I cannot emphasize this enough - DO NOT take this class. I enrolled thinking it would be an easy GE and great way to get my Writing II requirement, but I could not have been more mistaken. The essays are graded extremely harshly, and no one I know has gotten an A on any of them. Although it is a low-workload course, you could put in 100% effort and easily still get a low B in this class. Also, my TA (Yoonha) grades her sections based on the quality of our analysis as opposed to how often we speak or show up to class - and when our analysis isn't good enough for her, she makes sure we know it. I almost feel like the expectation from the professor and TAs is that we're Com Lit majors, but in reality, we're all taking this class for a GE. Personally, I'm a political science major and thought my extensive writing/debate skills might help me to do well, but I've never felt worse about my writing ability in my life. There is no one I've talked to who likes this class, and I think I speak for everyone when I say: DON'T TAKE IT!!

Selling the following book:
Gargantua by François Rabelais

..The only one I couldn't find at the library. Editions matter.

Please contact: **********

She is an awesome professor for the most part. She is knowledgeable, interesting, fun, and really gets the whole class involved. However, she is hardcore, for lack of a better term. She is easily the most challenging and difficult professor I have ever had. I am a french major, holding over a 3.9 GPA cumulatively, and in my major,and I got B+ in this class (kills me!). Make sure you go to class because she WILL dock your participation grade big time for absences. Speak up everyday too. My only major complaint is that there was a ton of material covered for the midterm, and I feel like she could have been more explicit about what material was the most crucial for the test. So, if you're up for a class that is interesting, but a serious challenge, go for it. If you are concerned about keeping your GPA high,then you might want to pass. No easy A here.

I thought this was a great class. Professor Stahuljak is very knowledgeable and entertaining. If you have any interest in the Middle Ages, I think you’ll enjoy the class too.

Lecture:
PowerPoint presentations are used but only for images. Some of the images end up being uploaded to the class site, but not the presentations as a whole. The professor will write down certain terms on the board, but for the most part it’s important to take good notes based on what she says.

Required Reading:
The readings are all basically required and you’ll see why below.

Homework/Class participation (30%):
Basically, each week you have a reading (~100 pages) from the various books and then you write a question or statement about the reading and respond to it in a paragraph. Only book that we didn’t have a paragraph for was Silence. The paragraphs aren’t graded directly, but are factored into the participation grade and she returns them with notes and suggestions. Attendance is taken and it’s advisable to participate in class as much as you can.

Midterm (30%):
The midterm consists of 10 short answer questions and 5 long answer questions. The short answer questions are based on terms and only require a sentence or two. Essentially, anything in the lectures is free game, but images themselves are not part of the test. Dates are sometimes required. The long answer questions are based on the discussions of the readings.

Final paper (40%):
The final paper was due on the last day of finals week. Required length is 7 pages and you basically choose the book and topic you want to write about. You can use the previous paragraphs as a starting point.

For a writing class, you really don't have to write much for this class. There are 3 essays.

1 4pg
1 5pg + a draft to turn in
1 6pg + a draft to turn in

Attendance to lecture and section is tracked and 20% of your grade.

Her lectures didn't really have anything to do with the essay prompts. You don't have to pay attention in lecture to write good essays. I didn't learn anything about how to write from this class.

There were some books that she expected us to buy that we didn't even read all of or barely used for a week. Because this class covers such a long span of time, it's impossible to really go deep into any of the readings, which means it's fine to not do any readings. I didn't do any of the readings after week three. You honestly don't need to do any readings to do well in this class. Just choose the reading you want to use for each essay and read that one really in-depth.

I wasn't into Professor Stahuljak's lectures. They were very disorganized and each week she emailed about 7 close reading questions for each work that we were reading (often 2-3), which I, perpetually behind-on-the-readings, barely even glanced at. I got the sense others were often behind too. I kind of gave up on readings and just read what I needed to write my papers. I did enjoy writing the papers though, in my English classes I don't often have the opportunity to look at accounts of the Spanish overthrow of the Aztecs and whatnot. But as a non Com Lit major (I was prospective before this class) this wasn't all that I was hoping for.