Loved having Tamar as a prof. she's very down to earth and knows how to engage the class. that being said, the class size is small and she does expect you to participate (attendance mandatory) so come to class prepared to engage in discussions. you have to read various chapters a very short e-textbook and write reflections on them as a weekly assignment. the big assignments are: two papers and one creative assignment. for every assignment, two thirds of the class meets with her in a one-on-one meeting for her feedback, and the other third shares their work out loud in class for the class' feedback. so expect to meet with her one-on-one at least once and to share you work with the class.

wish i could take this class again.

Highly recommend taking this class with Tamar! She really helps you write with a new perspective without making it boring and something you really don't want to do. Decent workload, very understanding teacher.

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.

Tamar was super nice and her classes were interesting. This comes from someone who hates writing. Her directions are clear and all you write are 2 essays. Just read the material she gives you, show up to class and you'll be fine.

Tamar Christensen is a very personable lecturer who you feel actually cares about you. The class assignments boil down to some reading, as well as two 6-8 page essays. There is NO busy work in the class...as everything you do is a direct contribution to the essays you'll turn in. You have to submit the essays, of course, but they're only actually due at the end of the quarter, as she has you submit rough drafts throughout the quarter, and gives one on one personalized feedback face to face.
The second "grammar b" essay was a bit harder for me, as it was focused on alternative multimedia, but overall I think Tamar actually made me a better writer.

Overall it's a fairly good class. If you put in the effort and work on your essays throughout the quarter, you should be on track for an A (I didn't do that hence the B+). Tamar is nice, but spends most of her time going on and on about stuff that doesn't really matter. It's a bummer that participation matters so much otherwise I would've skipped most of the lectures. Just listen for what she wants in your paper, and most importantly GIVE YOUR OPINION AND FEELINGS. She's not looking for a overview of your topic, but solely your feelings about it.

My least favorite part about this class is that she introduced a completely new style of writing (that she and her husband created) that you are expected to grasp within the first week or so. You then write your paper based on it and then bounce it off of your classmates, NOT her. You upload your assignments and she'll read them ofc, but you don't receive any direct feedback from her, just your classmates. This is super annoying because your classmates are also new to the concept so everyone's just guessing and making suggestions on how to fix your paper without knowing how to.

My advice would be to not overthink in this class and worry about your grade. She tells everyone that they are in the C-D range and then hands out good grades (assuming ofc you put the effort in). Attend class, listen to the important parts and ignore the rest, work on your paper regularly and you should be good.

Quick note that she makes you add two or three sources to your paper AFTER you're done writing it. She said we were done with our first paper in Week 5 and then in Week 8 reveals that you have to add sources to your first paper (keep in mind this is when midterms are going on and you are busy working on your second paper which is extremely time consuming). This is pretty much where I screwed up because I couldn't find the space to fit all of those sources in after I'd carefully cut down the word limit and finalized everything. Just a heads up because I know this will save someone lol

The overall class is solid and Tamar really cares about her students. You need to put in a decent amount of effort but nothing crazy. I figured early on that I was going to have to pass/fail this class because I was heading towards a B/B- which somewhat dictated the amount of effort I put in. However, if you do what she says and put in the correct amount of effort, you will see benefits to your writing. If you just want an easy A to get your Writing I requirement done then I suggest a different professor. Oh and try to write in favor of what she supports. Even though she says she is open to all perspectives, it will just make your life a lot easier to take her opinions on the various issues.