Professor Huneven is a terrific instructor! She is really sweet and honestly so freaking smart. Her special topics often change, but "reading like a writer", had a focus on reading short stories, with a very strong emphasis on "realistic" fiction, most of the stories happened to be about everyday life. That being said, the stories she picked were fire. 6/10 stories came from the New Yorker. She curated a very fun reading list, which had me falling in love with nearly every story. I felt by the end of the class I could identify the tangible things an author did to make me feel some type of way. The "textbook" How Fiction Works by James Wood is excellent too. I'm a sophomore and I found the class very useful in honing my close-reading skills (if you don't have the prereqs just ask Janel Munguia, she'll enroll you regardless). During the 10-minute class break, Professor Hunven would step outside, and on one occasion I saw her through the window squirrel watching and it was probably the most adorable thing I have ever witnessed. I only wish she spoke more in class and lectured on her own literary interpretations (class time was almost entirely student-led), but every time she did share with the class it was like the clouds had opened up and a ray of sheer genius would shower down upon the class. Those moments were magic. She's definitely worth your time!

Took Engl 179: Reading Like a Writer: A Short Story Intensive in Winter'22. Professor Huneven is an extremely sweet and understanding professor. We were given one short story each week to read 3 times and write a paragraph on our observations, feelings and analysis of the story with each read. The story was also dissected into different parts, and the class was split into groups to prepare group presentations for the part we were assigned every week. I personally enjoyed the short stories selected and found them really well chosen and curated. The workload was definitely manageable and the grading was fair, if not generous. Things I would have liked to see was more constructive criticism and feedback on our writing and perhaps more of the professor's own insight into the stories during class time (as most of the time spent in class was led by students with our group presentations). Overall, a really manageable and enjoyable class that I'd recommend taking.