Professor Blake is one of the best professors I ever had at UCSB! She is so caring and gives phenomenal feedback on everything whether it be a paragraph, a thesis statement, or a paper draft. She made every text so interesting and her lectures are so enriching. She is very approachable and makes every student feel special. Take her if you can!!

Amazing professor. She will change the way you think about everything. So intelligent, so caring and helpful. It would be a mistake to not take at least one class with her. Highly, highly recommend.

The essays, readings, and pop quizzes weren't bad. The material as a whole is well put together. Requires a decent amount of effort, but reasonable for a GE. Her tangents were off-putting though, so I prob wouldn't take her again.

Disorganized rambles, there's a difference between "amazing inspirational Iectures" and "won't stop talking." 3 pop quizzes, each has questions on board for students to pick from, the answer 1 person gives determines EVERYONE'S SC0RE. Low-quality slides. 2 writing assignments, midterm, final. Extremely TA dependent, but otherwise easy.

amazing lectures and readings, great discussion with students. very passionate. lack of rubrics confused me for various assignments. historical context, discussed in lecture, not posted on canvas, but important for quizzes. if you want a *really* easy A ❌️ but if you want an engaging class & are okay with putting in more effort ✔️

Lectures are near 100% Verbal, with little to no visual reinforcement. No lecture notes are posted. I'm pretty sure the notes she reads off of are entire paragraphs which she just reads to us word for word. Easy to zone out and impossible to catch up.

Prof Blake is super caring and funny. Her class is well put together and there is quite a bit of reading that you must do in order to understand the class and get good test scores. However, some of the readings are interesting. The papers are pretty simple. TA created a study guide that basically had all the answers for the exams. 10/10

definitely not my favorite GE but requirements weren't absurd. op-ed essay was a little confusing and there was a lot of reading but it is an english class so. wish she had a better slide deck because sometimes it was hard following what she was talking about if you zoned out for a second, but a good class to take if the topic interests you

Probably the most frustrating prof I've had. I never felt like I understood what she wanted, she had us write an op-ed that is actually an essay, and there is no rubric to know what she wants for the group project. Office hours maybe could help, but I feel like you shouldn't need to go for EVERY assignment.

Professor Blake is probably the most enthusiastic professor I have had at UCSB. She is incredibly passionate for the 8am and I respect her for that. It's an easy GE if you participate and do the readings.

Incredible professor, talked about a lot of really relevant topics. Reading is hard to keep up on but if you do it's pretty easy to pass with a high grade.

Professor Blake is clearly very passionate about her work, I found the lectures to be pretty engaging. Keep up with the reading and its all good

Professor Blake was a good professor; taking this class was useful in helping me gain a better context for life generally.

Amazing professor that is passionate about the topic at hand. The class is graded on 2 short papers, pop quizzes, and in person midterm/finals. Would recommend to anyone to take her class. :)

I absolutely love Dr. Blake and would highly recommend taking one of her classes. You can tell she cares immensely for her students and their wellbeing. Her lectures are engaging and concisely cover the key topics for the reading. Most of the grade was from short quizzes, the short answer written midterm, and the two-page papers.

Homework is just reading, pretty long but not unmanageable. Pay attention in lecture, there's important info. I'm mainly impressed with how professionally she handled the fall 2022 TA strike. She cancelled lectures in solidarity but sent weekly emails providing detailed and straightforward updates. Very competent.

Amazing professor that genuinely cares about her students and the class!!! Lectures were very insightful and interesting. There is a LOT of reading per week which is easy to fall behind on but I still recommend taking the class. Also she has pop quizzes but they are on the lecture material so as long as you have paid attention you're good.

This class was on the more difficult side of GEs. If you are willing to read I would recommend! She is very passionate and lectures were always very interesting. She does have pop quizzes every so often, so be prepared! As long as you keep up with the reading and stay on top of your work it isnt too bad.

So many readings: long books, articles etc. weekly. She is a really tough grader and is very picky when it comes to essays and what she expects. Dont take this class if in need of GE requirement, its not worth it. Nice person tho

I feel bad because if I had put this class higher on my priority list, I probably would have done better. However, there was just too much reading to keep up with that left some of the readings undiscussed or less discussed then others. The class is really insightful if you're able to put your all into it, but it was overwhelming with other classes

Professor Blake is amazing. I had her for ENGL 40BB, and I learned so much and found her course to be incredibly valuable. Definitely recommend. You can tell she genuinely cares about her students.

Prof Blake is an awesome person but online doesn't do her justice. Lectures have no slides to follow and she jumps from topic to topic a lot so it was really hard to follow. That said, she's really passionate, knowledgable, and cares a lot. The two papers are graded pretty easy and aren't long and midterm and final are moderate. Lots of reading.

Pretty challenging for a WRT GE. Since it was a mandatory 8 AM lecture (M,W only, no F lecture) with no powerpoints, it was quite hard to take notes based on just her speaking. A LOT of reading too: 5 novels, a few short films, and extra readings. 3 pop quizzes, two 2 page papers, a midterm, and a final. Papers not too bad. Great professor though!

Prof. Blake is extremely caring, compassionate, and understanding toward her students. She is a great lecturer who is very knowledgeable. She truly understands student's struggles and is sympathetic. There is a good amount of reading for the class along with 2 papers- beware of the pop quizzes! Overall, probably the kindest prof I've met so far.