If you are sensitive / easily offended and can't take a joke, also if you aren't honestly interested in the subject, then avoid at all costs. But if you want to learn, and if you get a kick out of sarcasm and puns, I would HANDS DOWN recommend Colacurcio.

Some students will love him and others will hate him, a point made obvious from the other reviews. But if you are like me you'll find his lectures great fun. Who would have thought the Puritans and The Scarlet Letter would be so interesting??? Not me prior to this class.

Others have commented that you can get away without doing the reading and still learn a lot; I would agree, but would add that you will get WAY more out of the class if you do the readings. It can seem like a lot at first but not unmanageable (even with a schedule of time-consuming science classes etc like I had at the time), and if you have an interest in American literature (which you hopefully do, otherwise be warned you will not like this class) you'll want to read everything anyway. Colacurcio can appear gruff and a little intimidating, he is old-school for sure, but he is very very smart and knowledgable about his subject, and not at all scary once you get used to him. He is an easy grader if you pay attention; we wrote paragraphs every class and mine were an embarrassing mess from beginning to end; but I did fine anyways. We had to write four long papers; mid-term and final were IDs, not hard. He is lax re: deadlines and gave us extra time past finals week to complete the final and last paper which was unbelievably helpful. Overall, I learned SO much from this professor and would highly recommend him :)

Prof. Colacurcio provides one of the most refreshing class experiences you can take at UCLA. If you love an active learning experience led by a prof who clearly cares about his students and materials, and can handle a joke or two (severe understatement), this is definitely the class for you.

I'll admit that at first the material seemed daunting and frankly - quite boring - but who knew that the Puritans had such great ability to jest and call everyone around them in their epoch absolute idiots? I wouldn't, if not for this prof, who was at least 70% responsible for the enjoyment I derived from this course.

While reading this page, I've seen people say that you can get away without doing the readings - which I don't really agree with, as the course reader was the keystone to basically everything I wrote for this class. It does seem like A LOT of material, which it is, which is why I highly recommend using the INTERNET - if you don't understand a text, google it, chances are that someone has explored exactly this topic in an old JSTOR PDF... and done a beautiful job of analysing it.

Prof. Colacurcio is finally one of the most understanding profs I've met, and is super accommodating in terms of deadlines. I'll say the best thing you can do for yourself in this class is to GO TO OFFICE HOURS, and talk to him. You WILL get amazing info about the texts, and be proposed great snacks (not kidding). As a stem student who regularly takes 19+ unit quarters, I can say that office hours are what made this class pass well for me, and if I were to take it again, I'd start attending them from the get go.

Hope this helps!