The second quarter of this cluster was essentially the same in structure as the first. The essays revolve around class material and readings so it is highly recommended that you, at the bare minimum, attend lecture and section, but if you are feeling up to the task you should read the texts as well. They provide information useful to your papers which might be the difference in a letter grade or so. Overall the class is pretty easy to get an A in. Just show up and do the work. If you are interested in this stuff then you should have no problem succeeding.

Absolutely loved this quarter! If you are looking at this review then you are probably already committed to the year long course.
Professor Fong and Professor Brown were Professors added in this quarter and they were very engaging and would play music at the beginning of lectures.
Professor Bunten and Ortiz were great Prof's as usual. Professor Ortiz also really was compassionate and understanding this quarter, she's actually so sweet!

Grading:
Participation (40%): Same as last quarter (during covid) 40% of your grade is easy participation points if you just do the readings, do lecture participation, and talk during discussion.
Media Paper (30%): They shortened the media paper from previous years so now its only a 1500 word paper, and they just want to see your writing improving across the quarters.
Final (30%): They implemented "biweekly" reflections and the average of those one-pager's was your final exam grade. (Ortiz even cancelled two of them because of our media paper deadline so the writing in this class isn't too overwhelming.)(She might not do the reflections after covid though)

Take Laura Terrance as your TA if you can! She is a really sweet, knowledgeable, and welcoming TA. Her grading is also extremely fair if you put in a good effort!

Final Course Grade: A+
Participation: 100%, Media Paper: 97%, Final Exam (reflections): 100%

This class was pretty easy and manageable overall, the lectures were interesting. You get to know your discussion group pretty well and it's very interactive and the TAs are good.

Professor Ortiz tolerates sexism & homophobia!!!!!!!!!!!!! You heard this here!! Behind the scenes, she does this. :/

I enjoyed Cluster 20B! I had professor Bunten, Brown, Ortiz, and Fong this quarter and they all worked very hard to make sure we were engaged! The professors even threw cultural music into their lectures! This class was very eye-opening and I would recommend it to anyone!

Overall, I thought the Cluster was great and very interesting. For the final Winter Quarter, due to COVID Professor Ortiz and staff decided to make the final optional, which was really helpful. The professors are all very knowledgeable and wiling to help. Winter quarter focused more on the 20th century and activism.

Selling EVERYTHING you need for the whole Cluster, including the required reading "Bad Indians", for SUPER CHEAP! Text 916-895-1698 if interested.

If you want an easy A and want to get rid of most of your GEs and are interested in race, take this cluster.

I am selling two books required for this class: Bad Indians and They Say/ I Say 4th edition!!!
My phone number is 562-241-2238. Price is negotiable but still super cheap!!!!

I REGRET TAKING THE CLUSTER!

I would not recommend the freshman cluster. Essentially, your grade is determined by your TA more than anything. This isn't the most helpful thing because you choose your discussion without knowing how your TA is, and although this is the second portion of the course (you can switch TA's btw), the TAs will be more sympathetic to students they had in fall quarter. Also an issue because every TA is different, so some were extremely easier than others who were more knit picky. I had a friend who received an A and did every assignment the night before and didn't read any of the books/course reader articles lol... Also, lectures are a drag and not helpful whatsoever. I believe 20% of the class was attendance and you needed a clicker... I thought that Winter quarter would have been better than fall but as a whole, the cluster sucks. The lectures hardly relate to anything and provide a big history lesson, the discussions vary from TA to TA and are also useless, and then they'll give you an essay with a vague prompt asking about racial tensions in a book that was a memoir and hardly focused on race at all........ We had a class groupme and the chat consisted of confused students...................... You can spend your time doing so much more across three quarters.....

(I wrote a similar review for fall quarter, this one will be tailored to the winter quarter assignments)

For the winter quarter, the course was structured into lectures twice a week with a 2-hour discussion once a week. In lectures, the professors would rotate, and they would lecture on the material relevant to their expertise and areas of research. I personally think that lectures weren't helpful, but I still went because they tracked attendance with clickers. They do post slides online in case you miss something, however. Often times, Professor Ortiz would stand on the side of the lecture room and make sure that nobody was talking, which was pretty funny in my opinion. The unique thing about this cluster (and every cluster) is that discussion attendance and participation made up a significant portion of your grade (25%). Discussions were a seminar-style setting with a TA asking questions and facilitating responses. My TA made us do a presentation on one of the weekly set of readings from the course reader (will be discussed below), which counted for a good portion of our participation grade. The key to getting a good grade is to make sure that your TA likes you (will be discussed below too).

In terms of assignments, we had 2 papers and a final exam in the winter, in addition to weekly readings. These readings were out of a quite pricey course reader that you are required to purchase. These readings were often dry and boring, and the corresponding lecture had very little connection to the readings. While I haven't heard of any reading quizzes in discussions, many TA's could determine whether you read or not based on your amount of participation in discussion, which is why it is important to at least have some general idea of what the readings are about. The final exam was cumulative over both fall and winter quarter, and it consisted of several short response questions and an essay about topics discussed in class. Each question required you to cite a certain number of readings from both fall and winter course readers. So this is where you need to be up to speed with your reading. While you don't need to read every word of every reading, it is important that you at least understand the main idea behind each reading (I think there was around 70 total). But no need to cite lecture, which was why I never paid attention in lecture during the winter lol. The two papers were an analysis of race in historical newspapers and a literary analysis of the common book (VERY SIMILAR TO THE FALL QUARTER PAPER). In fact, the second paper was so simple and straightforward that I thought it would be a breeze. However, I believe it was graded much more harshly than the past papers, as your TA really wanted to see improvement in your writing. Overall, the papers are pretty straightforward to write, but here is where getting your TA to like you becomes very important. I have heard from my classmates with different TAs that each one grades differently, and often times, harshly. Because of that, I strongly suggest going to TA office hours to seek help and guidance, EVEN IF YOU DON'T NEED IT. This shows to your TA at least that you are taking the initiative to ask for help, even if you don't care. It is important that you and your TA maintain a good relationship because YOUR GRADE IS DETERMINED ENTIRELY BY THE SUBJECTIVITY OF YOUR TA'S GRADING. I had a somewhat harsh TA, but managed to do very well because of my persistence, and not much else.

Overall, the class isn't the best class you will take at UCLA, but if you are passionate about the subject or would like to knock out some GE's then it's worth a shot. Nothing is necessarily difficult, but as long as you and your TA are on good terms, then you'll be all set.