ASIA AM 30W
Asian American Literature and Culture
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Enforced requisite: English Composition 3. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 30. Multidisciplinary introduction to Asian American literature and cultural production. Exploration of cultural politics and creative expression of Asia Pacific Americans in their own terms and in context of emergence and reception of artistic works--from personal, local, regional, national, and to global/imperial. Implicit and explicit comparison of Asian American cultural production to diverse experiences of other aggregated groupings, historic and emergent. Addresses intersectional issues of gendering, sexuality, non-secularity, and socioeconomic conditions. Satisfies Writing II requirement. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - I never imagined I would be writing a review here. To get straight to the point, this class depends on your TA and classmates. I have never found Professor Bascara to be helpful. The reason I said this class depends on your TA and your classmates is because the discussion section of this class is about 2 hours long and most of the things are explained by the TA and this class is done through discussions with your classmates. To elaborate on the problem of this class, Professor Bascara's characteristic is that the instructions for the assignments in this class are vague and he unnecessarily explains simple words in a complicated way. I don't know if he did this to everyone, but he never answered any of my questions. Moreover, if you are confused about the assignment instructions and ask a question to the TA, but the TA has no ability to answer your question or avoids answering, you will have a hard time. My TA this quarter was Ghalia, and I would like to say AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS. Next quarter is my last quarter at UCLA and Ghalia is the worst TA I've ever had. I've never seen anyone who doesn't respect her students as much as she does. I could tell a lot about her, but I'll stop it here. All I want to say is, AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS and UCLA should not hire TAs like Ghalia. Lastly, if you don't understand something and don't get an answer from the professor or TA, you'll probably ask your classmates. This is why I said this class depends on your classmates. Get to know your classmates as much as possible during section time and get help if you can. One of the things I regret most about this class is that I didn't become closer to classmates. At least in my experience, you can't expect anything from the professor in this class and there's no help you can get from the TA (Ghalia).
Spring 2024 - I never imagined I would be writing a review here. To get straight to the point, this class depends on your TA and classmates. I have never found Professor Bascara to be helpful. The reason I said this class depends on your TA and your classmates is because the discussion section of this class is about 2 hours long and most of the things are explained by the TA and this class is done through discussions with your classmates. To elaborate on the problem of this class, Professor Bascara's characteristic is that the instructions for the assignments in this class are vague and he unnecessarily explains simple words in a complicated way. I don't know if he did this to everyone, but he never answered any of my questions. Moreover, if you are confused about the assignment instructions and ask a question to the TA, but the TA has no ability to answer your question or avoids answering, you will have a hard time. My TA this quarter was Ghalia, and I would like to say AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS. Next quarter is my last quarter at UCLA and Ghalia is the worst TA I've ever had. I've never seen anyone who doesn't respect her students as much as she does. I could tell a lot about her, but I'll stop it here. All I want to say is, AVOID HER AT ALL COSTS and UCLA should not hire TAs like Ghalia. Lastly, if you don't understand something and don't get an answer from the professor or TA, you'll probably ask your classmates. This is why I said this class depends on your classmates. Get to know your classmates as much as possible during section time and get help if you can. One of the things I regret most about this class is that I didn't become closer to classmates. At least in my experience, you can't expect anything from the professor in this class and there's no help you can get from the TA (Ghalia).
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - Fairly easy class but the professor was very disorganized. There were times where she didn’t tell us if class would be in person or not. Kinda confusing at times. The actual material was quite interesting. There are two big essays (7 pages) and two smaller ones. There are no tests, only essays. We had to do a small group presentation which was only about 5 minutes so not too bad. The class was quite easy but the TA was much more helpful. I would recommend this class for an easy GE, however, be warned that you may be confused at times because the professor does not explain things clearly.
