The Professor:
Bistline was the most helpful professor I had this year. She promptly responded to all emails (even my dumb ones...) and always made time to hold 1 on 1 office hours with us. It's obvious that she cares about the students and actively engages in discussions with us. She's a very kind and warm-hearted person and always keeps it real.

The Class:
I absolutely loved the literature selection (from sonnets, poetry, short story, novels), there was not a single one that I didn't learn from. Assigned readings were sometimes a bit too much but enjoyable nonetheless.

I took this Writing II class very early on (Winter of my freshman year) so I wasn't accustomed to university-level writing yet, so it was a bit tricky for me to adjust to what the professor expected (she focuses more on what the text argues instead of just analysis).

Lecture/participation are mandatory and not recorded. We usually open class with slides and then transitioned into breakout rooms. I was very lucky to have a super nice class that actively engaged, even over Zoom. We played "20 Questions" on characters/settings in Jane Eyre once and that was fun.

There is one "midterm" essay worth 25% and one "final" essay worth 35%. The other 40% are made up of smaller assignments, discussion posts (6 minimum), and participation. She gave 1% of extra credit to the midterm essay if we watched one of the films.

Professor Ellen is really sweet and was a great professor. She was extremely helpful during office hours and made an effort to make sure we felt prepared to major assignments. The class itself was about as difficult as you would expect a college-level english course to be. We had two or three major grades based on readings, and Professor Ellen made sure to include many low-risk writing assignments throughout the quarter as well as a buffer to our grade (you did well on these low risk assignments as long as you tried). I have to admit the major essays were a little difficult, but if you dedicated enough time and effort to them and took advantage of the Professor's office hours then you would do well. Professor Ellen's grading style made it easy to get a B but difficult to get an A. The class is extremely discussion based which makes it pretty engaging over Zoom, and Professor does make an effort to try to make the course interesting and fun for everyone. Overall, would recommend this class.