So this review is for 114B but I don't see an option to do that class. Regardless, I've talked to people who have taken 114A and it's literally the same class (same structure, grading scheme, etc.) with the only difference being the books you read.
tbh I was seriously considering dropping this class... I'm not a pol sci or humanities major, and I don't like reading so the reading was pretty overwhelming and people were telling me he grades the quizzes and essay hard. You have to read at least a full book every week, sometimes even two, which I was totally not used to. I'm so glad I stuck w/ it tho cuz it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I needed this class for a GE requirement right before I was about to graduate.
So someone here already posted the grading breakdown. For starters, the close reading assignment is very easy. You literally just take a passage from any book and produce a 1-2 page analyzation. He essentially gave everyone full credit for this assignment.
Now the quizzes are a bulk of your grade, and I would fully recommend coming to class because he gives you at least half the answers in lecture. And this is important b/c sometimes the texts aren't obvious and require a certain interpretation, so it's nice for him to give you those interpretations in lecture. I went to practically every class, and while I merely skimmed thru all the books (except for the one I did my essay on), I still got a 100 on all the quizzes because of the lecture and study guides. All I would do is the day before class, I would use the study guides as a reference and skim thru chapters until I found a passage related to the study guide questions. Then I would memorize all of these. The quizzes are only two questions at most, but they're short essay style. After the first quiz or two, I kinda had a grasp of what types of questions he likes to ask. There wasn't a single question on the quizzes that wasn't on the study guide, so make sure you use it as a reference. Sometimes there are lots of questions on the study guide, but usually he picks the questions that cover the overarching topics of the book. And like I said, they're always gonna be short essay style so focus on the ones that cover big concepts rather than just small facts. If you do this you can easily get a good grade on the quizzes. Also, he drops one quiz so you get one freebee.
Now for the peer review, I felt like he graded it harder than the close reading. Everyone I talked to got full credit on the close reading, but I came across a good # of students who didn't get full credit on the peer review. Although it's only worth 10%, it's important that you maximize your points on everything up until the essay because the essay is worth half of your grade and he's known to be a relatively tough grader. So make sure you actually spend time on the peer review and analyze your peer's essay to a deep level.
Now the big boy- the essay. I spent a lot of time on this, and it showed cuz I got a pretty good grade on it. MAKE SURE you get your argument checked out by him before you work on it. He has OH after every class and he is very good with making sure he spends time w/ everybody. Once it gets to week 9, it's gonna get crammed w/ literally everybody there so you may wanna get it checked out before then. It's absolutely imperative that you get his okay on the argument b/c it's the biggest portion of your paper. And it may be sort of confusing on what he expects, I know I was confused and overwhelmed in the beginning, cuz basically he wants you to make sort of a controversial interpretation of the reading, and then spend 10-15 pages proving that interpretation. You wanna go to OH and get his verification cuz he'll give you tips, and if you know your argument is good, that's almost half the battle right there. Also he doesn't like emailing about specific questions about the essay b/c he reserves a lot of time in OH for that (which is understandable), so you wanna make sure you use OH to your advantage... don't expect to just be able to email him about it like you may have done for other classes
Overall, this was a good class and I learned a lot from it. I would take it w/ him if you're a pol sci major and this is a major requirement, but if you're someone like me who just needed a GE req it may be better for you to go w/ an easier class. This class was far from an easy A and required a lot of work, but Trojan is a great, helpful professor