Spring 2022 - Fairly easy class but the professor was very disorganized. There were times where she didn’t tell us if class would be in person or not. Kinda confusing at times. The actual material was quite interesting. There are two big essays (7 pages) and two smaller ones. There are no tests, only essays. We had to do a small group presentation which was only about 5 minutes so not too bad. The class was quite easy but the TA was much more helpful. I would recommend this class for an easy GE, however, be warned that you may be confused at times because the professor does not explain things clearly.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - While the class may mislead you into thinking it's a chill class due to the fact there are only 2 6-page essays and no final, the grading is pretty harsh (30 points for essay 1, 30 points for essay 2, 30 points for discussion/participation, and 10 points journal). For each essay, 10 points come from the rough draft and 20 from the final draft, but both are graded quite funnily (did I mention the TAs love giving whole numbers and never full credit?). They're also not allowed to disclose their rubric to students (which is hilarious because we don't know what we could improve on), and immediately redirect you to the Writing Centre when you ask for in-depth help/feedback (unless it's something superficial)! Furthermore, essay instructions are unclear (refers to readings that weren't referred to as readings before). With this kind of grading scheme, an A is not in reach unless you somehow score the top 25% (but keep in mind, whole numbers are loved here and most of the time upper quartile scores come in decimal points). In terms of the class itself, all we do is watch movies and read books and articles, which can get really boring if writing essays based on action scenes isn't your cup of tea. If it's not that, we're listening to a lecture about Southeast Asia (her area of expertise), the "Hongkongnese", or the model minority myth, in which she reads off of pieces of paper in a monotonous voice. On a side note, this class is currently in progress, so I would like to point out that for essay 2, we have multiple prompts, and only one has been released so far. The other prompts are due to be released by the end of week 8 (and the rough drafts are due week 9 in discussion!). The saving grace here would be you get to choose your own prompt, but it has to be approved and we've only seen 2 new "texts" (books and films) so far for this next period. In general, this writing II is unnecessarily difficult and should be DROPPED/SWITCHED right away unless you're an English prodigy. There are better Writing IIs out there in life. Overall, it made me regret taking interest in Asian American Studies as an Asian American, so beware.
Winter 2025 - While the class may mislead you into thinking it's a chill class due to the fact there are only 2 6-page essays and no final, the grading is pretty harsh (30 points for essay 1, 30 points for essay 2, 30 points for discussion/participation, and 10 points journal). For each essay, 10 points come from the rough draft and 20 from the final draft, but both are graded quite funnily (did I mention the TAs love giving whole numbers and never full credit?). They're also not allowed to disclose their rubric to students (which is hilarious because we don't know what we could improve on), and immediately redirect you to the Writing Centre when you ask for in-depth help/feedback (unless it's something superficial)! Furthermore, essay instructions are unclear (refers to readings that weren't referred to as readings before). With this kind of grading scheme, an A is not in reach unless you somehow score the top 25% (but keep in mind, whole numbers are loved here and most of the time upper quartile scores come in decimal points). In terms of the class itself, all we do is watch movies and read books and articles, which can get really boring if writing essays based on action scenes isn't your cup of tea. If it's not that, we're listening to a lecture about Southeast Asia (her area of expertise), the "Hongkongnese", or the model minority myth, in which she reads off of pieces of paper in a monotonous voice. On a side note, this class is currently in progress, so I would like to point out that for essay 2, we have multiple prompts, and only one has been released so far. The other prompts are due to be released by the end of week 8 (and the rough drafts are due week 9 in discussion!). The saving grace here would be you get to choose your own prompt, but it has to be approved and we've only seen 2 new "texts" (books and films) so far for this next period. In general, this writing II is unnecessarily difficult and should be DROPPED/SWITCHED right away unless you're an English prodigy. There are better Writing IIs out there in life. Overall, it made me regret taking interest in Asian American Studies as an Asian American, so beware.
Most Helpful Review
I cannot stand this woman. I had her for some Asian American Women class and it was fine, not too hard because we had a TA. Then I had her for another class and she gave me D's on all my reading response (and I normally get A's in other classes) and then she turned me in for plagiarism because I had ONE sentence that was similar to wikipedia. The head of my department said she turns in someone for plagiarism every quarter. She is also the most annoying speaker in the world.
I cannot stand this woman. I had her for some Asian American Women class and it was fine, not too hard because we had a TA. Then I had her for another class and she gave me D's on all my reading response (and I normally get A's in other classes) and then she turned me in for plagiarism because I had ONE sentence that was similar to wikipedia. The head of my department said she turns in someone for plagiarism every quarter. She is also the most annoying speaker in the world.
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