Your class will be taught by a TA, not by Chism. We never even saw Chism. I had Radnia.
For English 4W, you will be in a small class and likely have to participate/interact a lot. Lots of group discussions on the books and their themes. I didn't mind this, I felt it was a lot more engaging than sitting and listening to a lecture for 2 hours. But some people may dislike this.
The books were fine, most weeks it was pretty manageable and some of the books were pretty good. We also read a few poems and watched two movies, which you could also write your essay on. There was only 1 or 2 books I skipped because of how long they were taking to read.
Our class grade was mainly based on 3 essays, and a little on participation and reading quizzes. The essays gave a lot of freedom, there was like 5 or 6 prompts for each and you could choose which books you wanted to write on.
I feel if you are a decent writer and try to think deeply about the books this class won't be too difficult. Not the most exciting class but I think it helped me become a better writer.

Your grade in the class completely depends on which TA you get so the grading scale isn't really helpful or a representation of the distribution per class. Overall though the assignments aren't too bad and its a medium difficulty writing 2 class.

I am going to keep it real with all of you, there is not one person who I know that took this class and loved it. For all of my LS majors, I am still deciding whether this class is worth the extra GE credits. For other humanities majors I advise against taking this class unless you're really into learning about Islam.

I believe this class has potential but right now it is a little bit of a boring, confusing mess. The faculty involved in Global Islam are all very understanding and are really good at getting back to you. However, I found a lot of their instruction as vague. You are required to do about 3 hours of reading a week which is not fun because they are long and dense, but you have to read them and pay attention in class because you never know what will be asked on the weekly quizzes. The topic is very broad and although the professors try to centralize on the 4 "big themes", a lot of the information is random and doesn't exactly follow a pattern. Although I do like the professors as people, they somehow make the topic extremely boring. The research and writing specialists are nice, but are also not very helpful with the assignments.

The grading structure is based on 6 things. Attendance 10%, Participation 10%, Weekly Quizzes 20%, Response Paper 25%, Final Paper 20%, CoCurricular Activity 5%. The lowest quiz grade is dropped. There are 4 prompts for the response papers, you only have to do 3 of them, 500-600 words each. Final paper, 5-6 pages max, is broken down into 5 sections including related questions, articles, thesis and outline, revised thesis and outline, and final draft. I had a really difficult time figuring out what the paper needed. The directions and rubric were unclear and vague. The cocurricular is just a 2-3 hr activity you do outside of class and you have to write a 2 page response on it. The key to doing well in this class is building a good relationship with you TA, doing all the assignments, and participating in discussion. Your TA is your grader for everything so questions or details on assignments should be reviewed by them.

It is not inherently a difficult class, it is just a lot of work and it is not very fun. I do appreciate that faculty and staff are all a really nice and passionate about what they do but the structure and clarity needs a lot of work. Just prepare your friends and roommates for complaining about how much you dislike the class. I hope this helps.

This class is designed and taught entirely by TAs. There is no interrogation with the Professor whatsoever. I took this class with Vivian Delchamps.

English 4WH was one of the best classes I've taken at UCLA. There are no in class exams, the required texts were enjoyable to read, and class discussions were always engaging and often profound. Participation is required, but everyone is given plenty of opportunities to speak, so it's not a competition. While this is an honors class, essays are not graded harder and the workload is very manageable.

In my section, we read "Beloved," "Of Mice and Men," "The Glass Menagerie," "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," and selected poetry. At most, we had to read 150 pages in a week, but we often read much less. Grading: 10% Homework (completion); 20% Participation and attendance; 10% Paper 1 (2 pages); 15% Paper 2 (5 pages); 15% Paper 3 (4-5 pages); 20% Revised Paper 3 (6-7 pages); 10% Presentation (5 minutes, very informal).

As most other reviews are probably pointing out, by "professor" for this class I specifically mean "TA," as you never meet the professor. While that might scare a lot of people, as they now must enter an extremely unreliable TA-lottery, I found that even your TA doesn't matter so much, as most of this class is guided by discussion. You read the texts, you show up to discussion, and you duke it out with your 19 classmates. With Honors, my TA just gave us some restrictions that she found were "stricter," but you can't really miss what you never had -- I'm not sure how much harder this was supposed to be than the regular version, but I'm sure they don't differ too much. The main objective is learning to analyze literature critically and develop arguments for high-level theses. If that doesn't sound appealing to you, don't take English classes. I had a lot of fun with the selection of books and trying to find common themes among them, and writing essays is never fun but none of these were outrageous or complicated. I found myself applying the same critical reading/writing skills I had picked up in high school AP classes and such. Knock yourself out if you like English and writing and being in this sort of routine and system. If not, and you're looking for a Writing II opportunity, there are plenty more interesting options out there.

As other reviews have mentioned, your experiences in the course will vary depending on your TA. I DID want to mention that Professor Chism co-signed a LOR which my TA wrote for me in this course, and I felt that was very kind of her!

Tony Wei Ling was a really cool TA. The class was pretty easy overall for a Writing II class. Pretty much all of the readings were comics which made the reading and analysis a lot easier than having to read some boring novel or academic writing. Along with Tony, the readings were my favorite part. Tony was also able to skype some of the authors of these comics which was also really cool. There are group and partner discussions pretty much every class, but it's not too bad. I didn't participate too much and as you can see here I'm nothing special when it comes to writing. I got an A- so I'm pretty sure anyone else can do just as well.

Grade distribution:
25%- participation and discussion posts (discord)
10%- article pitch; pitch an idea for an article (250 words)
15%- journal comics (12-panel comic about whatever you want. Get a B just for effort)
20%- close reading paper (4 pages)
30%- final paper, another close reading (6 pages)

The readings are mostly on CCLE except for a few books which you have to buy. I spent no more that $50 on books for this class which was really pretty cool, not too much money (buy some books used). Would definitely recommend taking this class with Tony if given the chance. Easy way to get the Writing II requirement done.

r/ucla

Highly recommend this class. I took it the first quarter it was offered and even completely virtual the class was super engaging and interesting. Since it's a cluster you spend a year focusing on Islam from a variety of different perspectives from some of the most knowledgeable and amazing professors on campus, and I have to say it has definitely changed the way I think about the social sciences. As a STEM major, like many others I took this class because it satisfied a lot of my GEs, but I got way more out of this class than that.
To start with, the papers that I've written in this class have been some of the most interesting and unexpected, and I've been able to learn analytical skills both within and outside the social sciences that I don't think I would've learned outside this cluster and that I'll probably continue to apply beyond this class. The professors are so approachable and are always willing to help with research for your papers or your understanding of a topic.
The third quarter of the cluster is also organized into small seminars where you delve into a subtopic with a small group of students and a TA (there are multiple seminars, each on a different topic, which you can chose from). I've had some of the most interesting discussions there and the small class size (it was about 10ish people) made the class way more engaging than your typical GEs. There was also a lot of focus on connections with present day issues, which also made the seminar an awesome opportunity to become more informed and aware of how the subject (and the social sciences more broadly) intersects with contemporary environmentalism, politics, science, etc., and learn things I can take with me beyond this class.
There is a bit of work and reading that comes with the class, but if you stick with it it will be worth it, and you'll be proud of the diversity of what you've learned and of the work that you've produced. It's not the easiest class you'll find, but in a way the challenge made it worth it :D

Chism is a very boring lecturer and the class involves a lot of reading. Yarbourgh is much better.

Very knowledgable and interested in her students on a personal level. A fair grader. Course is reasonably strenuous.