Wow, I adore Stephanie Batiste. She's my favorite at UCSB by far. She is incredibly knowledgable, witty, and inspirational. What a lovely introduction to African American Literature. She did a wonderful job. Show up to class, be engaged, and participate (even if it's nerve-wracking at first). I'm gonna miss her.

I loved this class so much. You'll read a lot but it's good quality material that's engaging. Classes are spent discussing materials amongst students & her while she goes more in-depth about the authors, history, & other aspects from the era of focus. Participation is important but if you're shy like me, just go to office hours it'll help.

complete joke of a professor. no clear grading rubric so she grades basked in how she feels about you. does not provide proper feedback and fails you if she disagrees with your point. has an inflated ego and says she is an academic as a means to justify her lack of clarity.

Unclear grading criteria, disorganized class structure, felt uncomfortably pretentious at times. Passionate professor and fun class, but with the amount of reading, very specific timed pop quizzes, script writing, 4 in-class acting performances, random assignments, papers, etc. SO not worth it. Easy grader, but it's not worth the trouble.

Completely disorganized. Forgets her own syllabus and is never consistent with what she says, gets upset when students ask questions for clarification. Assigns heavy loads of work forgetting that students have other classes and responsibilities. Lectures are just random rambling and barely gives time for group work in class.

Absolutely do not waste your time!! Material you read is great but assigned insane amount of books to read and expects you to know every page by heart and grades you based off of your ability to memorize each sentence?? Does not prepare slides, gets sidetracked, rude, exams are atrociously written. Got A's on essays but everyone failed exams!!