I just wrote this exam this morning.

My prof was Dr. James King, one of McMasters distinguished English profs. Dr. King's lectures mostly surrounded the 8 texts (4 narratives, 3 dramas and a film) and their plot and subplot or context. We didn't spend much time on theory, theme or any...

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Originally Posted by DarthFuzzy

Cool i have Dr.Attwell for 1AA3,
which has less work, 1AO3 or 1AA3, just wondering?

I found 1AA3 to be less work, but I took it during Summer so I didn't have anything else at the time.

I took this course in Fall of 2010 with Nadine Attewell. The course had 5 readings (Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Haunting of Hill House, A poetry book by Dionne Brand, the name of which i forgot, and Ceremony and a short story. The books were approached with a feminist, post colonial, colonial ad psychological critique. So it was a heavy course, lots of readings and also various different approaches of criticism of the literature. I enjoyed reading these books but the essays were a pain. They were definitely graded quite tough. The average in our tutorial was a C+, only 2 or so people had gotten a A. No one got an A+. This was the case across all tutorials.

Compared to some of the other english courses, I feel there was a lot of expectations with this one. The mark breakdown was as follows:

Essay 1: 15%
Essay 2: 30%
Annotation Assignment: 10%
Tutorial Participation: 10%
Exam: 35%

I did well, and learned a lot from this course, but I wouldn't say it's easy. The grading is subjective, and will require putting in effort, and getting your essay topics run through by the TAs.

I heard some discouraging things about James King. Are his exams for English 1AA3 easy?

has anyone had dr.kerfoot as an instructor?

I would also like to know the difficulty in Dr. King's class.
Is it easy/hard? manageable? a lot of work?

I am doing a thesis project, is this a good idea to take English 1AA3?

I really think the enjoyment and effectiveness of this course will depend on which novels your professor will chose for you to read. Each term in each year the professor will chose different novels, so you won't know which novels you will be writing essays on until just before the course. In my term we read Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Haunting of Hill House. But again I think the course depends on which books you read and what subjects you are into.

Lecture-I had Dr. S. Brophy for this class. There were 2 lectures and 1 tutorial a week. Brophy was engaging and discussed interesting themes and technical aspects of the works we read. The exam had questions from things she mentioned in class but weren't specifically listed on the online lecture notes, it's important to ATTEND class. read all the books on time and studying for the exam is not too stressful.
Tutorials-basically you discuss thoughts on the works, ask questions etc. There were also some workshops before the essay was due on how to construct/revise an essay and thesis.
Overall, I found this to be a useful class.

I second going to class and reading all the books. It's really easy to fall behind in this course if you don't keep up with the reading. When exam time comes, you really have to have a good knowledge of each book. I had S. Brophy and she was awesome. The books were really interesting too.

How much time is required for the course readings every week?

Originally Posted by sejd

How much time is required for the course readings every week?

You have to read a novel within 1-1.5 weeks, so it really depends on how fast you read.

How is professor Hyman?

I enjoyed this class a lot, I thought it was a good english intro course. The readings were a little heavy but there were only two essays that were relatively short (500, 1000). Dr. King explained topics well, and there was a lot of discussion. A lot depends on your TA because they mark everything, however I found my TA and the writing tutors that are available to be helpful.

I'm going into 4th year next year (Biopsych). I'm planning on taken 1A03 over the summer. I was also considering doing 1AA3 during the year (for some reason, it's not being offered this summer - I found out from a tentative schedule). Do you think it's doable in 4th year with a thesis, or would that be just plain crazy?

Any current reviews for this course??

I took this class in my first year, with Dr. Hyman. It was one of my favourites-- great selection of novels, Hyman is a fantastic lecturer, and I was fortunate enough to have a good TA, too. Of the first year English electives I took (1A03, 1CS3, and this), this was the best one. Recommended.