Current instructor

Kirk Sides

/5Adjusted rating
/5RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.92/5 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.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

ENGL 379
Quality 5/5Difficulty 1/5
This my dawg Kirk honestly best at all of the whole university ecosystem he changed my life Mr Professor Kirk is the best juicer I was lost in life before I took this class there is so much useful and important stuff we talked about during the seminars I felt truly enlightened like I really understood why I was put on earth Thank You Kirk Sides
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ENGL 379
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Passionate, caring, and witty. Class is run seminar style and it's pretty go-with-the-flow. Lots of reading, but the conversations about said readings were always in-depth and enjoyable. Literatures of decolonisation are, by their nature, heavy to deal with, but Prof. Sides did a fantastic job. Kind and accessible outside of class too.
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ENGL-174 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 1/5
One of the best classes I have taken.
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ENGL 379
Quality 5/5Difficulty 1/5
One of the best classes I've taken in college! can't recommend it enough. It's easy to get an A in this class, but you have to be comfortable participating and sharing thoughts. You get out of it what you put in.
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ENGL-174 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Kirk Sides was a wonderful professor and I genuienly looked forward to his class each week. This was my first college English class (needed a literature credit) and I truly feel like I got so much out of this class. Definitely reccomend!!!!
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ENGL-174 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 2/5
One of the reasons I took this class is because of how well Kirk was rated on this website; I will say it is true of how passionate he is on the topic, it shows through his discussion during lectures. However, I will say to enter this class with some strong experience in writing (as there's a midterm and final paper) that he grades a little harsh.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Kirk Sides

ENGL 245 is a Seminar in the Major focusing on critical reading, writing, and persuasive argumentation skills.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2026: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=12 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

Explores how literary texts represent, imagine, and re-imagine the environment.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 3.69 GPA, 87.5% A/AB (n=8 letter grades); Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=23 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026ENGL 245Seminar in the Major
Fall 2026ENGL/ENVIRST 533Topic in Literature and the Environment

Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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