Class is initially interesting but the topics eventually become repetitive. TAs make a huge difference so try to get a good one. Overall, this class is definitely doable. Selling "All I asking for is my body", "Citizen 13660," and "Bone." Txt message me 661-292-9419. If you think I already sold it, I probably still have it.

Class is doable. Just skim through all readings, listen in lecture and go to discussion. And for an A, pay more attention to the all the reading assignments.

Selling "All I asking for is my body", "Citizen 13660", and "Bone"
text/ message 415-939-3037

Bascara is a wonderful, highly intelligent professor. An immediate first impression was that he was friendly and very soft-spoken. The one time I visited him for office hours, I could tell he was genuinely invested in the material and is willing to help you if you're having trouble.

The class itself is writing-and-reading heavy, since it is a literature (and culture) class. Journals due at discussion every week, a small group project, a one-page micropaper, and a five-page long paper. It helps if you already have a strong interest in Asian American topics. We read a wide breadth of novels, short stories, poems, and scholarly essays. A solid amount of time has to be dedicated each week to reading these and responding to them via the journals.

New to this year, we had a midterm, which just consisted of multiple choice questions. The final had multiple choice, short answers, and two essays. He doesn't give you study guides, but your discussion section should be enough help, and he provides the essay questions ahead of time (five prompts, three appears on the exam, write two of them).

He posts his lecture slides online, but truthfully, they will make no sense to you unless you attended lecture and heard what he had to say about them.

All in all, Bascara's a great professor, he plays music before each lecture, and he talks about a variety of historical events as well as current events (think Gangnam Style). I ended up with a solid A, turning in all my journals and earning A's for my midterm, micropaper, and long paper. A very reasonable GE!

Professor Bascara presents himself as a very intelligent and sophisticated professor. That being said, understanding every detail he elaborates can be somewhat difficult which makes taking notes bothersome. Maybe half of the students actually show up to class because of this and due to the dryness of the material. He paces back and forth across the front of the room without looking at the students which makes you not want to look back.

Nevertheless, I found some of his analyses helpful when writing the weekly journals. The work load is doable but can be annoying. It all depends on your TA. You might get a TA who only cares that you summarize the readings of the week (and there are A LOT) for the journals or a TA who wants a well thought-out thesis like you're writing a legit essay. The TAs in fact really care about the material and demonstrate much enthusiasm for the class.

Speaking of the readings, there may be around nine during one week and then only one book and a movie the next. The movies were actually fairly interesting which balanced out the staleness of the other material. Studying for midterms won't be a hassle at all if you read the material during their assigned weeks. The readings aren't hard to comprehend once he tells you the main themes/messages. It's when he starts analyzing details when you can space out.

If you want an easy A GE take this class. He curves the midterm (multiple choice) generously and the final consists of m/c, short answers, and essay. Also, there's not much thinking to this class since the readings become very repetitive (Asian Americans have been oppressed by America through the economy, culture, racism, etc., we get it...). It won't be exceptionally fun but there are some few nice moments that. The end result (an A) is what really matters to some of you anyways, right?

Those who are taking this class, prepare to read multiple passages almost every week and write journals. The lectures are incredibly boring but Prof. Bascara does provide insight on the readings that can be used when doing journals. Getting a helpful TA is probably the most important thing in getting an A just because he/she will help you on your two essays (one short, one long) during the course. The workload isn't too bad if you read everyday but if you're the type of person to do all the readings before discussion, then life is gonna suck. Overall, this course wasn't super hard nor was it super easy. As long as you get your work checked before turning it in and actually read the assigned passages before midterm/final, then attaining an A is definitely possible.

Although his lectures can be very dull and boring, Professor Bascara himself is a very kind person. He is not a well-articulated person during the lecture, but his exams are fairly easy. Also the two paper assignments will be graded by TAs. So, getting a chill TA is the most important thing for this class. If you visit him during office hour, he treats you well. I enjoyed a lot even though there were a lot of readings to do. I loved how I experienced different literatures of Asian American literature. Take this class if you can handle all the readings (:

Fall 2011, Asian AM 30 (not Writing II)

Professor: He's decent. His lectures are essentially all of his thoughts, analysis, allusions, and syntheses of the readings. Because of this, lecture can get vague. He incorporates videos to his slides though, and that makes lectures interesting some times. However, there's a high risk of dozing off in class.

Class material: Content include literature about: Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, LGBT Asians, Japanese, Guam and a whole other of other types of Asians. There's a lot of reading, and a few movies you have to watch online too. I found it pretty interesting, so reading wasn't an issue.

Assignments: Weekly readings are like 3-10 different sources varying in length from short (1 page poem) to long (30 pages). Again, it's not much of an issue if you find them to be interesting, but if you don't like reading, then this could be a drag. Synthesize and analyze (but don't summarize) your readings into a weekly 1-page paper. Also, you have to do one group presentation about the readings and ask questions in that presentation. They were supposed to be like 15minutes, but some of mine went on for the whole class. No midterm, but there were two papers: a one-page one due Week 3ish and a 4-5 page one due 7-8th Weekish. Go to your T.A.'s for help.

Final: 15 free response questions regarding the readings and 3 essay prompts. Free response shouldn't be much of an issue if you did the readings + reviewed the night before; they can get a bit specific. The essay prompts are given throughout the last 4-5 lecture sessions. Outline the essays with good details before finals and you should be fine.

Grading: I got an A with A's on my weekly assignments, a B on first paper, a B+ on my second paper, and a ?? on finals. There seems to be a lot of people that got A's, including ones that did the readings last minute + didn't attend lecture, so this might fall into an "easy A" GE.

Attending lectures is a waste of time. He throws in ideas and vocabularies that you've never heard of. It's impossible to take notes from his lectures, so people just do nothing or copy down the powerpoint slides that are uploaded.
His grading seems really generous though. It's good to have a good TA who grades easily. Final is difficult, but don't worry, the curve is generous.
This is a GE that requires a lot of work, but you can get an A if you do them all.

I really liked this class, it was nice to study different Asian cultures and how it related and interacted with American culture.
Before Lectures the professor would play contemporary music and that really woke me up after 8am discussion. My TA, Diana, is really nice and helpful and she helped with the two essays (one short, one long). The lecture were from powerpoint slides and it helps to sit in the front or else you will fall asleep. He synthesizes ideas for you so pay attention and you can get ideas about the sometimes arbitrary readings.
There is a lot of reading but they are not too hard. There are one page journals due each week, one short essay (one page), one longer essay (5 pages), and a final that is really easy and only based on readings.

So I signed up for this class thinking it'd be an easy GE and all that good stuff. Turns out, there's a TON of readings to do so be prepared for that. His final is pretty much based off of the readings that are assigned. That said, there is no point in attending his lectures because his lectures are random and vague. One minute he's talking about racism, the next he's talking about mangoes. I suppose it would make more sense if I didn't fall asleep all the time. There was no lecture that I did not fall asleep in. The only lectures that I would recommend going to are the ones during the last few weeks, where he reveals essay prompts and example short answers.

There are two papers and one final and they're both based off the readings. Again, no point in attending lectures. I would recommend finishing the papers early to have your TA look over them. The final consists of two essays and 13 short answers, all from the readings so I would suggest you look over the readings in order to study.

Overall, I would not suggest taking this class. It was very broad and I felt that all we talked about was racism and activism. I got an A in the class but I had to spend a lot of time on the readings and on the weekly journals we had to do. I suppose it was fairly easy, but just prepare yourself for a lot of irrelevant busywork.