ENGL 10A
Literatures in English to 1700
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: English Composition 3 or 3H, English 4W or 4HW. Survey of major writers and genres, with emphasis on tools for literary analysis such as close reading, argumentation, historical and social context, and critical writing. Minimum of three papers (three to five pages each) or equivalent required. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - Professor Fisher is clearly very well read and knowledgeable about medieval literature. Unfortunately, his mastery over the course content and our readings did little to aid in student learning and success. Overall, my experience in this class was very negative. In what I understand to be a reactionary response to the threat of AI use on written assignments, our grade in this class is primarily determined by our performance on four in-class writing assignments. These assignments have all been extemporaneous close reading responses to either texts that were provided beforehand and questions revealed the day of the exam, or passages from our readings that were provided at the time of the exam. Because these were in-class essays, we had a time constraint of either the regular duration of our lecture or the regular duration of our section (1 hour and 15 minutes or 50 minutes respectively). Our final is in the same format, with the only difference being that we will have slightly more time to complete the assessment. I personally do not feel that it is reasonable or fair to penalize English students out of fear for their theoretical use of AI. Realistically, the majority of English majors value writing for its own sake and are less likely than students in any other discipline to use AI to write on their behalf. In addition to this, writing a paper in response to a text is a process meant to take time and careful thought. A literary response in essay format traditionally requires multiple revisions across at least several days, which is inherently at odds with the format of this class. Perhaps one or two supplemental in-class writing assignments would have been appropriate, but it felt extremely unreasonable to base all of our grade on them. Giving students no other opportunity to express themselves within the class was a detriment to everyone, including students who performed well within the aforementioned criteria. I performed significantly better than many of my peers on these assessments. However, the highest grades I received were on responses where I selected words from the passages almost at random and generated speculative arguments about what they might mean for the text. Professor Fisher’s definition of “close reading” is extremely narrow and particular to his personal preference. We were instructed to keep our readings “as close as possible” to this standard and were specifically penalized for using quotes longer than one or two words in our responses. This obviously places a significant limitation on the scope of a student’s analysis. Although I was rewarded for my work with higher grades, I did not feel as though I was rewarded by the work at all—there was no real analysis of the text, certainly not with any care or faithfulness to the work or the author’s intentions. It is easy to creatively pull a single word out of a passage and argue that it in some way relates to a larger theme that you are aware of exists within the text. This, I would argue, is not a true literary interpretation fit for a core English class within the canon, and produces, at best, a very superficial analysis, and at worst, an entirely fabricated one. I am personally very concerned about AI reliance in academic spaces, and in particular the threat that it presents to the humanities’ integrity. However, my concern is rooted in the fact that the introduction of artificial intelligence to academia is a perpetuation of a long-standing trend towards prioritizing the material products of education over the intrinsic value of learning itself. I would argue that eliminating one of the core aspects of a traditional English education and replacing it with impromptu, timed assignments inadvertently rewards students for their ability to generate an idea and produce a product quickly, rather than their ability to interact deeply with a text. This stifles student expression in the same way AI does and only contributes to the growing homogeneity of academic writing. The multiple ways in which I felt that this class constrained and demanded uniformity of thought and expression from students was more alarming to me than any AI response I have ever read. Putting such constraints on English students poses a far more imminent threat than the use of AI, which is only one of many ways in which a student is capable of robbing themselves of their own education. It seems as though the faculty is concerned with AI use specifically out of fear of rewarding students who use AI with passing grades, which only reinforces the idea that the material product of our education is what matters most. If Professor Fisher was actually concerned with the education of his students, he would put his time and energy into educating his students. I appreciate the effort to ensure academic integrity, and can understand the reasoning behind the recent reforms made to the structure of this class, but I believe that an effective curriculum should invite the range of skill required to be successful and participate in English academia. I feel that at both the classroom and institutional levels, this type of fear-based, poorly thought out solution is entirely counterproductive and discourages students from freely engaging with either the material or their ideas.
