I did not expect to enjoy or do well in this class because medieval literature is very challenging for me but Professor Fisher understands how students feel about this kind of material and makes things manageable and engaging. This was after a year online and he was very understanding about that as well. There was a creative project which was fun to do and helped with the understanding of the material, and then essays which were fairly graded. When you have to take a medieval literature class, I recommend taking it with Fisher.

The previous Bruinwalk reviews made me nervous to take this class, and for the most part I found them accurate. Fisher is an engaging and often funny lecturer (he no longer holds a coffee cup), and he is approachable in office hours. The final exam and Middle English quiz are also straightforward; they are really not trying to trick you. However, the TAs are much more lenient with grading than Fisher; if he happens to grade your paper, he will most likely give it a C. I'm not sure what you can do to avoid this; I went to my TA's and Fisher's office hours before every assignment to talk about my ideas before I started writing, but I also suspect my TA graded my papers. Discussions were very short (50 mins) and we mostly practiced writing specific parts of an essay (introduction, body paragraph, conclusion) in groups. In terms of specific assignments, the Gallery Project consists of finding and presenting objects related to one text (it's basically making a museum exhibit on Google Slides). The grade distribution was: first paper (4 pages): 20%, Middle English Quiz: 5%, second paper (5-6 pages): 25%, Gallery Assignment: 15%, final: 15%, weekly Reading Responses (short paragraphs): 5%, and discussion participation: 15%. The final had 3 parts: identification, where you were given about 10 quotes and had to identify 3 Old English and 3 Renaissance quotes with the name, author, year published, and significance of the quote; a close reading essay (you are given a passage from one of the texts); and a long essay where you choose between two prompts about broad themes that Fisher has discussed throughout the quarter and use 3 texts to answer it, one of which must be Paradise Lost. KEEP UP WITH THE READINGS! It will benefit you greatly for the identification part of the final, and the long books of Paradise Lost do unfortunately occur in the last week before finals. Overall, this class required the most work simply in terms of the volume of texts we had to read (note: you do not have to absorb much of History of the Holy War or other strictly historical texts; for those Fisher often spent most of lecture going over historical context rather than the actual text). Personally, English literature to 1700 was not my favorite topic as an English major, but in hindsight I'm glad that I read some of the texts, and it helped me understand that people before 1700 were also just people. Seek out help from your TA and Fisher for the papers, and make friends in your discussion.

I wasn't crazy about the readings for this class, but there are very few people who actually like literature from this era. Professor Fisher is one of those few. His lectures are engaging and he's funny, but I agree with the comments calling him pretentious. I personally can't stand when professors are annoyingly condescending all the time so I avoided going to his office hours (although I know others who did had positive experiences with him one-on-one) and just went through my TA. He is definitely a harsh grader, so if you have one of your essays graded by him instead of your TA, good luck preparing for the final. The Middle English quiz was easy, but it counts for so little of your grade that it hardly even matters. The final was the most stressful three hours of my life. I'm glad I passed this class but it definitely tanked my GPA. If you can avoid taking this class with Fisher, do it. But if not, good luck.

Professor Fisher is a tremendous addition to the UCLA English Department's staff. He is really outgoing and it makes studying Medieval Literature a lot more enjoyable. I really appreciated the fact that this class was research based so it allowed students to come up with their own takeaways from the readings, research some topics about it, and learn about some interesting trends from the Medieval Era in the process. Overall, the class is hard because it is Middle English and it is Chaucer. However, I seriously have no regrets taking this class. I have gained an appreciation for Medieval Literature from it and Professor Fisher is incredibly passionate about the subject. On top of the fact that he is also funny, he is very understanding and genuinely wants to see his students succeed. If you need to take your Medieval Literature requirement, don't hesitate to take it with Professor Fisher. It won't be an unbearable 10 weeks, it will actually be enjoyable, and Professor Fisher really brings great energy to the class environment despite it being a more "difficult" course.

I absolutely hated this class and would not recommend it. This class had one six-page paper (with a minimum of ten sources), a weekly discussion post (all the way into finals week), a presentation, and another seventeen to twenty-page paper (min: fifteen sources) that was overall hell, along with long readings + supplemental readings almost weekly. You could tell the professor was passionate about his field but he was not good or experienced at working/teaching undergrads and was probably used to dealing with more experienced graduation students judging by the amount of coursework he assigned to us and little to no instruction. The classes hardly discussed readings and were more focused on him empathizing with us and the difficulty of research rather than actually focusing on class topics or instruction. And when he did focus on readings it addressed the eccentricity of it, and I failed to see how it might relate to class.

Assignments were increasingly frustrating and by the end, my classmates and I were frustrated and mentally done with the content and instruction of the class. He explained he was purposefully vague with all his instructions but this made papers and presentations frustrating and I often struggled to see how assigned readings were related at all to the class topic. Unfortunately, while the professor was passionate and showed empathy it was ultimately canceled out by the amount of coursework, difficulty of topics/assignments and lack of instruction he failed to give us.

