Professor Ball is really helpful and gives interesting and engaging lectures. She'll quiz you on the readings during class, but the quizzes are one question and are usually so easy that you can skim through the readings and still get them right. Plus, you can miss around 4 of them and still get full quiz points in the class. The readings themselves were OK and were pretty interesting, but the way in which a lot of the early readings were written made it really difficult to make connections and good essay topics on them. The essays get easier to write as they go, however. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the TA. I had Mads Larsen and he was a pretty difficult grader, and while I did end up with an A in the class, I wouldn't recommend signing up for this class if you're just looking for an easy A.

Professor is great. Nice, reasonable, and good at teaching. Material is interesting as well. However, if you're looking for an easy A class this is not it. Class is actually quite hard, exams are graded harshly.

Interesting class about the heroic journey in Scandinavian oral tradition. The stories are actually engaging and the professor has a unique perspective of them. From what I've heard about other writing II classes, this class probably has the best readings.

Grade is determined by three essays, clicker quizzes every lecture, and participation in discussion. The final exam is the third essay which is due on the Monday of finals week and assigned two weeks prior.

The essay prompts are well defined and the TAs are usually quite helpful. I am pretty sure that their strategy is to grade kind of hard on the first essay and then ease up on the second and third one. Each essay is longer and worth more points than the previous one.

There are clicker quizzes on the readings in class every lecture. Very easy if you actually read, but nearly impossible if you did not. You can miss up to four lectures worth of quizzes and still get 100%.

Overall, I am very glad that I waited three years to get into this writing II class. Very worth it.

I took this class during the pandemic.
I mean it's pretty easy? It's definitely not a walk in the park, but you're not going to spend 4 hours every week just studying.
You get assigned readings that you have to read online before class that day. It's roughly like two days to do the reading. Some reading took me 1 1/2 hrs. Some readings took me 10 minutes. The course material itself is actually pretty interesting. I'd say like 4/5 readings were actually interesting.
You get participating by either speaking during class (even if you don't have the "right" answer, professor ball always tries to point out the correct things in your interpretation). You could also get your participation points by writing a reflection before class starts. You do quizzes everyday which is why you should attend lecture; the actual quizzes themselves were easy if you read the assignment.
Her lectures weren't the most entertaining. She just read off the slides and added her own ideas. In total. 25 minutes were spent on lecture, and 25 were spent on particpation and quizz.
Now, she had two midterms, and a final. This is where you get all of your points, really.
The course generally has a laid back and easy tone to it, but the tests weren't as easy. There were fill in the blanks about random historical facts she covered for about 1 minute. And honestly, these are Scandinavian names. You're not going to remember Brynhild or Vainamonin when the time comes to recall them. You're just going to think, "Yeah its that one old dude who sang... what was his name?? What reading was he in??" To be fair, you are allowed to use all class materials during the exams, but you don't have all time to be searching through every powerpoint. Also, there's a short answer response, and an short essay in every exam. You get like an hour to do all these three things.
I got a B in all of my exams and I did everything else 100% and still got a B+ so it's not EASY easy, but it's not hard either. I would still recommend this class. While the lectures weren't super interesting, the readings themselves were at times, and the class itself wasn't hard on a day to day basis. 7.9/10

EASY A. You need an iclicker though. I sell them second hand for half off. Text **********

KB is a great professor, and this is a super interesting course (as are most SCAND classes), but note that you will have to put effort into this class to get an A. This is the third class I've taken with her. Her exams are always 40 questions multiple choice, one free response, and one textual analysis. During COVID, each part is 10% of your total grade, making each exam 30% of your total grade. So essentially, your final grade relies solely on the exams and final paper.

This class is not intimidating or hard if you know how to take KB's exams. (And assuming you actually do the reading assignments.)

The multiple choice questions are all based on the lectures. She won't put something on there that wasn't talked about in class. The way I studied was re-watching all the lectures on 1.5x speed starting maybe 4-5 days before the exam, taking notes on the PowerPoint slides/what was discussed in class.

Speed is the name of the game for these exams. I recommend knowing the PowerPoints very well, as you will want to get done with the multiple choice portion ASAP. I usually would finish in <10 minutes--you just have to know your stuff, that way you have more time for the free response and textual analysis portion.

For the two written responses, you really just have to analyze the crap out of whatever is given. If it's a reasonable analysis, you will get points. Avoid plot summary and repetition. If you know your stuff her exams are extremely easy. You also are allowed to write in bullet point format which I suggest you do to save time. If you have time left over at the end of the exam, you probably aren't thinking hard enough. Analyze until time runs out. Think of something.

Overall, KB gives you all the tools you need to succeed in this class and all her other classes. Pay attention in lecture and heavily review the PowerPoints and you will be fine. We are always analyzing the material in class, so applying that to the exam should not be hard. Almost always, the written questions are about something we significantly talked about in class, so it's really just a matter of remembering that and maybe adding your own input/additional analysis.

