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

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.

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.

Rating on behalf of TA Tim Fosbury - we never interacted with Chism even though her name is listed on this class.
The books we read were fantastic. We had a manageable amount of reading each night, and 3 papers for the whole quarter. His feedback in class and individually about your writing really helps you improve for your next paper. He does a lot of in-class writing and peer review workshops that will help you get a better grade on your next paper. You can also rewrite each of the first 2 papers if you're not happy with your initial grade.

The professor is listed as Chism, but the actual person who taught my class was a TA grad student. The class was really engaging and it was small, so there was a lot of class discussion. The books we read were super interesting (Never Let Me Go, Golden Gate, etc. ) but the essays were graded kind of harshly. However, if you need to fulfill a Writing 2, this class is super interesting.