, like 5% As, 5% A-s, 40% Bs, 40% Cs, and 10% C-s, Ds, and Fs. I personally prefer Kroskrity, because he gives multiple choice exams, papers, and goes over the readings thoroughly, and there are no discussion sections, so none of that unfair $@$!%!#.

This class is difficult, because she piles readings upon readings without clear explanations in class. In TA discussion sections, people who talk the most get favored in grading even if their answers were obviously wrong. The TAs have the most power in this class and don't even run discussion, they just let the most vocal voice their opinions. I don't have a problem with that, but when students speaks in rude manner and talk about irrelevant topics, it is disheartening to see your grade is lower than theirs when you did the reading and studied. I know because I was in the same group as them

Her classes are fun. Especially because of the discussions, because if you just talk the longest, you'll get the full participation credit. If you actually do the readings and try to understand, its not that important. If you participate and just say things, even though it might not be completely related to the readings, as long as its an interesting point, then you get credit. Trust me it helps. It definitely helped when I was a borderline grade from an A, so don't worry about doing any readings (I didn't) and it went completely well for me. Just participate the most because thats what happens mostly during class and discussion, and besides the TAs don't know how to run a real section and lecture anyways.

For the class Anthro M140, she just piles the class with reading after reading after reading after reading. It wouldn't be so bad if the TAs were there to help elaborate on the reading, but instead they want the students to interpret the works, and when that happens, you get students that don't understand the work get full participation, and everyone doing really bad on the exams, but the student that wins in the end is the student that says raises his hand.

also, the class places a lot of power into the TAs, and this is not a bad thing, but it is bad when they are harsh graders working against the student at all times. I find that if the professor pick a better set of TAs this class would be good, or she was able to go over the readings a little in class or have TAs do so it would be helpful. I'm not looking to take any more of these classes.

Correction on the previous review, I meant Ling M146 not Ling M140. Ling M146 counts for the same credit as Anth M140. I really liked this professor, and she is really helpful. Come to the first day of classes to see if you can get in the class if you need it. Definitely take if this is a requirement. I just wish the TAs have the same enthusiasm and understanding she does and were more helpful instead of being really nitpicky and pushy and grade tyrants.

I took Anthro M140, which you can also register as Ling M140, with Goodwin and she is one of the best professors I have had here at UCLA. I really valued my time in the class and wish she taught more.