I know many 5W classes are taught by different professors, and therefore each class can be entirely different. I was lucky enough to have Professor Wilson for 5W. The class primarily focused on poetry, which was really daunting at first because I absolutely hate reading and analyzing poetry. With that said, Wilson did a very good job directing us in the right direction for our essays so it actually was fairly manageable writing them. On top of that, the poems weren't like super classical poems from the 1500's that are super confusing and dry; they were modern poems that brought up relatable and current issues (almost like spoken word type poetry) which made it even more bearable.
The essays themselves weren't terribly long at all , and if you go into office hours, he'll really point out specific stuff within them that will help make the essay stronger so that when you turn it in as a final draft at the end of the quarter, you're almost guaranteed to get a good grade (as long as you listen to his advice).
I think my favorite part of the class was that for our final essay, we had an option to write our own poems, which was really cool and mean't we really only wrote 2 essays technically.
all in all, take him for 5W!!!!