I have extremely mixed feelings about this class. The first few weeks were really amazing. Professor Little is so knowledgeable about the literature and history that we covered, and I felt like I genuinely learned so much every single lecture. The material is also really interesting and the reading load is pretty average for an upper div English class.

All of that being said, after the midterm this became one of my most stressful classes. The midterm was take-home and written, and we received very little direction. He assured us that as long as we wrote something meaningful and thoughtful we would be fine. This was in week 6, and we didn't receive the grades until much later, at which point many people were surprised at how harshly he graded them (especially considering how he constantly told us not to worry so much about it). I didn't do terribly, but since it was the only grade I had going into the final paper and final exam, and I had no idea how participation would be graded, I became very concerned for my grade in the class. I ultimately decided to switch to pass/no pass because the lack of clarity on grading and expectations for the few assignments was causing me so much anxiety.

Hopefully in the future Professor Little streamlines his grade distributions and establishes clear rubrics so that others don't have to feel as stressed as I did in this class. Apart from the grading aspect, this was one of my favorite classes that I've taken at UCLA.