Prof is awesome, but if you get a bad or unhelpful TA you get a bad grade. It's just a dice roll honestly. I felt like I got kind of unlucky because my TA didn't really give helpful feedback, even during office hours they seemed confused as to what they wanted me to do -- even then when I would do it, it still would somehow not be good enough for them. Like, they would deadass go back on their words in the WD, so it was hella misleading. Their grading sucked honestly and I had a lot of people in my class complain about their grades as well. I kind of was counting on this class for a GPA boost which sucks cuz it isn't unless you're super passionate about Scandanavian (which, like, come on -- that's so niche). It really should be, too -- its structure is ridiculously easy.

Lectures are fine but if you hate reading it will be kind of a drag. For me personally, I know I'm more of a writer -- I lowk hate reading and found the lectures uninteresting and disengaging, but it doesn't really matter since the lectures don't count towards your grade whatsoever, other than small points for participation / iClicker stuff.

I would recommend this class, but really make sure you hound your TA for what they want because if they're not clear, you will probably get graded like shite. Tho, again as I aforementioned, how hard or helpful your TA is a complete dice roll lmao seeing as they change every year. I feel like I would have enjoyed this class MUCH more if prof Ball was the one grading but c'est la vie.

Overall, I'd recommend this class, but your grade is honestly just luck of the draw -- if you take this class, you choose to gamble with the TA you get. Just hope you get lucky and don't have to fold.

Lectures: Professor Ball was a good and engaging lecturer. Sometimes, she would go a little fast, but because she records her lectures and posts the slides, it's not too bad. However, sometimes she forgets to record or there is an issue with the recording. Still, she mostly tests on concepts written down on her slides, so it's not too important if she misses a recording.
Tech: She doesn't allow technology (phones, iPads, etc), so you have to take handwritten notes. You also have to buy or rent a Clicker from the UCLA store. However, this is the only thing you need to buy because all of the texts are available online for free.
Quizzes: She gives an in class quiz every class that's answered through the Clicker. It's usually one question per class, and the questions are pretty easy-- as long as you did the readings, you'll be fine. You're also allowed to miss a few questions. The quizzes are mainly for attendance and to make sure you're doing the readings. If you get the question wrong, you don't get points for it though.
Participation: You need to participate 10 times for the quarter. You can talk during class or write a 350 word reading response. The reading response isn't graded on content, so as long as you write something original about the readings that's 350 words, you'll get the participation points.
Homework: The only homework are the readings and reading responses if you want participation points. The readings aren't that long usually, but they can be confusing sometimes. But, she goes over the readings in class, and you aren't required to understand everything about a text. I took notes on the readings, but they weren't that useful, so I don't think it's necessary.
Tests: The tests were 60 fill in the blank and 1 essay response in 50 minutes. There were 3 essay prompts, and you could pick the one you wanted to write about. She grades on content, not format, so you can write bullet points and don't have to write complete sentences. The prompts are all related to discussions we've had in class. She doesn't give feedback on the essay, so if you want to know why she gave you that grade or on how to get a better grade next exam, you'll have to visit her during office hours. The fill in the blank comes from the slides, so as long as you study the slides, relisten to the lectures, and take good lecture notes, you should be fine. Some of the fill in the blanks were easy (like character names), but some were more obscure (like filling in the blanks of quotes). But, they all came from the slides, and texts that weren't analyzed/ portions of the text that weren't analyzed in class weren't tested. The fill in the blank is rote memorization, so studying early/ not cramming is important.
Final: The final was a take home essay. There's no rubric (and again no feedback), but there are in depth instructions, and you can always ask her for clarification. If you did well on the essay portion of the exams, you should be fine.
Extra Credit: She gave 5 points extra credit for filling out the class evaluation.
Overall, I would take a class with Professor Ball again. She was a fair professor and a good lecturer.

Though I don't think this class was super easy, I really enjoyed it and I really like Professor KB. I think being interested in the material makes the class easier, so don't take this class if you have zero interest in fairytales/stories/reading. I actually learned a lot from this class and found KB's lectures informative. For the midterms, I recommend going through her slides and making flashcards about any information you could make a question out of. Also, it's much easier to raise your hand and get participation points in class rather than writing a writing response online. Finished with an A.

Do not take this class unless you love reading. The homework for every class consisted of reading a couple stories and so much happens in each one that it's impossible to remember by the midterm. Sure, the in person clicker questions are easy if you've done the homework, HOWEVER, the questions that are asked in the midterm and final are just crazy difficult. Just imagine trying to memorize the plots, characters, settings, languages, meanings, and symbolisms behind 30-40 different stories that are not even in ENGLISH. truly regret taking this class.