I loved this class. As a south campus pure math major, I had a lot of anxiety about taking this class, but it turned out to be my favorite class of the quarter. there are 2 midterm essays that you can revise by the last day, and a final. The smaller essay prompts are very fun and spark creativity, and the writing workshops build strong community. He is very accessible and responds quickly to email. I had a wonderful time and would totally recomend!!! (I got the last spot when I enroll, it goes fast)

Professor Deuel is a great teacher and I definitely recommend taking ENGCOMP 3 with him. That being said, this is not an easy A. He expects you to do a ton of work each week and participate in class discussions.

If you want to improve your writing skills and overall communication ability, this is the class for you. Don't worry if your writing skills aren't the best, or if English isn't your first language. He gives final grades based on the overall effort he sees you putting in, so try to meet him after class once or twice at least. Even though my actual essay grades were high Bs, I got an A- since I showed improvement throughout the class and participated in class discussions. Basically, he needs to think that you're putting effort into the class.

Make sure you get started early on your midterms and final, and bounce your ideas off of him. At the end of the day, he assigns the grades so its important to consult him early on in the process.

Overall, I enjoyed this class despite being a South Campus major and would definitely take it again with him. He's also a really funny guy and has a book too!

The reviews here are all spot on. Great, tough class with very fair grading and a professor who does everything he can to help you learn. May have actually changed my life. This is the kind of $!@# you pay college tuition for.

Professor Deuel is the kind of person who will take time out to really get to know all his students. And not just names, he'll make notes about your progress, your anecdotes, your likes and dislikes, your history... he even has mandatory meet-ups to discuss progress, material and everything in between! Accordingly, he personalises some of the essay topics, to tailor well to each type of student. His workload is heavy and I recommend taking this class only if you can handle his strict deadlines and tough remarks. The book he recommends gets boring sometimes, but all that is secondary to the brilliant experience you gain by being around this professor. If you're an English buff or a writing pro, this is the one for you.
If not, this is the one for you too!
Trust me, it'll be worth it.

Selling Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology by David L. Ulin for $16.

For more information, text **********

I really appreciated Nathan's commitment. He is constantly available and the small class size is fantastic. Professor Deuel went on to write a letter of recommendation for me which he had no need to do, so I greatly appreciate it. He is clear, well-spoken, and a great instructor. He is also incredibly helpful and gives meaningful feedback. I would recommend him to absolutely anyone who needs to fulfill the writing requirement. Additionally, the material he uses is engaging and interesting. While there is a relatively hefty amount of work to do for the course, it all is relevant and helps you to learn and engage with the topics of the class.

Nathan is a great guy and I highly recommend him for English Comp 3.

If Professor Deuel is available, take it with him. The class setting is so intimate and professor is so generous in grading. There is a fair amount of writing but trust me, you actually learn in the class. 11/10 professor.

If you’re like me and English is not your strong suit, I highly recommend Professor Deuel’s class! His class focused primarily on creative writing and helped me to break out of the mould of writing regimented high-school style essays. Be ready to put in a lot of work for the class, however. Basically, every assignment in the class revolves around writing, but by the end of the class your writing skills will certainly improve. Furthermore, effort is what really counts in the class, so BS-ing your assignments will not fly.

Readings: Every week he assigns a few short stories/essays from the Writing Los Angeles anthology book. They were only about 5-6 pages in length apiece. Personally, I found them hit or miss – sometimes the readings would be very interesting and other times they’d be quite bland. He wants you to also write a reading journal (about a page in length, single-spaced) documenting your thoughts after reading the piece. He reads them but not in detail, so I just wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style, recording my opinions to use in the class discussion.

Mini Essays: On Thursdays he’ll assign a mini-essay which would be due the following morning. You’ll basically have the afternoon and evening of a single day to hash out a personal essay (also one-page single-spaced). Most weeks the prompt was interesting. On Friday, he would select five student essays for peer review. We would read them over the weekend and write a paragraph response to each one, detailing our thoughts on word choice, writing styles, etc.

Midterm Essay: The first midterm essay was tough – it was the most “academic” of all the essays if you consider it in the context of a high school paper. You had to write about one of the readings from the first four weeks in three pages or less, double-spaced. He graded pretty harshly; I got a C on it, which was disappointing because I actually thought my essay was pretty good. He gives you detailed feedback on where you went wrong and how you can improve on the next essay though. You can take this information and rewrite your midterm essays if you want, and you have up until the last day of class to resubmit. The second midterm essay was easier because it was more open-ended and I knew what he was looking for – this one was five pages and you have to find a recent news article that pertains to the class reading that you selected to write about.

Final Essay: 10-12 pages, which seems like a lot, but if you start drafting a few weeks before the deadline (around week 7-8) you shouldn’t have any issues finishing. This was the most open-ended of all the essays, so you could literally write about whatever you want as long as it had something to do with one of the readings. I should mention that while he does assign grades to your papers, there are no “points” in the class, so your final grade could be higher than you expected.

TAKE HIM! This is the only professor at UCLA that will actually care for you and your grade. His weekly readings are very short and interesting. The class consisted of weekly readings which were short and a one page journal writing about it. We had one mini essay a week about fun topics, for example "Judge Someone", you can literally write about anything, he is not like those annoying professors that make you write with a tedious rubric. Once everyone submitted their mini essay you would write a one page feedback (very easy). Final and midterms, you were free to use the readings he gave to you which were VERY easy to talk about. During his class, we mostly interacted with one another, I thought I would hate it at first but then I really liked it. Very fun and engaging professor! He honestly, truly cares about his students and always happy to help you! Lastly, he responds to his email very quickly! DON'T THINK TWICE, TAKE HIMMM!