I felt as though I learned a lot through this class but I must say that I was frustrated at the way the class was run. He didn't tell us that we would have a final until the second half of Week 3 (and the final was Friday of finals week!) which is unfair for people who have already made travel arrangements for winter break. He solely relied on discussion during class to relay information (like if we had an essay coming up, he would talk about it in class but we could not find information about it on the course website at all). This puts non-native speakers at a disadvantage as they have to pay complete attention at all times during each class to ensure that they don't miss any information. In addition, your class participation comes from his random calling on people during class to answer his questions. This was successful at forcing people to pay attention and not work on other assignments but it was stressful as it can be hard to follow everything going on.
Your grade is based on participation (his random callouts during class, attendance, daily hw assignments, and a 5 minute presentation), midterm, final paper, and a final (cumulative). If you work hard and pay attention, you can succeed in the class.

Attendance Participation and HW: 30%
Presentation and Essay: 20%
Midterm: 20%
Final: 30%

Professor Torrecilla is a really nice guy and is very approachable. He also ended class like 30 minutes early just about every day. The class itself is really not hard at all. You have readings to do every day (on CCLE, no textbook required) and HW based on those readings. All the readings are actually pretty interesting and also short. Start with narratives, move on to a couple essays and then a couple poems and that's about it. You have HWs due every class (handwritten or printed). The HW Q's can also be found on quizlet so if you're not feeling it you can search up a question and the quizlet set will come up. That being said, you should still study the answers to the questions because he chooses on people to randomly answer questions during class. As long as you've done the readings, you'll be fine.

The essay is based on any of the readings from throughout the year and is about 6 pages long. The midterm and final are based on the readings too. Questions about the story itself and others about the themes and main rhetorical figures of the text. There are also a couple history type questions about the authors and other things. It's fairly easy as long as you study and do your work throughout the quarter. 10/10 recommend.

r/ucla

Professor Torrencilla is amazing and super nice. This class is made up of 30% participation and homework. If you do the hw on time and show up to class on time you get the full 30%. 20% of your grade is composed of an essay on a reading of your choice, just analyzing, and a short presentation. 20% is the midterm and 30% the final. He is very straight forward about what will be on the midterm and what kind of questions there will be. For instance, some are one sentence response, others require a 2-3 sentence response, and then there’s like a short essay response (10-12 sentences). Overall, it was a very interesting, fun class and would definitely recommend. Oh, we also don’t have to buy a textbook so that’s a plus!