Spring 2027

Literature and Social Justice

Introduction to using literary texts to engage with class, race, gender, equality, immigration, and social justice.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Laila Amine3.2/5Seth Umbaugh

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Sarah Wood

Students reported lots of reading assignments in a short time, which allowed classtime to be used for productive and helpful discussions.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify and critique some of the ways that key works of literature engage with pressing questions about class, race, gender, equality, immigration, and other issues of social justice.

  • Identify and apply methods and approaches for analysis of literary and cultural texts to demonstrate literature's contemporary and historical relevance.

  • Analyze relationships among society, literature, and language that underlie the construction of beliefs.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ENGL 174

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Laila Amine

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.33/5 from 12 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 2.70 GPA, 44.0% A/AB (n=25 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.07 GPA, 45.7% A/AB (n=46 letter grades); Spring 2025: 2.64 GPA, 31.2% A/AB (n=48 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.50 GPA, 79.3% A/AB (n=29 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

KIRK SIDES is recorded teaching in Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

LAILA AMINE is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SARAH WOOD is recorded teaching in Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

SETH UMBAUGH is recorded teaching in Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 300
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 300

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Kirk Sides

Past students found the course engaging because the instructor was passionate about the subject and flexible in supporting students, making the class something to look forward to weekly.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.37 GPA, 69.5% A/AB (n=131 letter grades); Fall 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.83 GPA, 95.0% A/AB (n=60 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Sarah Wood

Students reported lots of reading assignments in a short time, which allowed classtime to be used for productive and helpful discussions.

Past student reviews · Sarah Wood

One student felt the professor was incredibly caring and wanted to see them succeed, which changed how they viewed literature and encouraged them to consider majoring in English.

Topics

  • Class, race, gender, equality, immigration, and social justice
  • Analysis of literary and cultural texts
  • Relationships among society, literature, and language

Skills

  • Critiquing how literature engages with social justice issues
  • Applying methods for analyzing literary and cultural texts
  • Analyzing relationships among society, literature, and language

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 4 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

4 earlier forecasts · 0.24 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ENGL 174 · Spring 2027

Literature and Social Justice

Recorded 2026-10-14
ENGL 174 · Spring 2027

Black Life Narratives

Recorded 2026-10-14
ENGL 174 · Spring 2027

Lit, Work, & American Identity

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
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    "offering_id": "1274:352:024249",
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    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "024249",
    "source_subject_id": "352",
    "title": "Literature and Social Justice",
    "credits_min": 3,
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    "typically_offered": "Occasionally"
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c8781643b65c0520a8cd7a13d88f58fc45d973b7c40ec26fd5f283a31a4193ff",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}