Fall 2025 - Professor Fisher is clearly very well read and knowledgeable about medieval literature. Unfortunately, his mastery over the course content and our readings did little to aid in student learning and success. Overall, my experience in this class was very negative. In what I understand to be a reactionary response to the threat of AI use on written assignments, our grade in this class is primarily determined by our performance on four in-class writing assignments. These assignments have all been extemporaneous close reading responses to either texts that were provided beforehand and questions revealed the day of the exam, or passages from our readings that were provided at the time of the exam. Because these were in-class essays, we had a time constraint of either the regular duration of our lecture or the regular duration of our section (1 hour and 15 minutes or 50 minutes respectively). Our final is in the same format, with the only difference being that we will have slightly more time to complete the assessment. I personally do not feel that it is reasonable or fair to penalize English students out of fear for their theoretical use of AI. Realistically, the majority of English majors value writing for its own sake and are less likely than students in any other discipline to use AI to write on their behalf. In addition to this, writing a paper in response to a text is a process meant to take time and careful thought. A literary response in essay format traditionally requires multiple revisions across at least several days, which is inherently at odds with the format of this class. Perhaps one or two supplemental in-class writing assignments would have been appropriate, but it felt extremely unreasonable to base all of our grade on them. Giving students no other opportunity to express themselves within the class was a detriment to everyone, including students who performed well within the aforementioned criteria. I performed significantly better than many of my peers on these assessments. However, the highest grades I received were on responses where I selected words from the passages almost at random and generated speculative arguments about what they might mean for the text. Professor Fisher’s definition of “close reading” is extremely narrow and particular to his personal preference. We were instructed to keep our readings “as close as possible” to this standard and were specifically penalized for using quotes longer than one or two words in our responses. This obviously places a significant limitation on the scope of a student’s analysis. Although I was rewarded for my work with higher grades, I did not feel as though I was rewarded by the work at all—there was no real analysis of the text, certainly not with any care or faithfulness to the work or the author’s intentions. It is easy to creatively pull a single word out of a passage and argue that it in some way relates to a larger theme that you are aware of exists within the text. This, I would argue, is not a true literary interpretation fit for a core English class within the canon, and produces, at best, a very superficial analysis, and at worst, an entirely fabricated one. I am personally very concerned about AI reliance in academic spaces, and in particular the threat that it presents to the humanities’ integrity. However, my concern is rooted in the fact that the introduction of artificial intelligence to academia is a perpetuation of a long-standing trend towards prioritizing the material products of education over the intrinsic value of learning itself. I would argue that eliminating one of the core aspects of a traditional English education and replacing it with impromptu, timed assignments inadvertently rewards students for their ability to generate an idea and produce a product quickly, rather than their ability to interact deeply with a text. This stifles student expression in the same way AI does and only contributes to the growing homogeneity of academic writing. The multiple ways in which I felt that this class constrained and demanded uniformity of thought and expression from students was more alarming to me than any AI response I have ever read. Putting such constraints on English students poses a far more imminent threat than the use of AI, which is only one of many ways in which a student is capable of robbing themselves of their own education. It seems as though the faculty is concerned with AI use specifically out of fear of rewarding students who use AI with passing grades, which only reinforces the idea that the material product of our education is what matters most. If Professor Fisher was actually concerned with the education of his students, he would put his time and energy into educating his students. I appreciate the effort to ensure academic integrity, and can understand the reasoning behind the recent reforms made to the structure of this class, but I believe that an effective curriculum should invite the range of skill required to be successful and participate in English academia. I feel that at both the classroom and institutional levels, this type of fear-based, poorly thought out solution is entirely counterproductive and discourages students from freely engaging with either the material or their ideas.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I took Professor Shuger's class during the COVID-19 pandemic so all the lectures were prerecorded to watch in our free time while the live lectures were just optional office hours where students could pop in Zoom with questions. Her lectures were very interesting and she is obviously passionate about what she teaches. The grading was dependent on the TA with 3 papers total and a weekly quiz. The weekly quiz consisted of 5 questions based on the week's reading with 1 of the questions always being extra credit, so a 4/5 was 100%. This obviously helps out quite a bit! The extra question always ends up being about poem metrics where we would be asked to scan a line from the text. She was understandable that not everyone is amazing at poem metrics so Professor Shuger included an optional Final Exam for those struggling with quizzes. The reading and workload is quite heavy and difficult, but overall the class is doable as long as it's taken seriously. I'm not sure how much the class format will change after the pandemic, but I assume the extra credit on the quizzes and the 3 papers stay the same either way.
