Professor: Shorter really is an interesting person. Although he can seem one sided at times, Shorter genuinely cares about his students and makes himself relatively available, whether he responds to your email as thoroughly as possible or actually engages with you in his office hours. Though Shorter does remember faces and names so if you are dozing off in his class, which he understands from time to time or your that kid that sits in the back with nothing to contribute, Shorter will focus less time on you when you seek his help (which is understandable, he would rather go the extra mile for someone who actually is doing the work).

Work: Shorter assigns reasonable to large amounts of readings. Honestly, you are going to love some, you are going to be "eh" about some and then there are going yo be ones you just want to get over! Again, Shorter does understand this but he wants you to at least try and think what the assigned readings are trying to make you think about.

Lectures: About two hours long. Very interesting if you finished your readings. Try to take a nap or eat something before you go because the lectures tend to make you feel tired because Shorter dives deep into the material and will continue on with his agenda, respectfully, and keeping up with the Lecture can be exhausting. Note: There are no lecture slides posted online.

TA's: For Winter 2012 my TA was Peter Haffner and he was a really chill dude who has worked with Shorter before and knows that this class can come as a shock to some students and will work with you in class and out to help you get the grade you want.

Exams and essays: In-class midterm and final. Not simple regurgitating exams. Shorter advises you to use key terms that he has EMPHASIZED extensively throughout lectures. These exams have no surprises and Shorter and the TA's are not sneaky about grading. With that said, GRAMMAR GRAMMAR GRAMMAR!!!!!!!!! I cannot emphasize how much this can either boost your grade or bring down all your hard work.

Great class! Would highly recommend this class to all my friends.

On paper, this class is a lot. With discussion sections twice a week plus 2 hour lectures twice a week, you physically are contributing a lot of time to this class. Attendance was taken, allowing for up to 4 total missed classes for full attendance credit (when you miss more than 4, then points start being deducted). Going into this class I dreaded the mandatory attendance, but surprisingly the 2 hour lectures passed by really quickly (contrary to some of my STEM classes) since they were genuinely interesting, and discussion sections were really helpful for the papers. Given this is Writing II class, we honestly did not do much writing. Professor Shorter ended up removing the 2nd paper (author analysis) from the syllabus, so we only had to write a 3-4 page short analysis and a 7-8 page final paper. Additionally, any assignments starting from around Week 5-6ish were dedicated to the final paper, which were mostly graded on completion (included a peer review), so writing the final paper was not bad at all (as we were working on it for a long time). The writing is formulaic in that it follows the College Rule - if you follow these guidelines, it is easy to get an A - Shorter really places an emphasis on learning and discussion during class versus the actual writing and assignments due. While I'm sure there are other easier Writing II classes (this class has a ton of reading, I stopped doing them towards the end but he does do pop quizzes on them), Professor Shorter makes this a genuinely engaging class that I looked forward to despite the mandatory attendance. He gives some really interesting perspectives on aliens, psychics, and ghosts that I found intriguing.

WAC 33 is a very challenging but rewarding class. This was my first WAC class, and I didn't expect it to be as great as it was! I wish I took it earlier in my undergrad career, because it improved my critical thinking skills and my writing by a lot! If you have the opportunity to take this class, you definitely need to sign up for it! David is an awesome professor; he's funny, entertaining, sarcastic, etc.). I always looked forward to going to class. Also if you need the course materials, I'm selling the course reader and the two required novels. Please email me at *************

I'm a first year this year, and I took WAC33 my winter quarter 2013. I spent all of my time going to the TA sections, which were helpful when writing papers. Despite his strict writing requirements, it really does make the paper sound better in the final product. He's one of those professors who will recognize your hard work, and give you the grade that you work for. There are a lot of readings, but it all comes together and makes a lot of sense. You must have an open mind about religion and culture. I read a post saying, that this was a hard class but worth it in the end, and I could not agree more, which is why I decided to leave a comment about Shorter. The TAs are nice, he is a good lecturer, but I never really spoke to him in person for longer than a few minutes. He replies to e-mails. He's am intelligent man in his fieldwork of indigenous groups. Be prepared for the two papers. He has EC opportunities!!! And he lets you re-write the first paper, the Gill paper. On my first paper I got a -1.5/20 all because of "grammatical" errors. Then, a 3/20. Then on my last rewrite I got 18/20. It's worth it though. And the final paper, I got a 25/25. Ended up with an A+. If you can write, or like to, and want to delve into cultural differences, self-reflection, and meditate at the beginning of class, etc. Take the class. Your writing will improve, even if you think you're a stellar writer... If you have questions or seek advice on the writing style, email me at *************.

As one of the few nonmajors in the class, I can say it was overall worth it. I took this class as one of my last few GEs and it was a pretty good one to take. Perhaps because I have taken classes where colonialism was the main topic prior I found much of the information pretty engaging and easy to follow. I stopped doing the readings completely after week four, but perhaps I would have had an easier time finishing my final essay and engaging in class conversation if I had continued them.

Attendance is required and 30 percent of your grade but you get up to five absences (barring if you have COVID) without needing any sort of excuse without it affecting your grade. We had three writing assignments, two letters, and one final essay. We worked up to our final essay throughout the class which was really helpful in alleviating a bit of the stress during finals week (I still barely slept to finish my essay in time tho lol).

There wasn't any homework in the traditional sense apart from the readings which we would pick apart in class. One thing I really liked was how the class had conversations that would sometimes go past the readings and really delve into one's own experience-- which was nice for me to step away from the STEM world a bit.

Overall, if you take this class the only thing that's really a bit annoying is the college rule, but tbh if you hit your essay with the CTRL+F at the end you should be able to catch all of the errors. Would recommend!

I enjoyed this class, though people who meet him either love or hate his teaching style. He's a friendly and helpful professor if you attend his office hours. His teaching style prepares you for academic writing and makes every other paper after his class seem easy work.

He makes all the class materials free and accessible to students, which is very nice.

Incredibly arrogant and hateful of students; This professor uses fear tactics to call on students; I don't know why he is a faculty member considering how much he hates students; On the first day of class, he gave a whole speech of how he doesn't care if students don't come prepared to class or do the reading and yet he'll scold the students who try to leave (I thought he didn't care); He is a a very unusual WAC professor because most WAC professors are nice and enjoys interacting with students, he does not.

The title of Prof. Shorter's fiat lux is "Aliens and Ghosts." It seemed like more work than a 1-unit class is worth (there were two books to read, and something like 4-5 papers to write), but overall it wasn't too bad. I really enjoyed the material and always looked forward to his lectures. In class, he got to know everybody's name, brought his dog to class, and often gave us food. Though he made it relaxing to be in class, he made us think. Like other people have posted, his lecture style seems condescending at first, but that's just because he's making you think twice about what you're saying. He's open to all beliefs and doesn't try to change your mind about anything through his class.