I absolutely loved English 85 with Mott! He was an extremely engaging lecturer and took the time to remember almost everybody’s name in the class. Although he went off on tangents almost every lecture, I truly feel that listening to his analysis of the books we read made me a better critical reader and writer. He expects very insightful interpretations of the novels, but definitely prepares you to be able to do so. I think he changes the books you read for this course every quarter to parallel older American novels with the modern political climate, which I found super cool!! The essays are also graded very fairly and the TAs are very receptive to your asking for help. I had Shouhei and he was amazing! If you’re on the fence....definitely take this class (even if you’re south campus like me)

I loved this class. I'm debating becoming an English major now. The novels are short and not difficult to read, as long as you relatively enjoy reading. His lectures can be confusing because he gets off track, but it's always engaging related to the course material. The essays are graded pretty easily (depending on your TA) and all the ideas you need for writing them can be taken verbatim from his lectures. I would recommend taking this course if you're looking for a GE where the lectures are interesting yet optional, and if you like that for the most part the only coursework is reading (and I'm sure you could get away with not reading some of the novels).

Would definitely recommend this class as a GE or English class!! Mott is very engaging and helpful. Basically, if you attend lectures and read the books, Mott and the TAs give you all the resources and help you need for essays and success in the class. Heavy workload though.

Decent class. Prof Mott is funny and provides an engaging lecture. I personally thought that the novels weren't particularly interesting so I stupidly allowed myself to get behind. Easy class if you put in the work.

Mott is an amazing professor and I highly recommend taking a class with him. His lectures are engaging, he gets you to critically think, and he is so easy to talk to. He really cares about his students and takes the time to get to know you as a person, which I appreciated. The selected texts for the course were also fantastic and I enjoyed reading/discussing books outside of my usual scope. Take him any chance you get.

I had such mixed feelings about this class. I got my first C ever on the first paper and I freaked out and thought I was going to drop the class/fail. But the essays were graded on improvement and I ended up getting a B on the second paper and an A on the final research project/presentation. My overall grade was an A- and leaving the class I was happy I took it. Mott is funny and weird but a good guy and I loved going to lecture. The books were not fun and the class requires a lot of reading but I became better at close reading by the end of the class.

I wasn't a huge fan of Professor Mott mostly because I didn't think his jokes were funny, but this class wasn't bad. The readings covered a good selection of American novels, and the TAs were very generous with essay grading.

I took English 85 in my first quarter of freshman year and it was a great GE! The books we read were generally very good (although I only managed to actually finish 4 of the 6, but you don't really need to finish the ones you don't write an essay on) and it was interesting to analyze them in a social/historical context. The other great thing about this class was that it was only about 40-50 people, much smaller than my other lectures, and Mott took the time to get to know a lot of people's names and joke around with us, so it felt very personable and I really enjoyed going to that class. It's important to have a good relationship with your TA and ask for help on essays if you need it because those are basically your whole grade in the class. I ended up with an A, and I would really recommend Mott (he's so funny! makes the best kind of inappropriate jokes) and taking this class as a GE if you like English.

Take Jacob Lang's section is possible. He actually helps w/ the writing process.

Took the American Novel course as a GE because I thought I was good in English (HS) & that it would be an easy GE. IT WASN'T. It was hard cramming 7 novels in 10 weeks. I was more interested in the ideas behind the typical American novel, and all the grade was based off were essays, as if it were a COMP class. He's cool & funny. But if it weren't for my TA, i wouldn't have passed. Some novels were interesting. BUT if you're looking for easy GE, don't take this class, it's really time consuming.