Spring 2027

Truth and Crime

Examines the True Crime genre in the US using literary and legal methods to explore written works, podcasts, and documentaries, analyzing why we are compelled by these narratives and their relationship to law.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 5

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.62 GPA, 79.2% A/AB (n=192 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 82.8% A/AB (n=268 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify the fundamentals of legal narrative and its relationship to criminal law functions (what are the elements of a crime, and what is “evidence”?)

  • Identify the ways the legal system is subject to human, social, and literary construction—not only in a theoretical sense but through actual cases.

  • Analyze the various ways in which media “tells” crime stories and what the potential motivation for these stories might be.

  • Develop a nuanced understanding of the true crime genre through a close examination of exemplary representations of the genre (literature, podcasts, documentaries, etc.)

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ENGL/LEGALST 160

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.62 GPA, 79.2% A/AB (n=192 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 82.8% A/AB (n=268 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Development, scope, and effects of the True Crime genre.
  • Relationship between law and narrative.
  • Role of science and technology in epistemological systems.

Skills

  • Identify fundamentals of legal narrative and criminal law functions.
  • Analyze how media tells crime stories and potential motivations.
  • Develop nuanced understanding of the true crime genre through close examination.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · 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

1316 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.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

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

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "063c42b05518447c82e04a8361f813c4ffac97ea0e6fbc9515fa5cb33d7b8834",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}