I have PTSD from this class. This entry-level writing class was harder than my chemistry and Life Science classes combined and filled with pointless work. Tamar is rude, passive-aggressive, and pretends to be helpful when really she isn't. Unbelievable amount of work, unnecessary printing, and overall an awful experience. I left this class in tears on multiple occasions. Would rather go back to high school than experience this torture again. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HER I AM BEGGING.

I would avoid this class. Her policies for attendance are ridiculous. If you are absent your grade gets marked down by half of a grade and 2 targets equal one absent. Harsh but even if you are there, she will give you an absence for not doing the homework or not doing it up to her standards. Now that is unfair! Most people in the class got an absence for not annotating enough in her opinion. The class is graded like this 75% is two essays and the other 25 %. is participation. This is how the participation is graded according to the syllabus “To get an “A” in participation, you must do more than is required. Therefore, simply being present, responding when called upon, actively participating in class and small group discussions, turning in all assignments on time, and coming to all conferences fully prepared and on time are not above and beyond elements of participation. Rather, those who earn an “A” in participation do all of this thoughtfully and deliberately, just as they do in writing.” you don't get any feedback on your participation grade, it seems very subjective. I felt like we had a lot of time to do the first one she assigned the prompt around week 3 but for the second she assigned it around week 8 and when people were asking if they would have zoom office hours she was telling them we had all quarter ???? like how the hell is 2 weeks all quarter? For homework, annotations are called they say I say and another is one she wrote called on your perspective. The class is 2 hours, with no breaks, very passive-aggressive wouldn't take this class unless you have two. She does have a required meeting where she goes over your essay and gives it a little Pregrađe and gives advice so you can fix it up before you turn in final essays.

Tamar is a kind and welcoming professor. She wanted me to learn and progress in my writing throughout the course. I can say that I feel that my writing has significantly improved under the guidance of Tamar. The workload was heavy at first and I would spend a large amount of my time working to complete it before it was due. I know there is probably no way to better space out the homework but I will say it was difficult at times. The writing projects were actually very interesting and I enjoyed the fact that we only had to write and improve 2 papers instead of writing 4 or 5 lengthy papers. Tamar did introduce kind of a whole new style of writing which stressed me out in the beginning but slightly became less overwhelming as the course progressed. Tamar is also pretty strict, but students need to realize that this is college and you should not skip class or not complete an assignment. If you did skip her class more than 2 times or did not do the work, you would be asked to drop the course. Overall, I enjoyed this class and had a good time getting to know Tamar and my fellow classmates.

Tamar is a kind and welcoming professor. She wanted me to learn and progress in my writing throughout the course. I can say that I feel that my writing has significantly improved under the guidance of Tamar. The workload was heavy at first and I would spend a large amount of my time working to complete it before it was due. I know there is probably no way to better space out the homework but I will say it was difficult at times. The writing projects were actually very interesting and I enjoyed the fact that we only had to write and improve 2 papers instead of writing 4 or 5 lengthy papers. Tamar did introduce kind of a whole new style of writing which stressed me out in the beginning but slightly became less overwhelming as the course progressed. Tamar is also pretty strict, but students need to realize that this is college and you should not skip class or not complete an assignment. If you did skip her class more than 2 times or did not do the work, you would be asked to drop the course. Overall, I enjoyed this class and had a good time getting to know Tamar and my fellow classmates.

This course is a requirement for many students and is just a pain to take. There is a lot of reading and annotating which has to be done on hard copy, requiring many visits to the printer for seemingly no reason. Grades are based on two large papers and participation and you don't even receive a breakdown of your scores at the end of the course to see what impacted your grade. The attendance policies are somewhat ridiculous in the sense that if you miss 2 classes in the entire quarter she will push you to drop the class, even if you are sick. Overall was not a great experience and I would have really expected better from my first class I took at UCLA.

