This class was definitely not as easy as its reputation makes it out to be (at least for me). It took a lot of hard work and effort to write good essays. It is fast paced over the summer so you have to improve very quickly. I was a bit discouraged by my scores at first, but Dr. Yamasaki provides excellent feedback and plenty of opportunities to improve throughout the quarter. She also selected pieces of literature that I was personally very interested in.
During the last 2 weeks, the professor was disappointed in one of the lecture's essays. After this, she put off a harsher attitude in my lecture. It came from a good place because she wanted us to do well, but some of her comments were a bit jarring and uncomfortable. This coupled with the higher workload at the end of the quarter was a bit stressful. However, I can't judge her character from just 2 weeks. Did she handle the situation poorly? In my opinion, yes. Is she still a great professor? Yes, absolutely. I know that Dr. Yamasaki cares about her students' improvement, and she is very kind and helpful during office hours if you prepare specific questions and writing to show her.
Overall, I enjoyed this class and learned a lot about writing. I became a better student too. After spending so much time revising and rewriting, I am glad that my writing improved. Dr. Yamasaki really values improvement and has a good heart so take her feedback seriously!

As a scholar who concentrated on particularly Scandinavian literature, Lisa is really enthusiastic about the content she teaches and she truly tries hard to convey to you the essence of writing and the pieces. 6 weeks of session feels quite succinct, but I definitely learned a lot from reading her pieces of choice, my personal favorite being the short novella Victoria by Knut Hamsun (the rest are short stories/pieces, for session A). Remote learning is stressful, the other section upset her quite a bit but as long as you attend her sections, finish your work on time, and be respectful, you’d be doing just fine.

Grades are based on two essays, one literary analysis and the other compare/contrast; participation counts; third would be refined discussion posts. Lisa usually provides extensive comments on your rough draft, so follow those. She’s lenient with the deadline but don’t take it for granted. Lecture slides include writing technique/grammar reviews and other stuffs, but if you’re quite confident about your writing skill, just focus on acing you essays.

Not a lot of busy work, the content is interesting, no priced material and Lisa is such a personality, would take again.

The class consists of two literary papers (a rough and final draft for each) that's graded on a rubric, as well as two short discussion posts, a short narrative essay, peer reviews, and other participation points that fairly easy to get for the most part.

Right from the start, Lisa was very nice and helpful and it was clear that she genuinely wanted us to do well in the class. I thought her lectures were pretty good initially, which were a mix of answering questions about the texts we had to read and grammar issues to help us improve our papers. I thought the texts (and one film) she chose were pretty interesting as well, and were diverse in content and style. Writing the literary papers themselves definitely took some time and effort for me (I'm a STEM major who hates writing humanities essays), but she provides a lot of helpful feedback on them so that you can get a better grade on your final draft.

If it wasn't for the last two weeks, however, my impression of her would be much higher than what it is right now. Apparently, the quality of the rough drafts of our second papers was not great. Combined with the general lack of participation during her live lectures, she was pretty mad at us for the last two weeks and forced us all to turn on our cameras. While she did change the syllabus a bit to help us get a better grade (which was nice of her), she made a few comments to our class that I thought were just plain rude and demeaning, which left a sour taste. I could understand her frustration, but I don't think any educator who claim to care for students should really make those comments (again, just my opinion).

Overall, while it's definitely not difficult to get an A in this class, it's not as easy as it's made out to be (there may be other Writing 2 classes that are easier). However, if you stay on her good side and have an interest in writing/scand literature, take this class with her. You'll get a good grade and you'll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did.

I really liked Professor Yamasaki. She was very professional and takes her job very seriously.

Dr. Yamasaki also makes her expectations very clear and is willing to explain her feedback in-depth if any of her suggestions are not understood.

She does have quite high expectations and lets her students know in no uncertain terms if they are not met, but this is Writing II at UCLA. Not high school English. Don't be lazy. You got into UCLA. You aren't lazy!

You will have to focus for this class, but you can definitely score well if you put in effort. Lastly, Dr. Yamasaki might seem a bit rough around the edges at first, but is very nice if you demonstrate you care about the class. Engage, and she will appreciate it so much! Is that too much to ask? haha

I highly recommend this professor if you actually want to improve as a writer! She cares! She will help you!

I took this class during summer sesh A online and Lisa is genuinely a really kind and supportive professor. She gives detailed feedback on rough drafts and you can tell how much she cares for her students to succeed. Because she's so kind and lenient, a lot of students took advantage of that so the last two weeks of class were a lot stricter. If you take this class please just be respectful and put in the effort. It's not as much work as other writing classes and the reading is interesting enough. As long as you show that you care and put in effort for every assignment you will be fine. Just stay on her good side.

I thought this class was harder than its reputation made it out to be. However, I really liked Dr. Yamasaki as a professor. She was very direct and clear in her instruction. However, the remote nature of the class made her dislike my section, and although I was never affected personally I would advise future students to stay on her good side. I enjoyed the class overall though, and she made it easy by providing very specific comments for what to edit on my 2 essays. Grading is straightforward and as long as you try, you'll be ok.

This class lives up to the hype of being easy. Its not too bad though a bit of reading is required. You dont really need to do the readings since there are no exams, but I highly recommend doing them so you have ideas for papers and discussion in class.

The class itself is interesting. Lisa is a good professor and very helpful. Shes nice and energetic, though not everyone enjoys it, it helps when the professor is enthusiastic about the material.

Grading is straight forward. There are two essays, a narrative, participation/attendance, and rough drafts. Drafts are graded on completion but TRY on them. Treat them like a final draft because Lisa comments a lot on the papers so if you write a good paper you essentially just need to edit a few parts and proofread for grammar on the final. The finals are graded like any other paper but as long as you follow Lisas advice, you should be okay. The narrative is graded on completion and ideas, but again, its not too difficult since its about you. Participation and attendance are obvious enough, show up and pay attention.

Overall, Lisa is a really helpful and nice professor. The class isnt too bad and its interesting. Id recommend taking it with her if you can.

Took summer A 2018. The workload is really reasonable; some short readings due each class (though there were no quizzes to test you on it, so you could often skip it if you really needed to). One short novel of about 100 pages to read. Two papers and one very short essay which you will write on the novel and various stories (so you don't want to skip reading if you don't have to; though you don't always have to read it on the day she says it's due). She grades the essays pretty leniently, and almost everything else is completion, as long as you don't just write BS. Definitely one of the easiest GE's I've taken here, and it's a writing II class also. Definitely recommend this class - Lisa is super nice also.

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Lisa was always very enthusiastic about her role of teaching the class. She felt more like a close upperclassman friend than a strict, unapproachable professor. She always welcomed questions in and outside of class and encouraged students to really push themselves in this Writing II class. The readings were really interesting -- they were easy and actually fun to read and analyze. The readings were short stories (she took out a novel for the summer session), and some were stories that most people were familiar with (i.e. The Little Mermaid). Lisa gave amazing feedback on our rough and final drafts and told students exactly what to fix for the final drafts. As long as you follow instructions, respect the professor, read the stories, and attend lecture for the sake of learning, you will have an awesome time in class.

I don't consider myself to be talented at writing, but I didn't stress too much over this class. Lisa was aware of our busy schedules as students and kept that in mind when making her essay deadlines. If you have a problem or personal issue, just talk to her and you guys will figure something out.

I would totally recommend Scand50W with Lisa. I think she only teaches in the summer, but if you have the chance to take this class with Lisa, definitely take it. It was a totally manageable class for the summer, and I didn't hate myself waking up to her 9am classes.