I signed up for this class after taking his AN NE 12W course Jerusalem: Holy City. I loved his class then and I enjoyed this one thoroughly. Professor Smoak is definitely one of my favorite professors here at UCLA, and he delivers both intelligent, engaging lectures and helpful assignments. There may have been a little more work for this course than some other G.E.s on campus, but nothing was assigned without reason. Every bit of work I did in the course helped me understand the material better. Overall a great course.

This class was really interesting and the lectures were pretty interesting to follow along. The professor was clearly knowledgable on the subject and obviously wanted his students to understand the material. The group project at the end of the year was pretty interactive and refreshing to do. Definitely would recommend this GE to anyone who is even remotely curious about the origins of writing. I am also selling the course material ("The Story of Writing") for $10. Email me at ************* if interested.

The professor was passionate. There were guest lecturers throughout the quarter (hit-or-miss). The midterm and final were doable, but study a few days before because there was a lot of material to cover.

I thought some of the assignments (reading summaries in particular) were a little much, but the class was interesting and the workload wasn't too bad.

Professor Smoak is a very intelligent and captivating lecturer. I enjoyed his class. There are two reading quizzes, a midterm and final. And a required visit to LACMA which was free and actually interesting. There is also a group project to invent a writing system. Sounds challenging and it is, but with the right group and ideas it can become fun. I’m selling the required textbook for $20. Text me if interested **********.

Somewhat more work than other G.E.'s, but definitely doable. Procrastinated pretty heavy in this class, which reflected in my final grade. Quizzes are free points, just read a day before and make sure to connect the ideas in the reading with points of emphasis during lecture, as he tends to put info like that on the quizzes. Midterm and final were fair as they each focused on the writing systems learned in the previous weeks. Group project was fun, although we got snubbed of extra credit tbh. Overall, class was ok and definitely loses steam towards the end of the quarter as lectures just drag in which you repeat random ancient alphabets.

SELLING THE ROBINSON TEXTBOOK- "The Story of Writing, 2nd Edition" for $10, basically new with no highlighting or writing inside. email me @ ************* to purchase!

This is a GE with a lot of work. We had 2 papers, a museum visit, weekly mandatory discussions with turned in summary, a project, midterm and final. In addition, this class was hard. Smoak is a great lecturer and the TA was awesome, but the material was still challenging due to the majority of it not being taught in any other classes. We had to memorize facts from 10+ different writing systems, and the difficulty showed on the averages of the quizzes which were quite low, despite a high midterm average. Final was quite difficult due to the need to recognize different artifacts, all which looked quite similar. Still, it was really enjoyable.

Great Lecturer! all around awesome professor. Selling story of writing textbook email me if interested at G*************