I am leaving this review because I always think about this class. I never liked The Canterbury Tales before this class and I don’t honestly see more value to it now, but I did enjoy reading them because of this class. Fisher is very helpful when it comes to comprehension and advanced analysis instead of focusing on the racism and sexism that is present. He doesn’t dismiss the racism and sexism, ut encourages us to work more with the language and what it does for the story and the audience, which is much more interested.

There are frequent quizzes and the discussions are interactive so you want to have a fairly good handle of each assigned tale before class. His office hours are helpful.

Overall a challenging class but I would take it again it I had to take something with something as difficult for me to engage with as CT.

I personally did not enjoy this course whatsoever. In fact, I came into this class with the hopes of becoming an English minor, but unfortunately, I had to change the grading to P/NP to conserve my GPA. After all, this is a lower-division course.
Indeed, the majority of these reviews hit the nail on the head. Fisher is a seemingly charming and charismatic professor and he is a good lecturer (despite the sleepy material we covered in class). However, he does speak rather quickly, and I often found that my notes were rushed because I wanted to jot down as much as possible. I would avoid doing this -- you don't need to know much of the historical context for any of the pieces.
Specifically, though, I took issue with the graded essays in this course. While I would consider myself a solid writer, having good grades in my Professional Writing courses, my TA in Eng 10A consistently graded me harshly. For instance, I received a C+ on my first paper, despite going to Office Hours and discussing the content and thesis statement with my TA. What also puzzled me was that there was minimal justification for my grade. When several of the students complained about the needlessly harsh grading and suggested bringing it up at Office Hours, Fisher had the audacity to state that this might result in a lower grade. He said, verbatim, that he might look over our papers and decide our TAs were overly generous in grading. As a result, he reserved the right to lower the grade.
Finally, for the second paper, I decided to seek out my TA with more notice to discuss my paper. She glanced over my paper and told me that this would be an interesting topic and that it seemed well-written. However, she then proceeded to take three to four weeks to actually grade it. Unfortunately, because of how long the grading for this paper took, we ended the quarter without knowing our grades for the paper. After reaching out several times to my TA requesting my grade, I learned that I had received a B-. Again, there was minimal justification for the grade. At this point, I was beyond frustrated.
In sum, I think the reviewers are right. Fisher and his TAs are looking for a specific writing style, and if you're unlucky like me, you'll likely receive crappy grades regardless of how much effort you put in. Unless you're an English major/minor, I would avoid this course.

Each class, you will read one of the Canterbury Tales and discuss. There was the translation project and the midterm essay that took place around the middle of the quarter, with the translation project a nearly guaranteed A, and the midterm essay much harder. Apparently the skew of grades for the essay was mostly Bs, so it is not a walk in the park exactly. The readings are quite long and close reading skills are very necessary as both the midterm and the final essay are entirely comprised of close reading analysis and one is 4-5 and the other is 8-10 pages long. Office hours are perhaps necessary to succeed at least to bounce ideas off the professor who will give you a good idea if you're headed in the right direction. That being said there is a lot of creative freedom with the essays if you're into that sort of thing.

Lectures are fun and funny and Professor Fisher is engaging!

Professor Fisher is extremely clear and coherent when he gives his lectures. He was NEVER boring. He is incredibly articulate but can also never entirely cover the readings assigned the class before. If he ends up grading your paper...you're pretty much doomed. He is extremely understanding and patient with your questions and concerns when you go into his office hours, but if you ask him a question in lecture, he may come off as kind of arrogant or condescending (but it also just depends on what kind of mood he is in). My one tip however is to READ THE TEXTS. ALL OF THEM.

Fisher is an amazing lecturer, each class was a new depth in understanding the content. Fisher can sometimes come off as harsh, especially in regards to paper grading and feedback, but he overall is just trying to make you the best writer/analyzer possible. He is also extremely helpful in office hours, and he appreciates you coming in so go on in if you fell you need help. I truly loved this class, it gave me a new way to look at texts, increased my idea of depth.

"Men have breasts" — Professor Fisher

I could not speak of Professor Fisher more highly. He is by far the best professor I have ever had at UCLA. He is passionate about what he teaches, and his lectures are engaging and charismatic. He has a deep understanding of the texts he teaches, and presents fascinating and nuanced ideas about the texts in each lecture. The workload and reading is very reasonable. My only complaint would be that if he does grade one of your papers, instead of your TA, he is an extremely harsh grader. Other than that, I recommend him to the highest degree.