Fall 2020 - I took Professor Shuger's class during the COVID-19 pandemic so all the lectures were prerecorded to watch in our free time while the live lectures were just optional office hours where students could pop in Zoom with questions. Her lectures were very interesting and she is obviously passionate about what she teaches. The grading was dependent on the TA with 3 papers total and a weekly quiz. The weekly quiz consisted of 5 questions based on the week's reading with 1 of the questions always being extra credit, so a 4/5 was 100%. This obviously helps out quite a bit! The extra question always ends up being about poem metrics where we would be asked to scan a line from the text. She was understandable that not everyone is amazing at poem metrics so Professor Shuger included an optional Final Exam for those struggling with quizzes. The reading and workload is quite heavy and difficult, but overall the class is doable as long as it's taken seriously. I'm not sure how much the class format will change after the pandemic, but I assume the extra credit on the quizzes and the 3 papers stay the same either way.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - The enlarged photo from his Bruinwalk pfp is Arvind petting a cat. 10A with Professor Thomas was actually pretty good. You truly get only what you put into the course. A lot of people really get bored with medieval lit and it becomes a struggle for them to stay awake. Arvind definitely knows that and he actually feels remorseful that he has to teach some of the boring texts in this course. While he's lecturing, he's so professional and rigid, but once the class is over and you talk to him he's just a goo-prone human like the rest of us. He nervously cracks jokes and apologizes profusely for being too boring or taking a little while to screen share. Bottom line is that Professor Thomas is extremely caring and he wants you to actually be excited about the literature vs be intimidated by it. He brings on cool guest lecturers like Mac Harris and Michael Calabrese to modernize/contextualize these texts with pop-culture allusions. The running themes of the class were fairly consistent throughout each lecture, I'm surprised they were not a focal point of the essays. The class solely consisted of 3 essays and participation, it's kind of a cinch — the topics are cool. The only real downside is that Prof doesn't use slides and the engagement during lectures only goes so far. On the first day, there were 170 people on the Zoom and on the last day, there were 30. Stanely Wu is a remarkable TA. I had so much fun in their section, and they are super eager to help students if they are struggling as I was on a couple of the essays. Great sense of humor and a fast grader as well. I would take it again, but I would definitely try to be more present and show up for the live lecture more often than just watching the recordings.
Spring 2021 - The enlarged photo from his Bruinwalk pfp is Arvind petting a cat. 10A with Professor Thomas was actually pretty good. You truly get only what you put into the course. A lot of people really get bored with medieval lit and it becomes a struggle for them to stay awake. Arvind definitely knows that and he actually feels remorseful that he has to teach some of the boring texts in this course. While he's lecturing, he's so professional and rigid, but once the class is over and you talk to him he's just a goo-prone human like the rest of us. He nervously cracks jokes and apologizes profusely for being too boring or taking a little while to screen share. Bottom line is that Professor Thomas is extremely caring and he wants you to actually be excited about the literature vs be intimidated by it. He brings on cool guest lecturers like Mac Harris and Michael Calabrese to modernize/contextualize these texts with pop-culture allusions. The running themes of the class were fairly consistent throughout each lecture, I'm surprised they were not a focal point of the essays. The class solely consisted of 3 essays and participation, it's kind of a cinch — the topics are cool. The only real downside is that Prof doesn't use slides and the engagement during lectures only goes so far. On the first day, there were 170 people on the Zoom and on the last day, there were 30. Stanely Wu is a remarkable TA. I had so much fun in their section, and they are super eager to help students if they are struggling as I was on a couple of the essays. Great sense of humor and a fast grader as well. I would take it again, but I would definitely try to be more present and show up for the live lecture more often than just watching the recordings.
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