ENGL 2506

Fantastic class if you have any interest in poetry. Professor Ramazani is incredible, cannot recommend him enough. He is knowledgeable and makes learning poetry engaging. I did not have a huge interest in poetry before this class, but afterwards I definitely have a great appreciation for poetry and am so much better at analyzing and understanding it. For each class we have 5-10 poems to read for homework and class time is spent doing nothing but discussing the poems we read. There are also short response papers (125-300 words) due every other Sunday that don't take much time. Hardest part about this class are the papers. First paper we get a-lot of class time and feedback to work on the papers, but the final paper you are on your own unless you go to office hours (Ramazani's office hours are very helpful). I ended up doing well on the papers even though I struggled with them, Professor Ramazani's grading is very very fair and he wants you to do well. The papers just take a lot of time outside of class, and if writing isn't a strong suit you may be challenged. I took this class for my first writing instead of ENWR and would highly recommend doing that if you want a more interesting class, it is just more work.

Warning: it's not an easy A class where you read and write about fluff and pass, so if you're looking for that, you should take something else.

I took this Fall 2017. Professor Ramazani is really nice. He really pushes you to think critically. I concur with the other poster that this class is quite a bit of reading, and you have to love analyzing poetry to enjoy this class. That being said, I absolutely loved diving into the pieces and writing about them in such depth. It was a good way to knock out the second writing req. too, as it's split up into three five-page papers. Overall, great class. I didn't quite hit the mark with my first two papers, but I improved, so I ended up with a B+. It's impossible to get below that, I think.

I found this course to be very enjoyable, although I advise against it unless you genuinely enjoy reading and analyzing poetry. That being said, I definitely gained a new respect and appreciation of poetry through this class. Professor Ramazani was extremely knowledgeable and always personal and accommodating. He even changed the syllabus for the last week of class to lighten our work load, which we all appreciated. Be prepared to do a lot of reading if you take this class though. Before every class we got assigned 8-12 poems that we had to read, and then in class we would discuss about 4 of those in depth. Doing the readings is definitely important as it is hard to make it up as you go along in this process. Would definitely recommend as a replacement for an ENWR, much more enjoyable and informative.