This class was pretty easy for me and reading about history is not my thing. We had to do I think two papers, a group project, and weekly short writing assignments. All of them are pretty easy and the readings are not hard to follow. The TAs are really nice and flexible (attending office hours is encouraged). The tests were also easy. It was mostly memorization I believe. The professor tells you what is going to be on the final and gives “review terms/questions” for you to make your own study guide. The group project is the most challenging task of the whole course since you come up with a writing system with 3 other people.

I really enjoyed this class. I had no idea about the history of writing, and Professor Smoak really changed my view of language. This class relies heavily on memorization, there isn't a ton of material to memorize, but some terms are unfamiliar and could easily be confused. The book is worth the buy and very well written, although sometimes he did post the readings online. Martin was my TA, and he was so incredibly helpful and knowledgable. There is a group project where you invent your own writing system, which requires a fair amount of creativity and effort, but its pretty fun. Tests were simple, just memorize slide information and terms.

For some reason, people like Professor Smoak.
I found the content boring and stuff and I guess Professor Smoak was nice-ish. BUT you should know about this annoying thing he did: he didn't post slides for some lectures. Our TA said it was because some people skipped. I never skipped but obviously it still affected me. I mean. It would be nice to tell us before you start lecture that you don't plan to post the slides, and maybe keep them up for long enough for us to copy everything.
A review under Asian M20 complained about the workload, but I kind of disagree. The work is a lot, but it isn't difficult so it ends up taking just a little of your time. I literally finished the final paper in a day
(with several breaks). The group project has the potential to be fun, unless you strongly dislike your group members (like I did). But you should try your best because you WANT to win that competition.
Also, if any TA or the professor tells you that you don't need to memorize dates, don't fall for that. Learn all your dates.