professor Allmendinger is worth taking. Aside from 117, I've taken him for two other classes, including his GWTW seminar (which is literally an oral report, participation and a final paper). He's really helpful and answers emails extremely fast. His classes are mostly discussion based and consist of a midterm, 10 page paper (of a topic of your choice including a creative option like an extended ending of one of the books you read, etc) and a final. Each part is divided equally, and if you do badly on the midterm he'll shift the grading scale especially if you do better on the paper or final. He genuinely wants you to do well and offers extra credit for providing absent students with notes. He's entertaining and makes sure to let students leave half an hour earlier because he knows it's hard to sit in a chair for 2-3 hours. He's worth taking, I've also heard great things about his detective fiction and it's his most popular class aside from his Gone with the Wind seminar (which is literally just the book and movie). Don't hesitate to take him, he's great.

This teacher is blatantly racist, at one point making jabs towards Jewish and Indian people during a class exercise, and when he was confronted he used the age old "It's okay because I have friends that are [insert race]". Aside from that, which should be enough to avoid him at all costs, he is not a worthwhile teacher, even though he may have been at one point. He comes in seemingly unprepared, and rambles on about whatever he'd like for a majority of the class. Which normally doesn't bother me as much, except a majority of his class grade is based off attendance and participation. So when you do want to participate, whatever he is saying usually takes precedent and he'll let you have your hand up for over 10 minutes just to not call on you, because his Joan Crawford rant-- according to him-- is really pivotal to your education. But get this, he does not actually call out names or have an efficient system to take attendance or mark down participation. When someone confronted him about a low participation grade he responded "Well I can't mark down every time someone participates". So why make it apart of the grade if you're not going to accurately take note of it? A lot of his class grades are mostly based off one big paper at the end, despite him giving you hardly any idea what he looks for in writing, even if you talk to him in office hours or email him, you still don't get a good idea. Then he slaps a grade on your essay without any feedback, and when I asked for feedback he sent me a phony automated "I'll be out until winter quarter email" that said it was sent from his iPhone. I can accept a harsh grader if I learn something from the experience, but all I learned from this teacher is to avoid tenured professors who care more about themselves than the people they're meant to teach.

Overall, I’d totally recommend this class! The material was interesting, Professor Allmendinger is hilarious, and the essay was fun to write! The only drawback was that the reading workload was pretty heavy in the beginning of the quarter, but it definitely lightened up towards the end. The overall grade consists entirely of the midterm, essay, and final exam. The midterm and final are two shot, analytical essays, so make sure you know correct grammar terms and have good analytical skills. The paper can be written about anything as long as it is related to California, so I wrote about my California hometown through a California-narrative lens. Someone else I know wrote about the effect of Disneyland on Los Angeles, and someone else wrote a short story about California. Professor Allmendinger is very personable and funny, and very helpful to students both in office hours and through email. He definitely wants his students to succeed, and you will do best in this class if you have a lot of experience writing in-class analytical essays, especially close readings. Just make sure you can dedicate the time to read all the assigned work in the first half of the quarter!

From his snazzy vans to his engaging lectures, Allmendinger is an excellent professor. This class has a great scope and really takes you through a great deal of the literary tradition of California and the west. The class also seems to narrow in on Los Angeles as it progresses which I personally think added to my understand of the city being someone from Northern California. Tests can be challenging if close reading isn't your strong suit, still the professor is very willing to help you so you can be successful. I highly recommend this course. (Though the first novel on the syllabus is a bit of a drag "Ramona" I think- the rest is fantastic and all of the literature builds to a deeper understanding of the subject). Highly recommend.

Allmendinger is my favorite professor I've had in my two years at UCLA, and definitely the one that I've had the most personal contact with. It was easy to talk to him outside of class and joke around, but he was also really helpful with information. His lectures are funny and compelling, just like him. Take his class!

Professor Allmendinger is by far my favorite professor at UCLA. He knows his lectures by heart and encourages his students to participate in lecture, regardless of whether they think their opinions about the material are wrong. He took the time to go over the beginning of my essay with me and was always quick to respond to emails. Coming to UCLA can be daunting, especially as an English major (what with all of the reading and essays), but he reminded me of why I love this subject so much. He was never intimidating, and he was never arrogant. I can't wait to take more classes with him!

Also, his detective fiction class is SO fun.

Here is an honest review of Professor Allmendinger:

He is a great guy, means well, and you can tell he loves his job. Wanting to remain anonymous, I will say that I took him before and he has made loads of progress for his CA literature course that I took this time around. He seemed to understand that his wants and needs were quite vague before, and that students needed more direction and explanation of what he wanted from us. He seemed genuinely more helpful, much more hands on and concerned than the last time I took him.

Luckily, in this course, there was a student who organized a study group which helped students loads, she had taken him before and guided engaged students in the right direction.

Overall, his class demands are pretty simple. Read the material, close readings for the midterm, there's a paper that is up to you to decide what you want to write on, and a final exam on the last day of class.

I personally like the guy, then again, I am not an English major...

Professor Allmendinger was one of my favorite professors thus far! He is hilarious and his classes are always very entertaining. The structure of his class was very open and laid back - felt almost like a book club. The course material/book selections were fun, interesting reads. There is a midterm, final, and a paper - all of which were extremely doable and straight forward. He allowed us to chose our own topics for the paper and was super willing and helpful to work with us on whatever topics we decided. Grading was very fair.
All in all, Allmendinger is a fantastic professor and I look forward to taking his other two English courses over the next quarters!