So overall I would advise dodging this class if you can.

Professor Fisher is clearly very well read and knowledgeable about medieval literature. Unfortunately, his mastery over the course content and our readings did little to aid in student learning and success. Overall, my experience in this class was very negative. In what I understand to be a reactionary response to the threat of AI use on written assignments, our grade in this class is primarily determined by our performance on four in-class writing assignments. These assignments have all been extemporaneous close reading responses to either texts that were provided beforehand and questions revealed the day of the exam, or passages from our readings that were provided at the time of the exam. Because these were in-class essays, we had a time constraint of either the regular duration of our lecture or the regular duration of our section (1 hour and 15 minutes or 50 minutes respectively). Our final is in the same format, with the only difference being that we will have slightly more time to complete the assessment. I personally do not feel that it is reasonable or fair to penalize English students out of fear for their theoretical use of AI. Realistically, the majority of English majors value writing for its own sake and are less likely than students in any other discipline to use AI to write on their behalf. In addition to this, writing a paper in response to a text is a process meant to take time and careful thought. A literary response in essay format traditionally requires multiple revisions across at least several days, which is inherently at odds with the format of this class. Perhaps one or two supplemental in-class writing assignments would have been appropriate, but it felt extremely unreasonable to base all of our grade on them.

Giving students no other opportunity to express themselves within the class was a detriment to everyone, including students who performed well within the aforementioned criteria. I performed significantly better than many of my peers on these assessments. However, the highest grades I received were on responses where I selected words from the passages almost at random and generated speculative arguments about what they might mean for the text. Professor Fisher’s definition of “close reading” is extremely narrow and particular to his personal preference. We were instructed to keep our readings “as close as possible” to this standard and were specifically penalized for using quotes longer than one or two words in our responses. This obviously places a significant limitation on the scope of a student’s analysis. Although I was rewarded for my work with higher grades, I did not feel as though I was rewarded by the work at all—there was no real analysis of the text, certainly not with any care or faithfulness to the work or the author’s intentions. It is easy to creatively pull a single word out of a passage and argue that it in some way relates to a larger theme that you are aware of exists within the text. This, I would argue, is not a true literary interpretation fit for a core English class within the canon, and produces, at best, a very superficial analysis, and at worst, an entirely fabricated one.

I am personally very concerned about AI reliance in academic spaces, and in particular the threat that it presents to the humanities’ integrity. However, my concern is rooted in the fact that the introduction of artificial intelligence to academia is a perpetuation of a long-standing trend towards prioritizing the material products of education over the intrinsic value of learning itself. I would argue that eliminating one of the core aspects of a traditional English education and replacing it with impromptu, timed assignments inadvertently rewards students for their ability to generate an idea and produce a product quickly, rather than their ability to interact deeply with a text. This stifles student expression in the same way AI does and only contributes to the growing homogeneity of academic writing.

The multiple ways in which I felt that this class constrained and demanded uniformity of thought and expression from students was more alarming to me than any AI response I have ever read. Putting such constraints on English students poses a far more imminent threat than the use of AI, which is only one of many ways in which a student is capable of robbing themselves of their own education. It seems as though the faculty is concerned with AI use specifically out of fear of rewarding students who use AI with passing grades, which only reinforces the idea that the material product of our education is what matters most. If Professor Fisher was actually concerned with the education of his students, he would put his time and energy into educating his students. I appreciate the effort to ensure academic integrity, and can understand the reasoning behind the recent reforms made to the structure of this class, but I believe that an effective curriculum should invite the range of skill required to be successful and participate in English academia. I feel that at both the classroom and institutional levels, this type of fear-based, poorly thought out solution is entirely counterproductive and discourages students from freely engaging with either the material or their ideas.

I personally did not enjoy this course whatsoever. In fact, I came into this class with the hopes of becoming an English minor, but unfortunately, I had to change the grading to P/NP to conserve my GPA. After all, this is a lower-division course.
Indeed, the majority of these reviews hit the nail on the head. Fisher is a seemingly charming and charismatic professor and he is a good lecturer (despite the sleepy material we covered in class). However, he does speak rather quickly, and I often found that my notes were rushed because I wanted to jot down as much as possible. I would avoid doing this -- you don't need to know much of the historical context for any of the pieces.
Specifically, though, I took issue with the graded essays in this course. While I would consider myself a solid writer, having good grades in my Professional Writing courses, my TA in Eng 10A consistently graded me harshly. For instance, I received a C+ on my first paper, despite going to Office Hours and discussing the content and thesis statement with my TA. What also puzzled me was that there was minimal justification for my grade. When several of the students complained about the needlessly harsh grading and suggested bringing it up at Office Hours, Fisher had the audacity to state that this might result in a lower grade. He said, verbatim, that he might look over our papers and decide our TAs were overly generous in grading. As a result, he reserved the right to lower the grade.
Finally, for the second paper, I decided to seek out my TA with more notice to discuss my paper. She glanced over my paper and told me that this would be an interesting topic and that it seemed well-written. However, she then proceeded to take three to four weeks to actually grade it. Unfortunately, because of how long the grading for this paper took, we ended the quarter without knowing our grades for the paper. After reaching out several times to my TA requesting my grade, I learned that I had received a B-. Again, there was minimal justification for the grade. At this point, I was beyond frustrated.
In sum, I think the reviewers are right. Fisher and his TAs are looking for a specific writing style, and if you're unlucky like me, you'll likely receive crappy grades regardless of how much effort you put in. Unless you're an English major/minor, I would avoid this course.