Ight buckle up yall cuz I'm boutta give you the ultimate breakdown to this class. First I would like to say that if you do not want 2 essays to be worth 80% of your grade or if you are not a huge climate change activist, just drop it right now. Also class is mandatory as participation is the other 20% of your grade and if you skip more than 2 classes you have to drop. Our class had a person who got so sick that he couldnt come to class and had a doctors note but was forced to drop because he didnt finish the 1st draft of his essay. (Rip Will) Honorable mention to Anthony though thank you for carrying our class.
First day of class you have to watch a climate change documentary from a list she gives you. Dont take the easy way out like me and choose the shortest one because it will bite you in the ass. Over the first 5 weeks you will write what is quite possibly the stupidest 6 page essay your hands have ever produced. In addition to the essay, you will also be printing and annotating Tamar's textbook which she will remind you hundreds of times that she wrote and write a one pager every day before class. So be ready to print a lot of pages, which to me just doesn't make sense because Tamar is the biggest zero waste activist ever.
Now back to the first essay, you have to write a 6 page essay 1500 words on how your documentary relates to climate change, how you relate to the documentary, and how you relate to helping climate change. See this is where you being a huge climate change activist becomes important because if you're not one (like me) you will have the hardest time completing the third part of the essay. You also have to follow Tamar's AXES which stands for Assertion, example, explanation, and significance. This 4 letter acronym is all Tamar is looking for when reading your essay so you better have that shit clearly evident when you submit it. Tamar also wants to see the word "I" in your essay because she thinks we should have our own opinions on the sources we cite as well as the documentary. This is the other big thing Tamar is looking for and frankly the only thing her textbook talks about, which is ironically called Own Your Perspective and may i remind you she wrote it, just in case you forgot that :). When you start creating your drafts, your peers in the class will read it and give you their feedback until you submit a full draft to Tamar which is when she will have a 20 minute conference call with you talking about what you can do to improve it as well as the grade it would receive right now. (This call happens week 6 so there is no class this week or week 8 because of the second essay.) For the rest of this quarter you can fix up the essay and if you want more tips go to her office hours.
Now onto the second essay. This essay in my opinion was much easier because it is a personal essay where you write about an experience you had in your past or "something that has been taking up your mind recently" but dont be fooled because this essay is everything but normal, it is grammar B. Its not a basic paragraph formatted essay but instead you write your message in the form of labrinyth sentences (which is just one fat sentence that takes up an entire page) or crots (which are one word sentences that your brain thinks in) or repetition or multi genre ideas (emails, letters, diaries stuff like that). This essay has to also be 6 fully developed pages. The peer review and everything is the same as the first essay and week 8 is your conference week so you dont have class then.
Lastly you write a 3 page process memo that is credit no credit and submit all 3 papers week 9. She does not break down your final grade by the way, you just know the letter.
In conclusion, (Tamar hates that phrase btw dont use it and also hates 5 paragraph essays, which is how I wrote this review just to show how much i hated this class :) ) I would not take this class and would rather pick a different professor, not randy tho thats her husband so same shit, or take the class a different quarter.

I really wanted to love this class. Tamar is really nice, funny, and very engaging, but her expectations for this class were really unrealistic. She has an interesting grading scheme, where you have to do different amounts of work, and while the expectations for a C and maybe even a B might correspond with the amount of time and work should be assigned for a 5 unit class, the amount of time required to get an A in this class is completely unrealistic. The premise of this class seems super interesting, but unless you are good with a lower grade, taking it P/NP, or have a ton of free time, I would not recommend taking it. I know that writing 2 classes tend to be quite challenging and time consuming, but with this heavy of a work load this class should at least be 6 or 7 units. I really this class had been structured differently because Tamar really was an incredible professor and I really enjoyed learning from her.

She is a really tough teacher and requires a lot of writing but she gives great insight. If you don't mind putting in the work then she really helps improve your writing! Her classes can be really tedious sometimes as they can get boring. She requires a lot of printing of rough drafts so be aware of that!

I don't know how there are good ratings for this professor, I took her class winter 2017 and I cant emphasize this enough, this class is useless. You'll be made to write 'alternate form' essays which are basically 3rd grade essays but you'll have to spend 10+ hours just designing your essay instead of writing it. If you want to spend countless hours wasting time writing stuff which wont help you in your college career, then you should definitely take this class.

Tamar is an amazing professor! She is super friendly and tries to keep the atmosphere casual. In my opinion, she is really concerned about your class and will try her best to help you with your doubts.
The coursework itself is easy and you just have to write 3 compositions based on any movie, song, advertisement, etc. The best part is that all 3 compositions are due on the last day of class and she helps you with the editing from a 3-page draft to a 6-page final essay. Another cool thing about her class is this special type of composition called "grammar-b" which allows you to be very creative and artistic with your thoughts.
Tip if you take her class: Change a lot of things from your 3-page to the 6-page essay and make noticeable improvements including everything she asks you to do during your one-on-one session with her. She can easily tell who put how much effort in class and will keep that mind while giving the final grades.