Professor Fisher is clearly very well read and knowledgeable about medieval literature. Unfortunately, his mastery over the course content and our readings did little to aid in student learning and success. Overall, my experience in this class was very negative. In what I understand to be a reactionary response to the threat of AI use on written assignments, our grade in this class is primarily determined by our performance on four in-class writing assignments. These assignments have all been extemporaneous close reading responses to either texts that were provided beforehand and questions revealed the day of the exam, or passages from our readings that were provided at the time of the exam. Because these were in-class essays, we had a time constraint of either the regular duration of our lecture or the regular duration of our section (1 hour and 15 minutes or 50 minutes respectively). Our final is in the same format, with the only difference being that we will have slightly more time to complete the assessment. I personally do not feel that it is reasonable or fair to penalize English students out of fear for their theoretical use of AI. Realistically, the majority of English majors value writing for its own sake and are less likely than students in any other discipline to use AI to write on their behalf. In addition to this, writing a paper in response to a text is a process meant to take time and careful thought. A literary response in essay format traditionally requires multiple revisions across at least several days, which is inherently at odds with the format of this class. Perhaps one or two supplemental in-class writing assignments would have been appropriate, but it felt extremely unreasonable to base all of our grade on them.

Giving students no other opportunity to express themselves within the class was a detriment to everyone, including students who performed well within the aforementioned criteria. I performed significantly better than many of my peers on these assessments. However, the highest grades I received were on responses where I selected words from the passages almost at random and generated speculative arguments about what they might mean for the text. Professor Fisher’s definition of “close reading” is extremely narrow and particular to his personal preference. We were instructed to keep our readings “as close as possible” to this standard and were specifically penalized for using quotes longer than one or two words in our responses. This obviously places a significant limitation on the scope of a student’s analysis. Although I was rewarded for my work with higher grades, I did not feel as though I was rewarded by the work at all—there was no real analysis of the text, certainly not with any care or faithfulness to the work or the author’s intentions. It is easy to creatively pull a single word out of a passage and argue that it in some way relates to a larger theme that you are aware of exists within the text. This, I would argue, is not a true literary interpretation fit for a core English class within the canon, and produces, at best, a very superficial analysis, and at worst, an entirely fabricated one.

I am personally very concerned about AI reliance in academic spaces, and in particular the threat that it presents to the humanities’ integrity. However, my concern is rooted in the fact that the introduction of artificial intelligence to academia is a perpetuation of a long-standing trend towards prioritizing the material products of education over the intrinsic value of learning itself. I would argue that eliminating one of the core aspects of a traditional English education and replacing it with impromptu, timed assignments inadvertently rewards students for their ability to generate an idea and produce a product quickly, rather than their ability to interact deeply with a text. This stifles student expression in the same way AI does and only contributes to the growing homogeneity of academic writing.

The multiple ways in which I felt that this class constrained and demanded uniformity of thought and expression from students was more alarming to me than any AI response I have ever read. Putting such constraints on English students poses a far more imminent threat than the use of AI, which is only one of many ways in which a student is capable of robbing themselves of their own education. It seems as though the faculty is concerned with AI use specifically out of fear of rewarding students who use AI with passing grades, which only reinforces the idea that the material product of our education is what matters most. If Professor Fisher was actually concerned with the education of his students, he would put his time and energy into educating his students. I appreciate the effort to ensure academic integrity, and can understand the reasoning behind the recent reforms made to the structure of this class, but I believe that an effective curriculum should invite the range of skill required to be successful and participate in English academia. I feel that at both the classroom and institutional levels, this type of fear-based, poorly thought out solution is entirely counterproductive and discourages students from freely engaging with either the material or their ideas.

Hes eccentric, interesting as a lecturer and person but he has a specific way of writing that you need to follow. He can be a bit unclear and doesnt really like nuance, harsh grader. Takes time to understand what he wants, go to office hours and ask where you can exceed in your writing. Wouldn't take again but he's okay.

Honestly, I went through the entire semester having no clue where my grade stands in this class. Prof. Fisher does not update the grades so it's just confusion and stress the whole time basically thinking you're failing. The material is hard, but the lectures are AMAZING!!! He is a tough grader but he tells you what he is looking for. As long as you abandon what you are typically used to when it comes to your writing-style, and adapt to his writing-style, you'll do great. Go to his office hours!! It makes a difference!